anyone here locally ! has ceramic coated headers they might want to sell for F355 or who does ceramic coating in this area, south fl. [email protected] what have u
You can send yours out to jet hot and get them back with in two weeks you can find the on the web I have over a dozen done by them not problems non on 355. Remember the best heat protection on a 355 is the factory covering or what tubi is putting on there's Dave Helems is the man on 355 IMO
That is:: the best heat protection for the engine bay (components) is the steel heat shields on the factory and Tubi headers. These heat shields hold in so much heat that the steel tubes decompose and wilt under the stress (on the factory headers::Tubis have no reputation for being damaged by exhaust heat).
The early headers are only 1 mm and that the Y valve sticks closed or fails puts to much back pressure on the tubes and causes them to blow out. The Factory Y valve stays closed when it fails and Capristo stays open Capristo and Dave Helems IMO have done a lot of testing and work on this and my coments are all from info I have bees told Dave Helems and Capristo have posted info on this and are always a phone call or email away from my experience.
There are plenty of cases where the valve never failed and the headers have failed. This contraindicates the backpressure being a prime culpret in the affair.
+1. The exhaust valve failing in the closed position seems to be a very rare occurance. Most often it works fine, it just develops an annoying rattle, either from wear in the bearing surface or loss of spring tension.
Your technical information in the above post is lacking. I believe all the oem exhaust headers where of the same material and thickness. There were some changes to the air injection tube rails mid production in the 5.2 versions. Sticking exhaust valves was/is a pretty rare occurance and has not been directly connected with exhaust manifold failure. True the Capristo exhaust valve defaults "open" where the oem defaults "closed"....also true that Dave Helms probably knows more about the issue than anyone here.
Mine is a "late" '98 which originally came with the "updated" factory headers, which lasted 14K miles. So, no factory header lasts long. Fabspeed, Tubi are both good options, depending on your budget and shielded/non-shielded philosophy. Ceramic coat them if you like. But no factory updates to the header design or construction will prevent them from failing. (Worse, they seem to have learned nothing, as the 360 and 430 headers are also failing...) John
