Headers came back from HPC yesterday, I thought some might enjoy a look at them.... before: http://b.shaw.home.comcast.net/308headers.jpg after: http://b.shaw.home.comcast.net/308headers2.jpg One had a blowout. The bad section was cut out and replaced, then I cleaned up the air flow a bit and port matched them before they went out for a high luster AL ceramic coating. Pretty, eh? Bill
Oh, High Performance Coatings... http://www.hpcoatings.com/ No affiliation, just a customer. We'll see in a couple of years if I'm a satisfied customer but so far so good!
Holy goodness! How much did that cost? Looks real good & does it make any difference now eg. temp & Bhp?
Yep, inside and out. You have to or the heat gets trapped in the metal and can cause it to fatigue. That job was $291 including return shipping. It is supposed to reduce underhood temperature significantly, which is why I did it. I haven't installed them yet but I plan on doing some temp measurements and a dyno run when it's back together again. I won't be able to tell how much the coating increases HP though, I've changed other things too so the increases will be all blended together. There were big drips of metal inside at each of the sample ports that I have removed, there were weld splatters around the exhaust ports that I ground down. I also port matched them and removed the air injection tubes that were rotting off, so things should flow quite a bit better.
Lower heat, more power and looks for $300. Awsome. I have read quite a few posts refering to mismatched ports, About how far were yours out - all in the same direction? Every port/pipe connection? How long did it take you to do the work? chris
Not only do they look great but they will increase horse power and keep it there. Back when Smoky Yunick was making all the advances, he found that one set of new mild steel headers had corroded from one dyno pull to another over a period of three days that the power had dropped some 30 h.p. The new technology of coatings has prevented this from happening. Plus the coatings keep the heat-up thus maintaining max velocity.
They weren't as poorly matched as I had expected. Most were pretty close, needing only 1/16th" or so chamfered from the edges all around. Several had restrictions because of the way the pipe bends and intrudes into the passageway. I opened them and smoothed the transition as best I could, then polished as far in as I could reach. I think I made bigger gains by removing the welding drips and splatter than from port matching. I have several hours total into grinding on the headers and pipes. Each pipe had welding splatter that was cleaned up, not just the headers, but the headers were the worst.
Did the same thing a year ago. You'll really like the look once re-installed. No heat-related problems with mine thus far, either. Well worth doing. Image Unavailable, Please Login
You guys have their contacts or website? I'm thousands of miles away but I've been shipping things to & from US for years. I don't quite understand this, does their job affect positions of our headers so that we need to re-work them again when it's back or just bolt on. Thanks. I've just done a major but I'll use it on my other car. Jon
All the rework was done before coating, once they're coated they're ready to install. http://www.hpcoating.com Bill
Bill, their website is not up. Can you supply phone number as i want to schedule mine for September. How long is the turn around? Many thanks as ALL help is ALWAYS appreciated.
I had the headers cermanic coated inside and out and the outside of the mufflers done on my BB512i almost three years ago and they still look like the day they were done. And, it only cost $450.00 for everything. I did lose 2 points at the FFQC concours last year because of the cermanic coating though.
My bad, I dropped an 's'. Try http://www.hpcoatings.com They have an online processing form to fill out, just drop it in the box with the parts and ship it to AZ. They quoted 3 weeks then shipped them back in 1 week.
I was wondering what to do about the muffler. No problems ceramic coating just the outside? They could probably get the inside of the pipes attached to the muffler, too. I'll have to give them a call again.
