Exhaust coatings...

[Andy Bettencourt]

I have a one-off header for my Miata getting built now and once it gets to me, I want it coated. A few options I have are:

Jet Hot Coatings (http://www.jet-hot.com/Pages/coatings.html)

and

Swain Tech Coatings (http://www.swaintech.com/header.html#price)

and

HPC HiPercoating (http://www.hpcoatings.com/hipercoat.htm)

There are others but these are the 'big' names I knew off the top of my head...any idea whose is best or can you throw a blanket over all of them?

AB

[MMiskoe]

From what I've been told, Airborne Coatings down in CT is one of the pioneers in this stuff.

Certainly another one to consider, especially w/ your location. They are outside of Hartford. I had my Nissan done w/ it and I have no complaints about it. I have nothing to compare to however.

Matt

[joeg]

I would say that they are all fairly equal; try and save on shipping.

I have had a Jet Coated header for about ten years.

[Geo]

Swaintech.

I use Swain for all my coatings. Dan Swain is actually one of the true pioneers in this stuff. He's been doing it for over 30 years. Swain makes all their own coatings rather than using someone else's off the shelf coating. Dan is a ceramics engineer.

Swain's is the only true thermal barrier coating for headers. Most are just ceramic paint. Swain's OTOH is very thick. It's also paintable. I have an SE-R header I had coated by Swain a few years back that I painted.

Here's a couple of stories about their coating:

1) Swain has an underground locomotive client who needed to lower their manifold surface temps from 975* to 425*. The client tried all the typical coating companies and the best they could get was around 775*. Swain's first attempt they hit 475*. On the second attempt they applied it a little thicker and nailed the 425*. That's a huge difference from the other coatings.

2) I had Swain coat the manifold, turbine housing, and j-pipe on my turbo G20. I had lower under hood temps with this than I did when it was NA with a header with a conventional coating. No lie. The stuff is amazing.

When you see ads for the typical coatings they will tell you that it's good for up to some temp. All they are telling you is at what temp it will flake off. Notice they say NOTHING about lowering temps.

[stevel]

Airborne Coatings in CT does very nice work. More than just a ceramic paint and they are coated inside and out. A lot of well known header builders use them. And since they're local (for me) I would rather give the business to them.

I've seen a lot of JET HOT coated headers that end up with the coating flaking off. They will recoat it for free as per there guarantee but it's such a PITA to do. I would just rather go with another company where the coating isn't going to flake.

steve

[Geo]

Originally posted by stevel@Nov 14 2005, 11:18 AM
Airborne Coatings in CT does very nice work. More than just a ceramic paint and they are coated inside and out. A lot of well known header builders use them.

65329


Not much more than ceramic-aluminum paint.

From a performance standpoint, I'll stand by my statements. I'm familiar with Airborne and with Swain.

Andy, call Swain and ask to talk with Dan or Richard. Tell them I sent you. You'll probably have to jog their memory - tell them I'm the guy who did the turbo G20 article for Sport Compact Car.

[Bill Miller]

George,

When you say that the Swain stuff is thick, just how thick are we talking about? It's my understanding that, whichever coating that you use, you want the inside of the tubes coated, as well as the outside. This will help delay (or prevent) the crystalization of the metal. If the Swain stuff is that thick, how much is it reducing the ID of the tubes?

[Geo]

Originally posted by Bill Miller@Nov 14 2005, 12:01 PM
George,

When you say that the Swain stuff is thick, just how thick are we talking about? It's my understanding that, whichever coating that you use, you want the inside of the tubes coated, as well as the outside. This will help delay (or prevent) the crystalization of the metal. If the Swain stuff is that thick, how much is it reducing the ID of the tubes?

65338


Swain only coats the outside. You wouldn't want their coating on the inside. It's not only thick, it's rough as well. I don't remember the thickness, but it's obvious at the edges of mounting surfaces.

The bottom line is, if you want a coating for increaed heat retention to promote scavenging, this the stuff.

[AntonioGG]

Originally posted by Geo@Nov 14 2005, 08:30 PM
Swain only coats the outside. You wouldn't want their coating on the inside. It's not only thick, it's rough as well. I don't remember the thickness, but it's obvious at the edges of mounting surfaces.

The bottom line is, if you want a coating for increaed heat retention to promote scavenging, this the stuff.

65345


Their website mentions they do 0.015" thickness while most other people just do paint type stuff at 0.002"

[Spinnetti]

Originally posted by stevel@Nov 14 2005, 06:18 PM
Airborne Coatings in CT does very nice work. More than just a ceramic paint and they are coated inside and out. A lot of well known header builders use them. And since they're local (for me) I would rather give the business to them.

I've seen a lot of JET HOT coated headers that end up with the coating flaking off. They will recoat it for free as per there guarantee but it's such a PITA to do. I would just rather go with another company where the coating isn't going to flake.

steve

65329


I was happy with Jet Hot, but mine flaked of on the #1 pipe. After a good discussion with the HPC guys, I learned that the nice looking stuff looks nice because its aluminum flake - useless for the purpose of heat retention. You need the ugly rough stuff. Also, don't do the inside as it traps the heat between the layers eating up the steel. They also say don't wrap it after coating (which i was going to do). Best seems to be use stainless pipe and only coat the outside.