Hey guys
Once again i'm in DIY land and I want to start coating my own headers. What do you guys think I need to get started? What tools work best and which company provides the best DIY coating? Any help would be more than awesome.

 

Eastwood has some decent stuff. Most home "jet hot" kits dont work very well but that eastwood manifold coating works fairly well..

 

I have some left over "ceramic" from several projects. I purchased my materials from columbia coatings.
I have a 2/3 full 8oz bottle that msrps for 35.95 will sell for $25 shipped, and a full never opened 20oz available as well. msrp 83.99, both are the "polished silver"
as seen here: http://www.columbiacoatings.com/category_s/1052.htm
pm me if interested

 

how does the coating hold up? if it works well I'm interested. Also, what other tools might I need for a "professional" outcome. I know I need a sandblaster but luckily I have a friend that works at Laron industries who can hook me up with that for free.

 

The coating is great, its not really a DIY grade or anything, this place just sells to pro's and the casual buyer. After blasting its important not to touch the bare metal at all with your skin, I used latex gloves to handle metal after. Simply spray on light even passes until covered, one coat is all you do. let dry over night, cures on car.
you apply this with a spray gun like this: http://www.harborfreight.com/air-tools/paint.html

 

Sweet, how do I spray the inside of the headers? Which one of those spray guns would work the best?

 

I never sprayed the insides more than what I could from the ends. It's really not needed

 

Coating in general is not needed. Coating on the inside is nice because it help prevent corrosion inside the pipes as well as keeping heat out of the metal.

 

I just coated my shorties with "techline's" satin black(BHK)......sandblasted with a harbor freight portable sandblaster, then cleaned with marine clean, then used metal prep and painted with a harbor freight HVLP touch up gun with a 1mm tip....came out great

 

How have they held up so far? plus I have another question. Has anybody heard of cerakote coatings? There is a place here in town that I found that uses there product for ceramic coating. Any thoughts?

 

Techline seems to be getting popular and I have heard it holds up well. I have specifically seen one account of the headers themselves 100 degrees cooler. Outside coat only. Eastwood makes and inside coat system for cheap.

 

Cerakote is just another name for a ceramic coating made by NIC Industries. That is I believe the same coating columbia coatings sells. It is a very good product. I use NIC and columbia for all my powder coating supplies I use. Keep in mind NIC has 2 versions of the cerakote 1 specific for firearms. I don't know if there is an actual difference though.

 

Only as good as the surface prep.

Sandblast the headers to clean bare steel, wipe with a oil grease remover, and a final wipe.