i have mine wrapped end to end but with recommendation from my current dealer and ken from evoluzione.net i will be taking them off. wrap is keeping the heat in and may cause premature gasket damage and others and was design to be cooled by the air flow inside engine compartment, according to both of them.
Sorry but this really does not make much sense to me. I suppose the exhaust gaskets will take a bit more heat but they should be designed to take a lot more heat than could be safely created by this engine.
From what Lamont tells me the exhaust gaskets may be a weak link but that would not be the fault of wrapping the exhaust. He's found some much better exhaust gaskets made by Honda that should work really well.
As for cooling from air flow inside the engine compartment....there just isn't nearly enough air flow to cool those pipes. Why do you think it gets so nasty hot in there?
Personally, I would rather replace an exhaust gasket once in awhile than heat dammaged soft parts like sensors, hoses, spark plug wires, fuel lines, body pannels, etc.
I've got over 13,000 miles on my Spyder and almost all of that with wrapped exhaust. We just did 2 full days of 80mph + (over 1,100 miles in 1 day) in 104 degree heat going to California. No exhaust gasket damage on my Spyder.
Lamont has, what, 35,000 miles on his Spyder. Most of that with wrapped exhaust. He has had some exhaust gasket issues but so have a lot of bone stock Spyders. Plus, Lamont changes exhaust systems more often than I change my underware! All that off and on experimentation is harder on an exhaust gasket than a few more degrees of heat.
I like my pipes wrapped. Like everything else, some will and some won't. But from everything I've seen it's a very good way to go.
