00articz

A buddy of mine has a set of painted pacesetters on his t/a and was wondering if there is any way to keep them from rusting out?

Jay-P

iTrader: (16)

Sure, take them off and put them in a plastic bag and throw them in the closet. Otherwise they are going to rust. All the coatings out there will rust through eventually as well.

Only way to avoid rusty headers is to go stainless.

00articz

does anybody have any idea how long they will last?

hawiianpwr

iTrader: (2)

Depends on where you live, do you drive in the winter, do you take a lot of short trips?

Are you getting them free? You can always send them in and get them ceramic coated.

jacobsoup

how much does ceramic coating normally cost

z99ls1

iTrader: (12)

I have had mine on a couple years and no rust yet, but I definetely always recomend getting stainless after I got painted and my friends got stainless. I was so damn jelous of how good his looked and he doesn't have to worry about rust. Spend the extra $100 and get stainless. But yea I think he can get them coated...

01ssreda4

iTrader: (96)

Local place quoted me $200 for the pair to be blasted and coated.

jacobsoup

thats not too bad i guess. it will save a lot of headache when stuff starts to burn up

Bluestreak

I just paid $245 to have my 12-year old Grotyohann headers welded up (cut off and closed off the emission control fittings) and re-ceramic coated. Other than a little bit of rust where the AC evaporator drain drips on the passenger side collector, mine are in perfect shape after 70k miles.

Before...



After...



Worth every penny. They look awesome now. And the advances in coating technology means they'll stay clean, rust-free and shinier much longer this time.

Macs98Z

iTrader: (16)

Your re-coated headers look nice, Bluestreak! I think it's important to note, however, that if your location is Florida, that is a world of difference from Illinois. If the car is a DD in Illinois, or even driven occasionally in an Illionois winter, there will be no way to stop any headers from rusting unless they are stainless. OP, I would advise your friend to go buy a pair of stainless headers and sell his painted ones. I wouldn't spend the extra money to coat them, IMO. By the time you are done fooling with them, you will have spent half of the money you would've if you had just bought stainless, and you will still be buying headers again after a while. Unless, of course, your friend doesn't care about the headers looking badly after the first winter and having to buy another pair again at some point. Hope this helps.

Scott

01ssreda4

iTrader: (96)

Wow those look fantastic

Fry_

If your going to DD your car in Illionois in the winter then just get painted headers and let them rust because the rest of the car will rust along with them. I just sold my rusted to hell 95 camaro that was DD in the winter here in Iowa.

Bluestreak

Thanks! And you're right. I forget this... rust here comes from the salty ocean breeze, not the salt on the roads. That being the case, I'd definitely think about stainless.

thegodfather899

iTrader: (1)

drive mine all year round through the snow and rain in wisconsin and i have the painted ones. i sand blasted the paint off and used high temp primer and high temp paint...andddd they still rusted lol. but not too bad. it all depends on if you can live with them being rusty underneath or not