A good friend of mine was cleaning out his garage and came across a NEW set of headers that had never been installed. He is a die hard FORD guy , and is inbarrassed to let anyone see GM parts in his stash.. Anyway he gave them to me just to get them off his property. They look a lot like Sanderson block huggers, with a dull silver finish both inside and out( at least on the inside as far as you can see down the tubes etc.) A very hard finish which makes me believe that they are ceramic coated... To durable and nice to be painted in my opinion.. Anyway my Question is this... Twice in the past two weeks I have been told that if you fire a New, Crate , or Rebuilt engine with the headers on, that the assembly grease used inside the engine will badly discolor the headers...In all of the 40 plus years that my friend and I have been building rods, niether of us has ever had this problem or even seen it other than the normal mild bluing or discoloration that all coating have, which we all expect.. Anybody else witnessed this or is it some new myth being passed around? Jerry (manacoem)
the bluing has happened to me on chrome hearders only. my ceramic coated headers do not discolor at all unless some oil gets on them and it leaves a slight stain on them
I think some of these coatings need to cure. Fast idle for about 30 seconds, then cool to room temp. Do this a couple or 3 times i believe. Problem is, with a new motor it fucks with breaking in the cam. You pick the lesser of the 2 evils. PS-NOTHING to due with assembly lubes inside the new motor.
Rebuilt Engines Develop Tremendous Heat When First Fired... The Heat of Breaking in an Engine will Discolor Polished headers and will Burn The Ceramic Coating Off Of the Headers.... Always Fire A Rebuilt with your Spare or Junk exhaust manifolds.... Never Fire A Rebuilt Without An Exhaust Manifold, Use anything other than your good headers...
Uhhhhh... that sounds like some bullshit to me, never had a problem from a freshly rebuilt engine unless it was running very lean...
Got to agree with zman. I put a freshly ceramic coated set of fender exit headers on a fresh 350 SBC. The only thing that happened is I scratched the coating installing them; - should have waited a day or two to cure better. Other than that, they're STILL the same color.
Thanks for the info guys I'm sure that the problem (If there really is one) might be with chrome .. I'm gonna keep on doin' it the way that has always worked before.. Maybe it's wrong, but hey its only a hotrod big deal.. In years past headers were a luxury only the show car guys used. The street and drag racers could give a crap if they looked pretty , just so it went like hell. Thanks Later Jerry (manacoem)
I always start a motor with just a junk set of headers or manifolds. The air fuel ratio is never right on a fresh motor and they tend to run lean. Excessive heat causes the discoloration and not the grease from the motor. Shane T.
I try to jet a little rich for break-in. Maybe it's growing up dealing with two-strokes, lean is a very bad thing on a two-stroke.
On a first start of a fresh engine (crate or rebuilt), there is the possibility of the timing being retarded. This will cause the headers to get very hot and may even glow cherry red. This will cause discoloration (dulls the finish) of ceramic coated headers, yellowing of stainless headers and severe blueing of chromed headers. It will also burn off high temp paint on plain steel headers. An engine running very lean mixture will also cause discoloration. Chrome plated headers will turn blue even with correct timing due to the copper plating that is first done on them. If you get them plated only with nickel and then chrome they will be less likely to turn blue. The solution is to break in the cam and tune the engine with an old set of headers BEFORE installing the headers you want to run.
The Jalopy Journal
