Extractors fitment 186 red

[Bedford Fever]

 
   Hi all , was wondering if all red engine engine extractors fit a beddy with 186 engine .

   Looking at buying another set to heat wrap . Just looking they seem to come in so many formations .

   The ones l have on now are an old hi-tech brand . Rang HPC and they said they cant ceramic coat extractors that have been

  heat wrapped . Got quoted $ 330 for the most basic coat .

   Any info will be appreciated       ...............Thanks Frank

[6pac]

Frank,

I have been playing with red motors for +20 years and raced them for half of that. My street driven red motors all have the following exhaust set up.

The best exhaust set up for a street driven red motor is the 2 piece exhaust manifolds and connecting y piece that was standard on all "S" series engines.
e.g. 186S, 161S (LC torana).

If you keep an eye on gumtree/ebay and you should be able to pick up a good condition S/H deal for around $100 - $150. You need to get the Y piece as well as they are expensive on their own.

The reason i believe these are better than extractors is that the exhaust manifold part are cast steel and do not rust out like extractors do.
This is important if yours is not an everyday driver, as sitting around I have had extractors rust out in 1 year on a restored HK that gets driven 10 -15 times a year.

Hope this helps
Regards

Rhett

[Marishka]

Hey Rhett,
How would it be if the extractors were galvanised hot dipped ?

[Bedford Fever]

   
     Hey Rhett , thanks for the advise

     Van will be driven frequently . Im on a budget at the moment
     so my plan was to heat wrap the ones i have on the van approx cost $100 , and just in case that dont work out so well
     l would have another set to fall back on . I like the sound of the Torana 2 peace manifolld exhaust set up .
     Would that set up be better at keeping temps down than extractors .

    Cheers Frank

[6pac]

The deal with extractors is that because they are made of thin wall tube they heat up quickly, the first bend is the point where they get hottest and they crack around the welds at the flange plate where they bolt to the cylinder head.

The cast iron manifolds are thicker and absorb/dissapate the heat much better.

Have you ever picked up a set of extractor that have been sitting in the shed for a while and then there is this flow of brown dust that comes out the ends?
This is the inside of the tube rusting out while they are sitting around.
Because the tube is so thin every time it heats up it anneals the inside of the tube and this weakens them, especially at the point next to the welds.

I do not think the Galv dip would withstand the temp, and i do not want to be driving the car when the heated galv starts to burn! (Have you ever welded onto galv pipe?  That shit can not be good for you.

On my race car we run exhaust temp probes which will give you an idea of the temperatures that you are dealing with:

When running methanol we look to get the exhaust temps to 1140 degrees, we can adjust this by varying the pill on each cylinder. e.g. lower that that temp take some fuel out to heat it up.
Higher than that put a bigger pill in to put more fuel in to cool it down.  (These temps are at full noise 7500rpm for a red motor)

With Petrol (Avgas the temps are higher, not unusual to see 1400 degrees)

The temps on a street driven vehicle will be around the 700-850 degree mark.

The pipes on the race car are thin wall but they are HPC coated (cost $300 to coat) but you need to prep them well, sandblast/clean/degrease and you can not weld them once coated so when you are sure everything is right with bends/EGT bungs etc last thing is coat them.

hope this is useful
Regards

Rhett

[MaTTe]

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I'd give an alternate view to some of these questions.

Yes, all red motor extractors are the same - in terms of bolt pattern. They will all bolt up, however extractor/header design varies. Tri-y, 3-2-1, etc. Pipe diameters and such all make an influence.

If you buy some that have been heat wrapped, you could remove it for ceramic coating. But a word to the wise, 99% of the ceramic coatings you can buy commercially are rubbish. Ian on here got me onto the only good stuff which I can look up for you if interested. An example, We have run heat wrap on the extractors of the race cars for the past 18 years or so, and when a head gasket blows, the extractors need to be removed to change the gasket between races. With the heat wrap I can hold the extractors in my bare hands and pull them off.

We got sold some alternate designed extractors that had ceramic coating, I accidentally brushed my arm against the extractors in the engine bay for less than a second, and got REALLY badly burnt, and still have the scar from it many years later. There is no way I could remove them with my bare hands, and even a handful of rags they are too hot to remove. Needless to say, we are using heat wrap again.

Now in terms of extractors deteriorating, we have quite a few sets of extractors, one for each motor so we can swap an entire unit by only bolting up the engine mounts, tailpipe, bellhousing, water lines and wiring. All of these are more than 10 years old, and in some cases would be 18 years old, both pacemakers and genie extractors. These are only run around 10 times a year, sometimes more, sometimes less, and for most of the extractors they will not get run at all throughout the season as we rarely need to change a motor. These are all still in good leak free condition.

At the end of the day, if you buy a $200 set of extractors, and only get 10 years out of them, $20 a year is a pretty sound investment.

[Sammy]

I have used heat wrap in the past and totally agree its nice and cool to the touch after running, but I don't like it due to the fibreglass nature of it and it seems to break easy after being heated and just disintegrate ? or is that just me hehehe ?

I would love to know if there is a better solution!