Header coatings

[blueskies]

Wondering if I should bite the bullet and spend $155 to have my new stainless header coated with HPC ceramic, paint it with parts store high temp paint, or leave it bare and let it turn brown. Any thoughts? How will stainless hold up uncoated? HPC is cheaper than Jet-Hot, and turn around from the AZ plant is about 5 days.

Here's a link to HPC (http://www.hpcoatings.com/hipercoat.htm)

http://home.rmci.net/blueskies/newheaders.JPG

[Missing Link]

You may want to try grill paint. By that I mean gas grill...the type of grill you cook on. That stuff is good for much heat without pealing or discoloring. I have used it before with good results. It is only produced in black as far as I know.

[Plowboy]

I've used the POR stuff and it works decent. I just painted the ones for the spacetruck with their aluminized stuff, they look great. I haven't run them long enough to tell you how it holds up though. Cost...about 30 bucks.

[wayfarer]

Don't use the eastwood company stuff. It burned off on my headers on the first trip I took in the car.

[haring]

I plan on coating an exhaust manifold with Eastwood's hi-temp header powder coat. I bought some silver but haven't had a chance to use it yet. I think the bottle of powder was about $20.

[36-3window]

if they are stainless,i'd just leave them alone

[injectedA]

Summit, Speedway and others sell Techline. Use to be about $20 for 6 oz.’s, this would do a set of block huggers and still have a little left over. Probably cost a little more now. Most of they're coatings are waterborne, so they are safe and have very little or no VOC. A little work is involved.

Techline also has a web page. http://www.techlinecoatings.com/

Tools: touch up gun, misc. hangers, blast cabinet, electric oven (used, can find them for 20-30 bucks, you can use yours in the house, but some of these smell pretty bad, did get me by at first), steel wool 00 to 0000, buffer (but not necessary).

Commonalties: Which applies to most painting. Hope like hell the part has never seen WD-40; if so see below, but double, hell, triple cleanliness.

Cleanliness: Degreasing, use mild soap and water, elbow grease and dry immediately. Now I can not express this enough. DO NOT HANDLE THE PARTS OR AREA TO BE SPRAYED FROM THIS POINT FORWARD UNLESS YOUR USING CLOTH GLOVES OR CLEAN CLOTHS. Preferably lent free. The only things worse than WD-40 are the oils from your skin (not that you’re greasy or anything). Blast the parts or area to be sprayed. Clean the parts with brake cleaner, MEK, acetone, etc. (oh, these are absorbed through the skin, but you already know that). An easy way to insure not handling the parts would be picking them up with the hangers that you’ll use when spraying.

Blasting: Preferable media would be aluminum oxide, but sand will do. The difference is that aluminum oxide is much finer (and nastier) than sand. Opens the pores of the metal where sand “pings” the pores. You just want a surface for the coatings to adhere too much like sanding a body panel. Hell, try very fine sanding if you don’t have access to a blast cabinet, but the later is preferred.

Headers or any other parts for that matter: Once blasted and clean, preheat to about 80F-100F. I found this helped in the drying process and reduced the chances of cracking. These coatings are non-mil coatings. Means a little will go a long way. Do not spray like you would with a rattle can or like painting a car, you just want to cover the part. This is usually a problem in the flange to primary area. To much coating and when baked the coating will crack. When spraying into a corner you will get a Faraday's Cage affect. Means pressure will push your coating out of the corner or tight area (usually back in your face), large problem with powdercoating. One will usually keep spraying into the area with a lot of buildup, this is bad. Simply reduce pressure and spray past the part. Once coated, carefully hang or lay in the oven. Pre-heat at around 150F for at least 30 min. Then bake at the highest temp you can get for one hour. On full size headers I go longer by at least 30 min. Not on broil, just set at 500F. Before I built my large oven I used a regular household oven. If your doing full size headers you’ll only be able to do one at a time, support the door closed with a chair or other and place aluminum foil around the open areas. Don’t worry if you do scrape or nick the coating, you can touch it after the initial bake. Just follow the same steps, maybe laying the part in the oven differently. If you get cracking or flaking around the primaries or flange, same thing, touch up and bake. Once part is cooled you get the dirty work. When this stuff comes out of the oven the parts looked to be covered in grey primer. That’s what you’ll polish off with 000 steel wool, working into 0000 steel wool. Then to get the ultimate sheen, use your buffer with white rouge. I’ve also used stainless rouge, but go light and don’t burn the part.

With all of these coatings, if you run them lean and discolor them, simply rebuff or 0000 steel wool will do it if still on the car.

Also Look for the TLTD coating. That stuff is the nicest coating you can spray on a bracket, if you like black. I have pulley’s and brackets I sprayed years ago, not one speck of rust, bullet proof. Nice satin finish. I’ve used it on wheelie bars, shotgun barrels, pistols, name it. Only bakes at 300F. Really is a themal dispersant.

I’ve used most of his coatings including the barriers and dry films. If your building an engine, street or race, use the piston cermet barrier. They're site can probably tell you every thing you need to know.

[injectedA]

Are you positive those are SS? The pic tells me different.

[blueskies]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you positive those are SS? The pic tells me different.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bought them from Tom Langdon, he's advertizing them as stainless. They appear to have been sand blasted, and are said to be fab'd from vette headers. How would I tell if they aren't stainless? Never had a set of stainless headers before, so I wouldn't know the difference...

Pete

[injectedA]

Put a magnet on em. Not sure fire, but close enough for now.

[a/fxcomet]

I wanted to use the CeramaWhite from Techline. I called and they said it is a "shop only" coating. The shop that does it around here wanted $275. I think I'll use VHT for now. They gotta be white.