Header Coatings

[.94 OR]

School me on the various coatings on shorty headers.

I have a set of 20+ year old Hooker Headers/pipes that may as well come out of the box rusty. Looking to replace with some shorty headers but have not been around the various coatings that are available now.

Thanks.

 

[needabronco]

All you need to know is to go with ceramic coatings. You can either buy already coated or send your headers and exhaust piping out to be done. A complete exhaust system will be around $600-800 but it will look brand new for years!

 

[GStaudt]

I just sprayed mine with VHT paint on the inside and out a couple of months ago. I think I spent maybe $20 bucks on two rattle cans of it. I had looked into getting ceramic coating applied to my bare steel headers and I think it was $300-$400 on top of what I already paid.

I suppose if you can just pony up the money up front for the ceramic style ones, it'd be a good deal, but time will tell on the longevity doing as I did.

Sidenote: They do offer a "ceramic" spray you can apply out of a rattle can, but I have my doubts about that.

 

[5001craig]

I just went through this. My engine guy said he had his 6 second alcohol headers ceramic coated years ago and they look perfect. He recommends getting the coating done locally and going with satin black. It doesn't show stains like the lighter colors he said. They are coated inside and out. I was amazed at how cool they were shortly after it was running. Here is where I got mine done: http://www.prostrip.com/powder---ceramic-coating.html and you can see what they have to offer.

Here's a pic of mine before:

And after:

He recommended breaking the coating in for best results. He said this is done best heat cycling the engine on break-in.

 

[DirtDonk]

Agree on the darker coatings. But not just for looks (I like the "Titanium" color best) but because they actually perform better too. The aluminum polished ones look nice, but are an inferior heat barrier.
The added aluminum makes them polish up nicer, and also allows you to use aluminum polish products on them down the road to keep them looking shiny. But the advantages stop about there.

A Black or dark gray one almost always has several percentage points higher heat rejection, and can almost always handle a higher heat range before failure as well. Just throwing numbers out there, an aluma-ceramic silver coating might handle 2000-2500 degrees, where a full ceramic might handle 3000-3200 degrees.

But aside from the looks, it's the higher heat barrier characteristics that sold me on the titanium color.

Paul