I just bought a new set of stainless headers for my 318 mopar motor and I have a couple of questions before I start the engine up for the first time. Will the stainless headers blue up like the chrome block huggers did on my 350 Chev engine? If so, is there anything that should be done before start up to minimize this? I did a search, but did not come up with anything. Thanks in advance for the answers and .... Happy New Year.
Ive never ran chrome or stainless headers on any of my rods but when I put new pipes on my Harleys I always coat the inside of the head pipes with VHT high temp paint, they never blue when painted...
Make sure your mixture and timing is spot on, A trick the motorcycle guys used to use was to coat the inside with a thick black grease and start up, it would then smoke like a pig until it left a coating on the inside of the pipes, this stopped them blueing.
as langy said , make sure your fuel mixture and timing is right on......and then don't worry about them turning a slight yellow/gold color
I can't say much about stainless but in earlier days we used to wrap copper wire around the header bolts and a bit of the start of the header to take the heat away from the chrome - then they never 'blued'
Bluing is sometimes caused by retarted timing or fuel burning in the headers.Some guys will start the engine with some other manifolds or headers and tune it then switch over the other exhaust.Jet coat also suggest this with coated heaters.
Stainless won't blue like chrome plated, they will indeed turn gold- the gold color can be polished off to any tint you like with some Mother's aluminum polish, or removed completely with gentle cleaning with muriatic acid. Eventually the golding will slow down to nothing, I've polished the ones on my Indian to a slight gold tint, and I think they look great that way
Stainless will definitely color with heat. How bad depends on how hot. A light gold is common. Retarded timing and overly rich mixtures can turn them as far as black. The nice thing about Stainless is you can always repolish it fairly easily, unlike chrome. If they are 304 stainless, they can be kept to a Chrome Like finish fairly easily. If they are 409 they are a higher carbon content and don't shine quite as well and color up a little nastier. A lot of the 409 stainless headers we make are sold ceramic coated becasue it looks better, but you get the long life of Stainless
The Jalopy Journal
