Should I ceramic coat my headers?

[Mark Eaton]

I have BBK chrome headers for my MK4, 347 engine. A friend told me I should think about having them ceramic coated for heat control. Is this worth doing? Should I just sell them on Ebay and buy a set of ceramic coated headers?

Thanks,

Mark

[Bob Cowan]

Chrome headers get hot. Really hot. And stay hot for a long time. They expand and contract at a different rate than the base metal. Eventually, they will crack and rust.

If you plan on driving this car a lot, I'd say get rid of them, and get ceramic coated headers.

[cgundermann]

I've noticed a big difference. I even had my J-pipes and side pipes ceramic coated. Additionally, although overkill - I had my air intake tube done (along with a heat shield installed) to keep a cooler air intake charge and since it was close to my headers...

Chris

[OnlyAndy]

Have a 33' with small block Chevy, Bought the Summit brand headers they recommend in BLACK paint. "I Heard" that I should leave them black for my first start THEN take them off and coat them. Would prefer to coat them up front but the "HEARD" part of the story is the coating would suffer during a "too rich" start up.... What is the prevailing opinion?????

[roadscholar]

Hmmm, my first set of BBK headers were ceramic coated. I received a new set less than a year ago and they are also ceramic coated. Did they change that?

John

[edwardb]

Hmmm, my first set of BBK headers were ceramic coated. I received a new set less than a year ago and they are also ceramic coated. Did they change that?

John

X2 on that. I've used the Factory Five supplied BBK small block headers a couple times and they've been ceramic coated. Pretty shiny out of the box so maybe you thought it was chrome? They don't stay quite that shiny BTW, but still look good.

[Jeff Kleiner]

John & Paul,
Wrong assumption; Mark is using BBK chrome shorties, not FFR 4 into 4 headers.

Jeff

[edwardb]

John & Paul,
Wrong assumption; Mark is using BBK chrome shorties, not FFR 4 into 4 headers.

Jeff

Well there you go. You know what they say about assumptions. :(

[GWL]

I say yes.

You might consider the Ford Performance shorty headers. They are Stainless Steel and then Ceramic coated. Stainless has the lowest coefficient of heat dissipation of all the metals, add to that the ceramic coating and you have much better heat control of your exhaust heat.

The only problem with them is because they are put on backwards there is a bit of interference with the passenger side shorty headers and the engine mount. I took a hard body plastic hammer and reshaped the tube that interfered a bit. It was quite easy to do and did not require much hammering.

Just did a search and cannot find them anymore.

George

[steno]

Just as George said!!