I'm a little confused, just how disfunctional are these products for a street machine,and will I get higher exhaust velocitys with out tubeuler meltdown?Opinions, whould be greatly appreciated. Bruce Johnson

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78b4ramSnortbed/6

The bigest problem with headers on a street car is leakage. There functional on a street car. What i would do is get an intake/exhust gasket from the Cox Brothers, they are custom made by them and will not leak. I have run one gasket for a year of racing and have changed intake manifolds twice and they still don't leak. Thanks Ron Parker



gone Bagel bagging back faster than him

If you are talking about the thermal wrapping tape stuff, the main thing it does on a street car is make the headers rust out faster.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Yea,the thermal tape wraping stuff. Bruce Johnson

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78b4ramSnortbed/6

Just a word of personal experience about header paint. A few months back I asked if anyone had success with any header paints lasting. One gentleman recommended the POR 20 product and he said he had run his for 10,000 miles with only minor touch-up. I do not doubt his word, but my experience was a little different.
When we were putting the engine in our Dart, I had a brand new set of headers. I wire wheeled all the original paint off and gave 2 coats of the POR 20 ($22.00/pint) as the directions said. Almost immediately upon firing the new engine it began to blister. Within 100-200 miles it was flaking off.
Since we had to remove the motor to replace the cam, I again took the headers down to bare metal. This time I used 80 grit sandpaper to scuff the entire header, and again gave it 2 coats as per the instructions. This time the paint began to bubble almost imediately. And it appears it will do the same as the last time.
It may be that this engine with a big cam, oversize valve...etc. may have higher exhaust temperature than normal. But it appears that the only real coating that is going to stay is some kind of jet hot coating.
Hope this helps someone else,

Rick

I have heard similar things about the tape wrap - rust quick. I painted my headers with Eastwoods paint once after sandblasting. Came right off the first time, BUT I found that the directions specified that you needed to cure the paint at 300 + F within 2 hours of painting. Had 'em reblasted and painted right before I assembled and started the car and they were fine for 50k with only a few small pits and rust spots. I'd say that the new high tech coatings (like sermatize) sound the best from reports I've heard - big $$ though.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Eastwood claims the newest version of their exhaust manifold paint is improved. Their old paint was pretty good.

I would like to see a company develop a double wall stainless exhaust header, it would help keep the heat in like the tape wrap. I'm dreaming again.

I have also used Eastwood's High temp silver coating on a pair of 318 truck manifolds during an engine replacement in my 1990 D150 almost a year ago now. I applied two coats allowing the first to dry 24 hrs. before applying the second. They still look good.
63GT

Gee, The headers on my engine in the signature line had about 10,000 when that picture was taken and now have over 20,000 miles and still look pretty much the same.

I have touched up the headers in a few places but over all the POR20 has worked better than any other header paint I have used. The places I have had to touch up are under the car where it gets balsted by road grim and right where the headers turn down coming out of the head (at that point it flakes off).

I suppose if you have exhuast temps in excess of the paints rating that it would blister but I would expect it to be near the head verse further down. Also, since my headers were quite rusty to start I used muriatic acid to remove the rust and etch the metal. Maybe the etching is the key.

I do agree that one of the ceramic Jet-hot typ coatings are the way to go for longevity.

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Dave Clement
68 Barracuda (Hot-Rod \6)
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze4pgxf/

Dave,
The headers on your car look great. That's how ours looked for about 15 seconds. It probably is just the big cam ...etc creating to high of a temp. These blistered almost imediately, and it was at least down the tube about 24". I did preheat the tubes before I painted them, thinking that would help. The only thing about Jet coating is that you need to take them back off!! Not fun on the 6 into 1 with a 4 speed.

Rick

Mine are 6 into 2, I do not know if that is good or bad from an installation stand point. Anyway, I didn't think there was any all those tubes would fit down past the center link and the Z-bar. With a little wigglingand they just dropped into place.

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Dave Clement
68 Barracuda (Hot-Rod \6)
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze4pgxf/

As long as we're coming up with somewhat costly header wish lists, how about a set of Inconel headers? That stuff's as easy to machine as stainless steel, looks very similar too, but is far stronger at higher temperatures.

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
My blog - Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

There are different coatings that can be applied to headers. Some special coatings come in colors and are very similar to the jet hot type coatings. Headers can also be coated internally. This is best done when headers are new, but can be done to used headers if they are not too bad inside. This also helps to keep the heat in the header which should help exhaust gas velocity. A by product of this is cooler under hood temps. One reason headers cook off some of the better paints is that they are not properly prepared. This is probably the most important step. Also a motor that is not properly tuned can cause excessive heat and discolor or flake the coating. A really good coating will be able to withstand at lease 1400 degrees. A set of headers coated both internally and externally should last a really long time. If you wish to go into this in more depth, e-mail me.

That stuff is really expensive. I think it's like gold.

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'66 Cuda 225/4spd
'66 Dart GT convertible 225/auto
'64 Dart GT 340/4spd

I don't know how many of you guys have actually used header wrap, but there seems to be some misleading info going around. Just like anything else on a car it has it's own share of maintenence. My clifford headers have been wrapped for three years, and I only have minor pitting and very minor surface rust. I have lived in Virginia Beach, and I now live in Jax, Fl. so rust is of concern. The only thing that needs to be done to them is to let your car run for a few extra minutes whenever you get where your going to burn off any water that you may have collected while it is raining. That's it. I don't know if I have just had a string of luck, but that's what I was told to do, so I do, and it works fine, and makes perfect sense. If theres no moisture trapped under there, then how could it possible rust?