white headers: how much of a pain in the ass are they?

I run them on my gasser they look real good for about a week. Then it is all down hill.I just pulled them off wire brushed and sanded ,recoated with VHT .It took about 2 hours and they looked great again,a month later not so much

 

My interst is why white. It was explained by a racer friend that white is used on, or was used to show any leaks, ect. Black kinds of hides stuff, so this is used on a driver. With white, if you have a leak, you know it! Is this true, or urban myth?

 

Urban myth. VHT rattle can header paint was a available in red and blue but they looked ugly as shit. White had become the standard by that time. Aluminizing was the only lasting header coating available at that time. Ceramic stuff came a lot later and a lot more costly when we were building our own cars.

 

Tommy,
Thanks man.

My friends were rough as sand paper. I loved the look, he didn't but he since has gone onto bigger and better things.

 

I have run the Swain Tech White Lightning ceramic coating http://swaintech.com/race-coatings/r...aust-coatings/
for 8 years. It has yet to dis-color

 

has anyone had good luck with the white ceramic coating? I have a very rare set of S@S headers on my off topic project, and they will be coated before they are ever run, I put about 300 hours of blood sweat and tears in that exhaust system so I want them to at least look good

 

Like the others the VHT doesn't last long, but I found duplic color and it is very good. Last all summer.

 

For what ever reason in the early days they had a hard time getting the Black to hold up to heat as well as some of the pigmented colors. a chemist might know why. The Red was a HORRIBLE dark shade, But I kind of liked the light blue on the right car. maybe it was just because a lot of early So Cal drag Cars had Blue so it became subconscious for FAST.

 

They look very nice, my Lyndwood headers will be white. Bob

 

I didn't paint these, but they are holding up well.

 

I liked the yellow. I never had a car that was the right color to not clash with it but I really liked the yellow.

I used to hear a lot of different things about white headers from the engine would run cooler to it would scavenge better. I don't think that anything that I ever heard was true but you heard a lot of reasons for running them white all except "because I like it." I don't think I ever heard a soul say because I like them that color when I was a kid.

 

I think the "white scavenging better" came from the aluminized one looking white, it's the coating itself not the color that makes them work better, if you can keep the heat in the pipe the velocity will stay up and they will work better. the white was probably form following function, the white was probably incidental at first with the coating, then everyone copied it even with paint that didn't really affect how well it worked

 

Check out Swain Tech Coatings in New York. They have white coating.
Tried to get mine aluminized at Hambros Sandblasting in Sun Valley Ca. but they don't do it anymore.When mine get a little "long in the tooth" I'm gonna send em to Swain Tech.

 

I also liked the red, which has an universal, built-in "do not to touch" quality about it. Photo of a V-6 in a 1974 IMSA Camel GT / SCCA TransAM Capri. Guess who's job it was to keep repainting the dammed things? Gary

 

Like the thread. I am looking at going white on my headers for my 38.

 

Couldnt keep paint on mine so I covered them with white header tape.....

 

I don't know how well the white would hold up but I powered coated my exhaust manifolds black on the Ranch Wagon and they still look as good as the day I bolted them back on the engine.

The car has been running 5 months now and they still have a nice finish. HRP

 

I thought this thread sank haha. Thanks for all the replies. Just like everything else, the more I think about this the harder the decision becomes.

 

Funny, I was just talking about "Aluminizing" on another thread theother day. Only a couple of guys knew what I was talking about. Back in the eighties we had a shop here in Phoenix that did it, and I always had exhaust stuff done.

By the way, the VHT works great if you follow the directions on the can to a "T"... Sandblast, don't handle, heat cure etc. What I have found is that VHT now makes a Ceramic High Heat paint. I have had the white on my O/T bike for about three years now, and granted it hasn't done allot of run time, it hasn't discolored, rusted, or pealed in that time of mostly outdoor storage either.

 

I wanted to go white, but remembered how tough it was to keep them looking good on my old '55 Chevy fenderwell headers. I ended up going silver and used VHT Flamethrower paint in the highest heat range I could find.
By going through the correct breakin procedure (never read the instrructions before!) I found it held up much better and still hasn't flaked or burnt in nearly 18 months of use. It's not white, but it still makes them stand out well.

 

Gary - Love that car! was it an Ex Horst Kwech car? Who ran it?

 

I had the Super Comps on my OT FE aluminized (I seem to recall it was in Stanton also) for a period correct look. Looks great until they see heat and oil. If I did it again today, I would go ceramic.

 

I've got white headers on my Tudor. The headers were built by slatflatmatt here on the HAMB and then I took them and had them coated by another shop with a high temp powdercoat. On one of the first drives I had a float sink in the carb and poured gas down the manifold, onto the engine block and over the headers. It melted the coating. The coater claims that it shouldn't have happened, but that the coating may not have been fully cured when the fuel got on them. I haven't bothered to have them re-coated as of yet. My flatty is a little loose, so the headers get oil on them from the breather. I just use a little Wizards Finish Cut Compound on a microfiber cloth to get the stains off. Seems to work well, but white headers do require maintenance. The price you pay for fashion I guess!

 

I looked at the swaintech site and they said once they are coated you can paint over them in any color you want and the paint should stick fine

 

Yep, but at the time of this photo is was brand spanking fucking new, built from a showroom fresh Capri with 11 miles on it. Several years later it eventually became an X-Kweck car. This car took about 6 weeks to build. Horst did a couple of burnouts in the drive way and we loaded it for Lime Rock. 1980lbs dry on the freight scales there. In qualifying he broke (his own) the lap record for sedans. The car got crashed out by a Camaro (go figure) that gave it a severely bent rear axle. At that time, it was the fastest Capri in the Western Hemisphere. And now, back to white pipes. Gary