Hello there. I have been working on a project of mine and what interests me are some sport headers for my supercharger project.
I would we wanting to have them white and paint them with thermal ceramic coat. Do you have any experience with it?
All info is well seen.

 

I've painted headers with VHT 2000 degree spray 'ceramic paint'. I used matte black. You can get white, blue, gray, or silver. The spray painting is easy, then after a day, you can bake them in your kitchen oven for 3 hours at increasing temperatures to cure the coating. Looks great, but the coating is easily scratched from wrenches and the concrete floor.

 

How does it isolate the heat?
Does it do any isolation, or is it just for looks?

 

The VHT (very high temp) ceramic paint coating doesn't claim to provide any insulation. And if they did claim that it insulated the headers, I would seriously doubt that claim. That said, if the aluminum colored coating actually contains aluminum, then it would reduce the heat emissivity (radiant heat from the headers). Aluminum has low heat emissivity - even if it's just a thin coating.

 

Coating manifolds is hit or miss. Some coatings work, cure properly, etc, but most are fragile, scratch, flake, etc. If you feel it is necessary do it, but just understand that it will come off at some point.

 

The idea behind ceramic coating is that the ceramic particles create a heat shield and retain heat in the pipes better than if they were not coated. The results are never huge (you get more heat-retention with exhaust wrap), but it does look nice. As others have mentioned - be aware that the ceramic coating does scratch easily. You also need to bake the pieces to cure the paint, otherwise it tends to flake off.
If you find a shop that does coating, they often do the process similar to powder-coating and will apply a thicker, more durable coating compared to do-it-yourself can methods.

 

Swain tech does a great high temp coating. Make sure they are baked on by the coating company ... if they aren't its not a top quality company. True Ceramic coating makes a MASSIVE difference in engine bay heat temps. You will usually drop temps down by a good 70-80% to ambient temp.

Its worth every penny if you have enough pennies.

 

+1,000,000! We highly recommend SwainTech, we use them for any and all types of ceramic coating that we do!

 

Can anybody comment on the cost of a set of 997tt headers and maybe even the CAT pipe too?

 

Cost me about $250 to have my headers coated.

 

I have had great success with ceramic coating of headers, and even turbo exhaust housings. The key is having both the exterior and interior of the header coated to retain the most heat (thermal energy) within the collector to improve scavenging of exhaust gasses for additional power. Not to mention much cooler under hood temperatures! On a turbocharged application, by retaining this thermal energy it will drive the turbine much quicker and reduce turbo lag.

This picture shows a Bisimoto Porsche project with a near polished finish ceramic coatings on the exhaust manifolds and a grey finish ceramic coatings on turbo exhaust housings to give a bit of contrast, while retaining the thermal energy efficiently.

 

It has been discussed many times that you never want to coat the inside of the headers for fear of some of the coating coming loose and destroying the Turbo's. Can you tell me more on who or what you use that will not flake?

I had my headers done by Jet-Hot and had only the outside done. I'm very happy with the Jet-Hot work.

 

We have had great success with the ceramic coatings process that our partnering company provides, without any issues of flaking. A few of our projects have gone years of harsh track/street use and the coatings stay put.

- Julio A.