My 355 is in for the major. The headers came off the car for ceramic coating. Mine are uncoated and no blankets. I bought the car with them already installed. I do not have originals nor ever drove a car with original ones so my comparison is worthless in terms of performance differences. But they seem to work pretty well. LOTS of heat though. These have 12,000 miles in 4 years. I confess to being caught in rain at least once, and usually twice, each year. My biggest complaint and reason for coating is the amount of surface rust. It is sever along the mandrel bends and welds. It is sporadic and "peppery" across the rest of the tube surface. Here is what the SS headers look like after I removed them: Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
These were sent to the same coater that Fabspeed uses. Inner & outer coating. Wanted white, but the stories of keeping the color correct were too much to take...and I drive this car. So silver it is. Lets see how they perform going forward. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Did you ceramic coat inside the header? I am just curious how well the tubes really get coated. If you boroscope them now, you would be able to compare how well the coating is holding up at your next major service. There were some threads about this awhile ago. The silver looks very nice.
looks great as if brand new. let's see when the car is back running if you can report a noticeable difference in the heat. too bad you didn't get a chance to measure the heat radiation for a before and after comparison.
I did both inside and outside coating as well and I found the engine bay was cooler than with the original headers with their covers.
if you can get access to a boroscope it would be interesting to see how consistent the coating is through the bends in the header tube.
What are those big ugly pipes on top of the headers. Ya, I pitched the air injection system to the four winds and mercy of the gods.
I do have a boroscope. It is great for finding the nut you dropped down in the engine. The image quality of mine is not good enough to determine coating quality within the tubes however. You can see pretty far in there with a flashlight and they look evenly colored and coated through out. In calling the shop that did the coatings, it turns out they did the coating on my TR8 headers headers so I have a pretty good idea what I am getting into. Nice folks for sure. Best I could do for inside pics: Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I was going to get rid of them as well, but they are welded in place. Too much effort for such a little gain. Oh well.
Any idea what EGT you see in your application? By the looks of your raw SS units and some others we have seen (Below), I suspect these are running outside of the temperature range of the bright Ceramic Coating. This material dulls at about 1000F - 1100F metal temp which translates to about 1300F - 1500F EGT. Best case you'll just see some minimal dulling but if it really starts turning grey / white its likely to become sacrificial. As for coating the ID, the coating is only going to be as far as you can see it / spray it / profile it. This material will not stick to a surface that has not been profiled perfectly..... Hopefully you can post some pics once you get some miles on them...... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
When I had my headers ceramic coated (both inside/out) , Jet Hot Performance Coating recommended I use their black 2000 degree coating advising that the silver coating had only a 1300 degree rating.The black coating is noticeably thicker & rougher (flat finish) than the silver coating....although the silver coating is certainly aesthetically a much nicer finish. My question.....if you got the black 2000 degree coating is their a problem spraying a silver or white ceramic coating on top purely for cosmetic reasons? My second question.....does the black heavy duty coating actually suppress heat more than the lighter duty silver coating (if so how much heat suppression?) or is is just longevity of the coating? Jet-Hot Ceramic Coatings
forgot to mention that I have had some of the black ceramic coating flake off (spotty) on the base of the merge collector area revealing a white (primer?)coating on the header. I purchased some VHT black ceramic header paint and sprayed the area in question and this coating has not flaked off in the last season of use. Not sure if it does anything for heat....but it looks better cosmetically.
I got mine coated black,They looked good till i got caught in the rain now they have spots too. Try to stay out of the rain if you can.
Not sure on EGT. But I went this route for three reasons: 1. This is the ceramic coater that Fabspeed uses when you order a set of coated headers. I'll run with the assumption that Fabspeed did some research to ensure the coating stays attached to the headers. 2. The TR8 headers I have had for the past four years were done by this same company. They continue to look good and I have no issues at all with how they look. 3. The coater stated the inside coating was a higher temp (1500?) than the outer coating he uses. These will dull. Just part of the deal. But if they dull similar to my TR8 headers, it turns to a light gray that looks just fine. We'll see
The net effect / reduction in radiated heat is about he same. But teh high temp ceramics like below are rated at 2000F plus and will hold up where the bright breaks down. Unfortunately, you can not put the bright polished over the top of another coating, though there are some silvers to be had... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Based on your pics the same material is used inside and out. Unfortunately, Fab speed and most other manufacturers have very little understanding of ceramic coatings or available coatings. They gravitate to it because it looks pretty and its most common. If they understood the limitations of it, its unlikely it would be their first and only choice. As for yours, so long as the coater explained the life cycle to you then there should be no problem. Most choose this coating for its chrome appearance and don't realize that it may not stay that way in some applications. Who is the particular coater you're using?
That silver ceramic finish (not polished) you posted would be better than the current black finish I currently have..
