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I was thinking about headers and it occured to me that there is no heatsheild, so I was wondering if anyone know how much the underhood temperature is raised, if at all. Since I am installing a SRI, it would be drawing air right near the exhaust manifold, so would the loss of power due to the increased intake temperature offset the power gained from the header? I've heard of people wrapping headers with some insulation, or maybe the stock heatsheild could be used?

 
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I remembered reading about it a while ago. You should search. In my memory your header needs to reach certain temp. to help release the hot air faster. Thats what the head shield is for, to keep the header hot enough. So w/o the heatshield you may lose power except you use aftermarket header.

 
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well said

 
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if there's any power to be have from that particular header.. yeah the heat will offset it... specially with a SRI at stop light.. and on a hot day... going in traffic... say good bye to your low end!!

dacivic is right, the more heated the manifold is, the faster the exhaust fumes exit... as we all know (or should know), hot molecules move faster than cold molecules.

hence honda places the heatshield there for the stock manifold.

if you have an aftermarket header, you can grab some thermal tech header wrap, or other brand wraps... to wrap up the header and keep the heat in. doing this does have some disavantage.. namely, you're definitely heating up the header a lot more.. and this wears it out faster, and it is more suspectable to cracking, if the header is made of poor quality.

some aftermarket header are specially coated to keep heat in... some aftermarket ceramic header VOIDS your warranty if you use a header wrap... I believe DC sports voids your warranty if you use header wrap... which isn't a big deal cuz I've came across a few unwrapped DC sports ceramic cracking...

looking under your exhaust, you'll see some more heatshield placed around the downpipe, around the cat convertor.. etc.

it does keep the heat outta the engine bay too. I suggest you get a header wrap if you're using some header that you dont mind replacing in a year or two. if it cracks, you can just take it to a muffler shop and have them weld it up for you though.

i wouldn't bother with any top portion header really though. doesn't do as much as the dollar is worth.

 
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Well, it sounds like overall, headers are not a good investment. I'm not going to get a CAI just because of a header, and I'm not going to wrap the header to keep my SRI cool and then have the header cracking all the time. The power:money/trouble ratio isn't very good here.