So my friend and I were talking about cars today, and I told him that I'd like to get hooker long tube headers for my car, because in my rebuild of the engine I'm gonna set the car up to have a lot of low end torque, and I figured long tubes would be the way to go, but I told him I thought they were too expensive. He said that he got long tubes for his truck for around $300 and saved a lot on the coating by getting them powdercoated. I always thought that that's what was meant by having headers that are coated, is headers coating different and if it is, would powdercoating be almost as good?

 

Usually headers are ceramic coated, and then polished to give them a chrome-like appearance. The ceramic coating is supposed to insulate the headers to keep the engine bay cooler and promote better exhaust flow. While powder coating would look good, I don't think it would offer the practical benefits of ceramic coating.

 

i powder coat almost everyday and in my experiance powdercoated headers will flake right off. to sure the power coating thye need to bakin in 400 degrees for a certain period of time. exhaust temps get around 1000-1350 degrees. if your buddy has them done and it stays on then yeah get it done if not get them jet hotted. mine are done in jet hot and no problems what so ever. it is expensive but its worth the money (to me anyways). also i bought the headmen long tubes and on jegs there only $135.00 that is just black though. i hope that helps and i hope that you can find a powder that holds up. it will be cheaper then some sort of coating. there is cermaic coating and jet hot, edelbrock has some sort of grey looking coating not sure what thats called so there is a lot of coating out there to choose from. chose what you like and what you can afford. hope all this helps you out.

 

I have to imagine powdercoating (like you see flaking off everyones Draw-Tite hitch) and the coating put on headers (ceramic) are two different animals.

I would choose to eliminate the coating step and just buy a good quality stainless header (SLP, etc...). I've read there are benefits to coating headers and so on, but I just use them to channel the exhaust out of the motor down to the cat and out to the muffler. Seems to work OK. None of my under-hood components have melted or anything.

If you are dead set on coating, the shop that does the work will answer your questions and set you up.

Best-
S-D

 

Wont longtubes give you more Horse than torque as compared to shorties?

 

powder coating will not stay on headers......we used super high temp industrial PC, and it still came off......it was done by a company that does powdercoating for the DOD for missle parts and what not too.....so don't bother with powder for headers lol

 

I was always told that long tube headers made more torque at low RPMs and shorties made more torque at high RPMs.

 

You have got that backwards....generaly speaking that is.There are alot of vareables involved.
I used some spray on high temp that had ceramic in it.You have to paint it and bake it on.I painted the headers let them dry for two days, installed them, warmed up the engine, cut it off and left the hood up,I started the car and let it set several times.This seemed to work preaty good....I removed them and sold them and never put any highway time on them,but the coating was in good shape.
Good luck,
Mike