Painted long tubes vs coated.
Painted long tubes vs coated. What's the difference? Do the coated ones last longer? I don't care for looks, just performance! Is there Any performance difference between the 2?
Thanks!
Thanks!
The paint is generally only meant to stop rust during storage and shipping.
Ceramic coatings actually insulate and reduce radiant heat that can damage other components like plug wires and hoses.
Ceramic coatings holding heat in better theoretically makes more power due to maintaining velocity in the exhaust, I know it can be proven on race stuff but wont go claiming it is worth a measurable difference at the street level.
Personally I would not use painted or raw mild steel headers, ideally I would run coated stainless, from a cost perspective I am running raw stainless, but would never run anything less than coated mild. I would not even consider painted mild or raw on a street car.
Ceramic coatings actually insulate and reduce radiant heat that can damage other components like plug wires and hoses.
Ceramic coatings holding heat in better theoretically makes more power due to maintaining velocity in the exhaust, I know it can be proven on race stuff but wont go claiming it is worth a measurable difference at the street level.
Personally I would not use painted or raw mild steel headers, ideally I would run coated stainless, from a cost perspective I am running raw stainless, but would never run anything less than coated mild. I would not even consider painted mild or raw on a street car.
Launching!
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 234
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From: Cincinnati, Ohio
if you get the painted headers you have to blast all that crappy paint off and apply a very thin coat of high heat paint, just enough to cover the headers, while they are hot. My dad taught me to paint them after heating them with a large torch with a rose bud on it. he heats the entire header then holds the torch inside each primary as he paints them. Key to having the paint last is to use very little.
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The Jet Hots sold for the LT1 Fcar would be mild steel, they are similar to the Hooker super comp with some improvements, no 3 bolt flange, etc. I had a set of older Hooker Super Comps, the coating was quality, it dulled with age but held up really well. On the other hand we did Pace setters on a 94 Z28 with Pace setters coating, maybe 5K miles in 4 years, all in Texas, so no northern winters, recently I was putting some new O2s on that car and noticed the Pacesetters were rusting. I still like those headers for their fit and plug access, but may have been better to bought them bare and to have had them coated locally. I like the stainless kooks on my TA, seems like a real quality header and they fit great.
I should say that when I say coatings rust I have used coatings from two companies one of them coated twice.
My car does see some salt though and until this year was always stored outside.
So it is seeing conditions more likely to rust than many of you would expose your cars to.
My car does see some salt though and until this year was always stored outside.
So it is seeing conditions more likely to rust than many of you would expose your cars to.
Launching!
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 273
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From: California
We have a little trick where we clean the inside of the tubes, then paint the insides with VHT.
The VHT acts as a pre-carbon barrier and stops bluing for the guys running chrome pipes on bikes.
It also seals the porosity in the tubing, which all tubing has to some extent, which greatly slows down internal rusting over time.
Launching!
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 273
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From: California