stainless steel headers cracking????
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TECH Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2007
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From: OHIO
stainless steel headers cracking???? I am taking my SS to a local fab shop for exhaust work and we were discussing my header situation. I have Grottyohann long tubes; they are an awesome header but they're not stainless. When I had Roger Grottyohann build them for me all the way back in 2000, they were the only long tube header on the market for F-body LS1s. They are mild steel and coated but it has been almost 10 yrs since then and the coating is flaking and it looks like surface rust is starting. The builder I am talking with does A LOT of fabbing with stainless and he claimes that he actually prefers mild steel with a good quality thermal coating over stainless(except where climate plays a major role...on the ocean coast or if the car is driven in poor weather, like snow and salt) because he has seen stainless steel headers crack near the welds. We were talking about blasting my headers and simply having them re-coated($300.00) as opposed to replacing them with a new set of stainless headers($800-$1100.00).
I am curious if anyone has ever heard this or experienced this. I haven't seen any posts here about any of the vendors SS headers cracking; the only thing I have seen are leaks and poor welding.
I am curious if anyone has ever heard this or experienced this. I haven't seen any posts here about any of the vendors SS headers cracking; the only thing I have seen are leaks and poor welding.
I've personally never had any issues with the Kooks stainless headers I ran on my car for about 5 years, and they still look great sitting on my garage floor. That experience led me to buying their 1-7/8" headers when I wanted to go up in primary size for planned future mods, although the are stainless with Jet Hot coating this time around. I got the coating merely to keep them looking really nice under the hood. They've only been installed for a couple months at this point, but still...no issues.
Haven't heard of any cracking like that. Just the usual cracks around the emissions provisions. I say if the metal is in good shape, just get them nicely re-coated. Provided they are still in line with your power goals, since its been almost a decade.
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Joined: Feb 2003
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From: Dallas, TX
Most OE exhausts are stainless systems. A quality SS header isn't going to have problems. If I had to do it again I would go with SS. Coated headers are OK but the coating will wear after time and taking them off is a huge PITA.
Most of the LTs these days are based off the Grott design.
Most of the LTs these days are based off the Grott design.
