I couldn't find anything on it. Just wondering which should give off less heat. The stock header with the stock heat shields or a ceramic coated header without heat shields or wrap? I'm not very familiar with ceramic coatings so I don't know how effective the stuff is at limiting heat.

 

Let me first say that I don't know the answer to your question. However, with either option, the heat has to go somewhere. With the coated variety, more heat travels out the tailpipe. With the uncoated variety, more heat stays in the engine bay. The heat shield just prevents the excess heat from rising and entering the intake side, but the engine bay itself *should* still be hotter. The best solution: coating and heat wrap..

 

becareful if you are using heat wrap, my old downpipe developed surface rust, i guess the wrap take in some old salt/water and keeping the thing wet, even the darn thing get cherry top on the track.

i haven't taken apart the s2k heat shield but the one on my older accord is a three piece design, one over all piece and two smaller pieces that sandwich over the header. There's actually fiber/heat resisting material additional to the metal

 

While true, surface rust should not concern anyone as long as the header is made of a decent stainless material..

 

i hope this helps towards your question... my 2c
I put on 70mm tp and 70mm catback exhaust and the check engine light went on shortly after a few minutes of spirited driving.. The code read catlatic below threshold or something like that... i beleive the exhaust being picked up by the sensor was too hot? whatever the case may be , i bought the dc ceramic coated header a month later after getting tired of delteing the code after every drive.. once i put on the new header the code never came back .. its been a few months now and i do plenty of spirited driving and no CEL... i dont think the dc header gave me any power.. but i dont beleive i lost power.. and it was cheap and lighter then stock and even got rid of my CEL..

So consider that