i bought a set of pacesetter midlength headers from ebay and then just sanded them down cause the paint they come with pretty much peels off after a few hundred miles of driving...


sanded them down to the metal, then i got high temp (1200 degrees) ceramic primer from autozone. put two coats on.

then i put it in the oven for 4 hours at 400 degrees...

NOTE: if you put them in the oven, make sure you do it in the garage or you have all the windows open cause it will have a very annoying smell...

then, i let it cool down and put high temp flat black paint on it...


the paint and primer cost me $12...and saved me $150...


one can of paint and one can of primer is enough for two coats for headers and y-pipe.

 

wow nice job. do you have any pics?

 

sorry, i'm still slow about pics, so i don't have any.


i should've taken pics of every step of the process...


once it was done, the finished product didn't LOOK any different than just a normal set of coated headers.


i figured it's a nice way of saving $150 and still getting the satisfaction of doing something yourself...


gotta tell ya though...the sanding takes about an hour...a dremel would definately help!!

 

I had a friend who tried this and the paint only lasted about a month and then began to flake off. It was high temp paint. Plus, I think the exhaust can get hotter than 1200 degrees and thats why it began to flake. Good luck thou

PS:I am not sure but I think it is unsafe to cook food in that oven now, I know that is the case when you put powder coat in an oven.

 

um.. did you bake it in a kitchen oven? or a industrial type?

 

just a regular oven...then i put the oven on 550 degrees to get rid of the smell

 

How did you coat the inside of the tubes with ceramic coating?

 

lol, inside? oh my, i guess i solved an equation without knowing all the variables...

what would we do without you, fred?!

 

One of the mags used this stuff from POR and said the had good luck with it.
http://www.por15.com/prodinfo.asp?grp=FMG&dept=8

It also comes in aluminum
http://www.por15.com/prodinfo.asp?grp=P2&dept=8

I haven't tried it, but will when I need to. Whatever Mac used on their headers is holding up great though.

 

what to do about the inside though?

 

This is the best and only paint to use on exhaust headers and pipes. It is the next best thing to ceramic coating. I painted my "test pipe" and catalytic converter with the POR20 high temp paint, it stayed on.

 

Leave it alone. This paint won't retain heat like ceramic will so it shouldn't burn out. As far as rusting, it'll have enough carbon build up to help with that.

If you're worried about rust then get stainless.

 

I recently did something very similar. Bought black painted headers and sand blasted them down to metal. Had a local company ceramic coat them silver ($125). The siver comes out very grayish and almost flat looking. They said the silver color coating had to be scotch-brited or sand blasted on very low psi (~20ish). I took gray scotch brite pads and used them on the whole outside creating a beautiful polished finish or maybe more of a satin finish.

 

One of the benefits of purchasing powder coated headers is that the insides are powder coated. This not only helps to keep the heat contained, but also helps air flow as the powder coating fills in tiny cracks in the metal and smooths the walls air path.

 

When I finished the heads and cam on my LS1 everything came to a standstill as I waited for the $30 can of POR20 to be shipped to my house. I decided to keep my factory exhaust manifold so I blasted them clean and applied the paint. When I first started the engine the already dry paint really put out some gases as it did the final cure. Very unique paint with no signs of new rust. I'm pleased to see you give it a ....