Can I ceramic coat my exhaust pipes and muffler at home?

Well, it doesn't exactly come in a spray can.
You could do it at home, but it would be quite an impressive garage setup.

 

Don't confuse powder coating, which you can do at home with a spare oven or even a good heat gun, and jet or ceramic coating, which requires temperatures of at least 800 F. I would not powder coat a header.

Powder coating at home
http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemType=CATEGORY&itemID=460

http://www.classiccoatings.com/index2.html

 

It's not ceramic powder coating, but Eastwood does sell a couple of 1300F rated ceramic header coatings for home application IF you've got an oven that can hold the header & heat it to 500F(My converted home powdercoating oven won't take a 308 header.):

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=18808&itemType=PRODUCT

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=18809&itemType=PRODUCT

Eastwood also has 1300F rated high silicone hi-temp powder coattings, again, need 500F to cure:

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=850&itemType=CATEGORY&iMainCat=844&iSubCat=850

I don't think I'd use them on a classic/vintage car's header that I really wanted to last. I doubt that it's anywhere as heavy a ceramic coating as Jet Hot can apply, & probably would be very hard to ensure you've got full coverage inside the header which Jet Hot claims to do. Also, Jet Hot & others have optional high temp versions of their coatings rated to around 2,000F.

I'believe that one of the major powder coating vendors has a similar ceramic powder product, but again, the large oven is critical.

 

On my old Testarossa, the exhaust pipes and muffler are stainless steel. So I simply cleaned them up with scotch-brite pads, wiped them down with solvent, and sprayed them with high temp ceramic containing paint like the Eastwood stuff that KENCO mentioned. It looked nice and lasted for 3 years until I sold the car....from the pics I've seen of the car since, the pipes and muffler still look quite good.

 

Not quite! Its called Boron nitride spray and it is made by GE Advanced Ceramics. This is a high purity coating and it comes in a spray can and I sprayed the stainless steel headers on my Boxster S 20,000 miles ago and its still there. You can even use it on piston tops. Not cheap though, about forty bucks a can and is probably the best thing you can put on before wrapping headers.

 

going on 4 years now i did my headers and i use a ceramic coating call cermakrome the headers will need to be sandblast and spray at a room with low moisture and put in oven right a way or it will take on moisture and the out come will be not be good.
i made a extention on my oven and bake it at 500 F for 1 hour. after parts cool buf/polich with coarce steel wool and then fine steel wool for higher luster. this product is great the bad think is that is not available at autoparts stores i got my from summit.

 

The most important part of ceramic coating is the inside of the header tubes...how can you do that at home...

 

you could do a home spray job but I eventually decided in the end to let a professional company do it. www.zircotec.com This was much easier plus they can sort out any problems that could arise

 

This is where i had my 348 manifolds but the cost is high £730 for the pair to be done ! they should be back next week so will see if its money well spent

 

If you are serious about reducing under-hood temperatures, the best coating for headers/exhaust manifolds is the Swaintech coating. It is not very attractive, but is highly resilient and can be painted with any high temperature paint.

LINK: http://www.swaintech.com/store.asp?pid=10323

 

Regardless what JetHot or anyone else claims I am very sceptical of any claims about inside coatings. Properly preparing the surface inside a narrow tube around several bends and blind intersections, seems virtually impossible (and of course virtually impossible for you to prove otherwise). Sandblasting the outside is a fussy time-consuming chore even when you have full access to all sides. Coating the inside isn't a problem but it will probably be on top of the rust and dirt.

Of course I'm willing to be convinced otherwise but I'd have to see it with my own eyes.

 

Once you get it done in steel, just coat it and call it good. I've never had much success with the aerosol VHT paints on headers but i did an exhaust manifold on my MGB with the POR15 high temperature paint last year and it's still a shiny silver after one season of use.

 

That's because the Lucas electrics won't let it run.....

 

You are wrong.
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At $40/ per spray can for the home application plus the hassle of a DIY oven, why not send them out to be professionally done? Mine only cost $200 for both headers, I chose the satin gray-ice color and they came out beautifully.
http://www.performancecoatings.com/

 

Not very attractive? How so?
Swain Technologies did my Boxer headers seven years ago...They look great and have held up perfectly!

David
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So which color is technically best under the hood? Regarding heat radiation, black radiates the most heat, silver or chrome color retains the most heat, white is a mix between the two, and grey would fall between white and black ; better than white, but not as good as black.

Aircraft and motorcycles seem to be consistent in using flat black or grey for engines and flat black exhaust, in fact I cannot recall seeing any other color used on aircraft exhaust but flat black. Wrapping headers with asbestos tape or other materials does lower engine compartment temps, but totally cooks the headers and mufflers and shortens their life in the process.

My uncle put a set of wrapped headers on his 454 motorhome and they didnt last 12 months. A replacement set of the same headers but left with OEM black paint lasted over 6 years. I would be interested in any reports how white paint performs.

 

SwanTech does not "paint" the headers white:

http://www.swaintech.com/store.asp?pid=10969

From the link:

 

Seven years, but how many miles is that David?

Thanks,
Dave

 

About 9,000 KM....

 

5600 miles. Okay thanks.