Thinking of fabbing some exhaust and would like a mirror or polished finish... Should I use stainless and polish it out or should I just use steel tubing and have it chromed? Let's hear some pros and cons of both.
Chrome looks nice, cleans well but the down side is that the hanging brackets have to be well engineered. The tubing may crack near where the hanging brackets are welded on. Hydrogen embrittlement from the chrome plating causes metal fatigue over time. If it is a low mile car it may not be a problem for some time. Also use the heaviest guage tubing you can. You can stress relieve it by baking the pipes at about 400 degrees for an hour or so but this has to be done within hours of coming out of the chrome tank at the platers (I have never tried this, so check on the details with someone more familiar with metalurgy). Stainless seems to work and stand up well. The down side is that if you want to keep it shiny you will have to take it off and buff it every year because it turns to a gold color over time. The low budget (HAMB) option is to use aluminized tubing and buff it with a 3M (red) pad to give it a nice low gloss aluminum look. Good durability and if you leak oil on it (like mine does) you can buff it off with the 3M pad and some chrome polish. Just my opinion based on my experiences.
I can only give you an opinion. I do not care for the look of stainless steel exhaust, polished or not. I just dont care for the gold tarnished color it seems to get once ran a while. Maybe there are different grades of SS that would stay bright once polished. I ahve heard of some having the inside of chromed exhaust pipe jet coated to prevent them from bluing. I am sure there are plenty on here with experience using both. Good luck.
I worked at a plating shop for a while and chromed exhaust, if it's close to the engine (like on a header) can blister and peel if it gets real hot. Plus it is very difficult to plate because the pipes have to be sterile clean on the inside and out before they go into a plating tank, or at least plugged at both ends. If you do chrome, it's either going to cost you a fortune (to have it done correctly) or it'll look like shit (done by a production plating shop or some cheap poor prepwork place) From my plating experience I would never chrome plate any part of an exhaust, due to the cost and the maintenance. If you drive it anywhere, it's gonna get pitted, unless you want to polish it after every drive. There are better ways to do it.
Definitely leaning towards Stainless at this point. It will cost slightly more in the end, but it's not a huge job and I don't mind polishing out the Stainless. I saw a guy's pipes that were polished to a mirror finished and they looked nice still after a year. He had some yellowing, but still didn't look to bad and seemed like it would polish right out. All good stuff guys! Thanks! Any tips on welding this stuff with MIG (no TIG available)?
Chrome will rust over time, just a matter of when, not if. Use stainless and jjst poplish every so often. You can MIG if you use stainless filler, won't be as pretty, but will be strong enough.
Not sure that you could "Jet Coat" (ceramic base coating) the insides of previously chromed pipes because the Jet Coat needs to be cured at a fairly high temperature. (might "blue" the outside chrome) But I have "Jet Coat" on my headers. (inside and out) NO blueing, blistering or cracking. (even stands up to salt corrosion) They now have "Jet Coat" in various colors and newest one looks like chrome from 10 feet away.
I have talked to jet coat and chrome platers about jet coating the inside of chrome headers......I was told by both coater and plater that they both interfere with the process. I had asked a while ago because I had a real early set of headers I wanted to chrome plate but jet coat the inside to make them last and not rot from the inside out. I personally like chrome plated exhaust over stainless just for the look factor, as far as lasting I'm sure stainless owuld be the way to go.
Stainless pipe has a tendency to expand & contract at a lot bigger rate than say, aluminized pipe. Late modal cars with stainless exhaust do exhibit stress cracks from this process. Also polished stainless will turn gold? after it has heat cycled many times. Chrome on the other hand has its share of problems too. Peeling/blueing/etc. If your after the ''Chrome Will Get You Home'' look than, Go for it! I personally like the chrome.
i like the polished stainless best . the ones i have made where all tig welded and pre polished before welding to make sure there was not any unpolished edges where the pipes are too tight to get to polish. bike exhausts i have chromed and then tape the out side up and sand blast the inside and have them hpc coated. it keeps the blueing down.
If you are a gold chainer , go with chrome. If you are a " hot rodder" go with stainless (304). Stainless is forever, build it once and you are done with it. .......................................................................................... On a quiet night........................you can hear a ford rust.
I'm not too worried about the rust since I'm in Vegas, but I am worried about chrome that costs big bucks to have done right and then I can't modify or add anything to when it's all done without having it rechromed. I don't mind pulling them off and repolishing them anyway when they need it. If I can get the same shine when they're polished as chrome (or super close) than I don't see any reason not to go stainless. Anyone recommendations on U-bend suppliers? I know Magnum Force is a good start. Anyone else to check with?
Make sure you use 304 stainless , not 409. Any good metal polish will remove the discolorization. bet you won't have to polish as much as we do here up north!! Don't let the cost scare ya, remember it's 'forever'. good luck
SIXCARBS looks "kool", but is really to many to live with, if you drive very much. Real hot rod builders are able to find stainless tube at or near scrap prices, which makes the chrome vs stainless a no brainer. Besides the golden color gives a hot rod that "I drive it look".
Hydrogen embrittlement only occurs in hardened steel. Hardened steels should be baked for 24 hours at 400 degrees f, within 1 hour of leaving the plating tanks, or at 1200 degrees f for 1 hour either is good. Stainless should be kept away from steel or it will rust and all stainless welds should be passivated to prevent corrosion. Gold discoloration can be removed easily by hand, if it is done regularly until nickel settles down. The weakness with chrome is heat seperation, I don't know any shop that will guarantee chrome on exhausts, it can leave the shop looking perfect and blister as soon as it gets hot. I would never subject aluminum to heat, it melts too at too low a tempurature and has no abrasision resistance. As for aluminized, I have know idea what that is. Aluminum to my knowledge will not plate onto anything, so that is something new to me. stainless is certainly cheaper to maintain, and fabrication costs will be higher than steel, but much cheaper than steel and chrome. The added bonus is stainless can't peel, blister or crack. I'd go with stainless, and I have a plating shop. What else is to say?
Before you go out and start buying up stainless tubing, you better call around and see who has a mandrel bender for it. Most shops won't bend stainless on their benders. Not sure why, but I called several when I was looking into it. Finally gave up.
By the way, I make a polish that removes the gold from stainless, mucho rapido. But to be honest, I think the gold color looks cool. I'd polish it before I fitted it and maybe once a year. That'd do.
I went the stailnless route. I used lake pipe hangers from Moon and fabed all brackets that bolt to the inside of the frame for the exhaust. the hangers I got from a company back east that have everything for exhaust systems. They make these bands when overlaping the pipe to secure them. Before polishing, I took the tail pipe to a muffler shop to expand the end to slip over the other pipe. This gives the best way to set up your tail pipe in relation to the bumper. Alot of em are pre-cut and need to be welded or screwed on. Hope this helps! Ken
my full exhaust is stainless on my roadster there are two pipes that run up each side . i bought 6 1-3/4 10 foot sticks and had them polished they look like chome . billy
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