When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Hey guys , well I've been reading the benefits of ceramic coating and I want to ceramic coat the inside and outside of my hot side/manifolds . BUT After calling the only ceramic coater I can find in south Florida "hot shots" I was not to convince . I'm using my truck manifolds for the turbo, so my question was how are you going to remove all the carbon buildup from inside the manifolds and he said all they do is sandblast as far as the sand would reach ... I was thinking they would dip it in some sort of tank .. second, the hot side is being build with mandrel bends . Well this bends have a coating of some sort of oil in the inside. I think so they don't rust while they are being stored. How would he remove that coating with only sandblasting ... I don't feel comfortable now coating the inside being that is has to travel thru the turbo .. if it was a regular exhaust I wouldnt mind because the flaking wouldn't damage anything but with a turbo in the way I kinda lost confidence..what are your thoughts ...
I have never trusted ceramic coating the inside of turbo headers for exactly the same flaking concern you have expressed. Even if the odds are slim that you would have a problem (I'm not so sure how slim they are), I don't see enough of a benefit once the outside is coated already.
this place was charging me 275 to coat both manifolds . I think I rather just coat the out side my self with flame proof vht paint and then wrap them .. If this places would of told me they do some sort of acid wash and so on I would of felt comfortable . But then again I would always have in the back of my mind " I wonder if they are flaking off "
I sandblasted all of my hot side parts and ceramic coated it myself. I bought a qrt of cerakote glacier black and sprayed it on. It leaves a beautiful rock hard finish. Then I wrapped it all.
I sandblasted all of my hot side parts and ceramic coated it myself. I bought a qrt of cerakote glacier black and sprayed it on. It leaves a beautiful rock hard finish. Then I wrapped it all.
Is this what you bough? , I like this idea better then the vht can .. any special mixing ? And how much ceramic did you buy
A buddy of mine said to use rustoleum BBQ pair in satin finish- I was going to try that? The cerakote does sound good. I was going to cure the BBQ paint with a heat gun
I'm think the BBQ paint is more for rust prevention rather than for holding in heat like the cerakote. I used BBQ paint on the 4" downpipe. With my car running you can put your hand on the hot side and not burn yourself. The combination of ceramic and wrapping works really well
I used to do ceramic coating and powder coating and generally you can only coat what you can blast. So headers and manifolds were only coated in the beginning of the ports and collectors.
$275 is probably a fair deal. I had mine blasted and coated both inside and out. I paid $375 for it. The guy quoted me 2 prices, one for the commodity stuff, and one for the good stuff, the $375 was supposed to be the best stuff and is rated 2500F. Like another poster was saying the coating only goes as far as the blasting does, or about as far as you can see inside them. You can see the coating is getting a little thinner really deep inside the manifolds, because the gloss drops a little because it isn't filling the casting grain as well as it does on the outside.
I cleaned mine as well as I could before I took them to get blasted. I used paint reducer and cleaned all the carbon out of them. I soaked them in a dip pan with it, then rinsed them with fresh MEK afterwards. Honestly they probably could have been painted just as I took them to the coater. I also used a grinder and flap wheel and smoothed all the seams and sharp edges on them too. I paid $80 for the manifolds, then $375 to have them coated, so $455 total cost. For about $50 more I could have bought 0.120" walled stainless turbo headers with V bands. Maybe that would have been the better way to go, but I have about as nice a set of manifolds as I've ever seen now.
One other thing that I found interesting was the coater told me the paint had to be baked for 48hrs at 450F to be fully cured. That's a lot of heat.
Last edited by ScottyBG; Dec 16, 2016 at 01:59 PM.
They do look good ! I wonder what he meant by commodity stuff and what was this good stuff .. I'm allready convive Im going to do it my self , the hardest part in all this is the prep work .. I just rather buy the best stuff .. but I might still not do the inside , my mind would wonder to much lol and all I'm looking is for peace of mind
Looks may not be super important if you wrap them anyway.
Anyone ever brush on the Cerakote? I'd think you could get it nice and thick that way. Then wrap. Manifold temps will eb more than enough to "cure it" afterwards.
Yea I brushed my por15 ... your right I'm going to wrap them anyways might as well brush it on with a foam brush , the only benefit I see with spraying is that you can do multiple thin coats to avoid peeling but if is anything like por15 it didn't really matter
6 Common C5 Corvette Failures and What's Involved In Repairing Them
Slideshow: From wobbling harmonic balancers to failed EBCMs, these are the issues that define long-term C5 ownership and what repairs typically involve.
Retro Modern Bandit Pontiac Trans AM Comes With Burt Reynolds' Autograph
Slideshow: A modern Camaro transformed into a retro icon, this limited-run "Bandit" build blends nostalgia with brute force in a way few revivals manage.
Top 10 Greatest Cadillac V Series Performance Models Ever, Ranked
Slideshow: Cadillac didn't just crash the high-performance luxury vehicle party, it showed up loud, supercharged, and occasionally a little unhinged...
Coachbuilt N2A Anteros Is an LS2-Powered C6 Corvette In Italian Clothes
Slideshow: A one-off sports car that looks like a vintage Italian exotic-but hides a C6 Corvette underneath-just sold for the price of a new mid-engine Corvette.
Ceramic coating inside old dirty manifolds 
