I have a 2002 Dodge Ram 1500 Van. What would be the best way to reduce the under hood exhaust heat? Thought about ceramic coated headers, but there are no full or mid length avail for my application. Not sure shorties are worth $400. Is there a do it yourself coating available for the stock manifolds, or can they be wrapped with exhaust wrap? This is not about looks at all, just reducing the heat under the doghouse.

Wrap the inside, or outside if possible, of the doghouse with dynamat or fat mat mega mat found on eBay.

You can also try some aluminum sheets and fab up a couple heat shields. Mount them over the exhaust manifolds and angle them over the top and down the sides to keep the heat from radiating to the top.

In general, wrapping exhaust keeps the heat in the metal and shortens life significantly. Wrapped headers will fail fast and it would not help manifolds either. Insulating the dog box itself sounds like a better strategy... or find a way to coat the iron manifolds.

Back in the 80s I rebuilt my Dad's dodge class 3 motor home. The factory heat shields were long gone/rusted out by the time I worked on it. Dad used to keep a wet towel on the floor by the gas petal so he didn't burn his feet. I made up 2 heat shields on both sides of the motor and it made a huge difference for the good.

Now there is some good heat shielding materials that are even better than fat mat/whatever the other stuff is called to be installed inside the dog house. Maybe the 2 together?

https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2010/cg_2.html

some NASCAR teams are using it