Im working on painting my car entirely, that includes the engine bay. So when I tore out my engine and all that goes with it, I took a look at my headers and it threw me back. I was like "DANG!" They were pretty nasty looking! But they have been on through daily driving for the past 6 years or so.

Since Im keeping them on the new engine I will be building, I figured I could give them a little touch up. Heres the pics...

Here is one done next to the other one that has been partially sanded. Yes partially. You should have seen it before! It was a nasty dull blue gray powdery finish and it had a lot of rust and mud baked on to it! Dont worry, I sanded it down even more than what you can see here in this pic prior to painting it.


Here is that second one after I sanded it all down and with the primer on it...


Here it is after the paint... Looks nice right?


And here is the pair all done...


As you can see, I used the rustoleum 2000 degree primer and paint spray cans and the job came out amazing!

So, not bad for about 6 hours of work and about 20 bucks!!!!

 

Very nice!

 

looks good!

 

Looks nice bro, i used the same remedy on my headers,but it was black paint

 

look nice, let us know how they hold up once there on the car

 

that paints gonna burn off bub, it burned off my stock manifolds for my v6... and off my firepit..

 

it always burns off unless you got double walled pipes and good ceramic coating inside and out.

 

Man I hope it doesnt burn off! That would suck! I love the way it looks now. Its not gunna be a daily driver tho. Just a weekend warrior when its done. You still think thats gunna happen under those conditions?!?!?!? 2000 degree paint??? Do any of you who have done this and had them burn off have any pics of the damage?

 

Same stuff was used on our headers by the PO.
He sanded them , metal prepped, then sprayed. He painted them 2 yrs b4 we got the car, we've driven it the last 3 summers. NOW I see a few areas deteriating, but I'm not in the painting mode just yet.

I did the same thing on my '74 Camaro Bigblock headers in '99, but it only lasted about a year of the 8 yrs of daily use except for late fall & all winter.

I've heard the paint should be cured b4 regular use.
To cure, let it run for 10-15 mins turn it off & let fully cool. Do it again.
After 2 or 3 cycles the paint *should* be fully cured.

Any one heard that or something similar??

Yours look nice! Good luck!

(edit)

Very light coat, let it dry, light coat, let it dry.
Thick // heavy coat will take longer to cure.

 

Hmmm.... what about throwing them in an oven? Say 450 degrees or so? I know that exhaust is higher than that (although Im not too sure of the number) but wouldnt that work about the same?????

 

No idea,
other than the female member of the group kickin your but for using her oven & smelling up the homestead!! LOL!!

Electric maybe, gas or propane may have some type of reaction, just guessing.

 

That's pretty irrelevant to anything.

The headers will reach full temp in minutes. That's all it usually take to know if the spray bomb paint will last or not.

Hate to be a downer but, specialty coatings are just that because they generally can't be put in a spray bomb.

 

Great point deadbird!!

I guess that's why jethot & other true ceramic // aluminum coating is priced like it is!!

 

Looks good but hate to say that its not going to last much longer than 20mins or so..

 

using just the 2000 paint i sand blasted them, painted them, and baked them and there is already a few spots where its coming up. :-(

 

That, and commercial vibratory polishers can cost up to around $12k depending on sise, plus the media, and labor to sandblast a crappy pair of rusty headers, clean, coat, cure. JetHot basically uses Cermakrome which, air cure kind of OD green and oven cures (500°F@1hr) to a chalky green/grey/clay color and is polished out in a vibratory polisher to become the 'chromish' look they are.

It's a lot of time, material, equipment and power (electricity) to apply a quality finish.

It's impossible to pack all that into a spray bomb and expect the same results.

You can generally expect about 3 mins of smoke, 2 minutes of cracking (after the smoke clears) and the rest of ownership to watching paint flaking off from looking at it wrong when you open the hood, from a spray bomb 'high temp' finish.

Flat colors always work better. Oddly, 98 cent walmart primer has held up better over any (gloss) 'high temp' paint I've seen used but, primer is mainly talc.

Maybe I did something wrong though and 85 will (hopefully) have better results.

 

I had some pretty good and durable results curing the paint in an industrial oven normally used to cure clay, using the VHT high temp paint.

Never used the rustleum product.

VHT gives the info that the paint must be cured in 3 cycles to become resilient.

First cycle is 30 minutes @ 250°F then cool for 30 minutes (this prevents the cracking later on as it gasses out the solvents rather then trapping them)
Then a 30 minute cycle @ 400°F and then cool down another 30 minutes
Last cycle is 30 minutes @ 650°F, then cool down.

I have not painted my own headers yet, but the ones I painted have been on a BMW for a few weeks now and still look quite good.
I do think that a high tech coating is more durable, but if $20 in paint, when done well, can look good for 3-4 years, that´s ok with me.

 

Well im going to read rustoleums can and see what they say or just check their website. Sorry to hose you guys like this but we are probably not going to know exactly how it turns out. Reason being, I am not going to put them on because they are going on a motor I barely started to build. It probably wont be ready for a few years! But I am going to try baking it on my own some time here soon unless Rustoleum recommends otherwise. So if thats the case, a few years from now, they make work perfectly! But we wont know if it was the baking process I will more than likely be using, or if it was the vast amount of time it had to cure!

 

Sandblasted mine, 400 grit scuff, rust prep zinc coated, sprayed with rustoleum black 2000deg.

Baked in the oven, 200 for 30min then cooled, 400 for 30min then cooled then 500-600 for 30 min then cooled. Some of the pain actually baked off, so I had to touch it up. Came out great, you can even wet sand them with 1000-1500 and polish em out to get a gloss like finish.

Baking is the key, if you didn't do it already its probably too late the paint has already cured. Metal becomes porous at high temperatures, doing this while the pain is still curing absorbes some pigment. Also allows the paint to become rigid and strong, which is why the directions on the can say to bake it on or off the car.

A few years! What small block will take you years to build, one that will utilize shorty style 1 5/8" headers?....

 

Here is my experience. I had a set of headers media blasted to bare metal, cleaned and prep then coated them in plasti-kotes high temp then installed them on the car a few weeks later (can says to heat cure them in a hour after coating or something i don't have the can handy to read it ) but it bubbled in a few spots but it still cured and was very durable i think it was a combination of rapid high heat and the fact your suppose to cure them in a certain time frame. I was somewhat disappointed but next round on some other parts i followed the instructions on the back on the can to a T and baked the parts and they never chip, bubbled, cracked etc id compare the durability to a true ceramic coat they even looked pretty nice too. I think as long as you follow the cans directions it will work just like they state on the can. after If you search on the web you'll find a lot different forums, post and threads regarding rattle can high temp and as far as i could compile baking parts is the the way to go.

 

Calyx works great on my old original iron log manifolds....LOL!

Can anyone here give me some advice on a good durable street header with ceramic coating for my L98 with a T-5?

 

it looks like you got the flowtech headers.i just got some ebay shorty stainless steel headers and they look just like the flow techs but better. cost 150 shipped. not bad at all and will work with you y pipe.ive tried using spray can crap and always ended up with crap results.so now its stainless steel time