Id vote on HPC or Jethot.
2 of the biggest in the game from what I know of.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by itr206 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Id vote on HPC or Jethot.
2 of the biggest in the game from what I know of. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I have used Jethot twice before and it worked very well. They told me for a manifold (turbo mani that is) the 2000 coating was a must. I got mine done in black. It looked and worked great.

ITR,
what heat wrap did you use that it melted away? I guess I won't use the stuff I bought!

 

do you have a picture of it? did they coat inside and out? did you feel a noticeable difference? i was thinking of the HPC extreme.

both HPC and Jet Hot are in town, i guess we will have to go visit them

 

Vinny Ten used Swain Tech for a number of years and swore by it.

my .02 cents

 

I think Jethot is better way to go. They been around for a long time.

 

Jet hot sucked the times I used the ceramic coating, looked great when it showed up, did reduce heat under the hood.....till about 6 months later when the coating was flaking off and the headers rusted. This was on a semi-built 406ci chevy engine. Ordered another set and took pics of how nice the 6 month old ones were. I can dig up the pic if needed. From what i have seen (never used) I would go with swain tech. I'm going to go that way once i send mine out.

 

Im told SWAINTECH and HPC is the best.

 

This thread is overall lacking severly and is missing BASIC fundamentals which is covered in your early stages of science.

What is heat? In short it is energy. Now energy=good. Energy=The capacity for doing work.

What is the idea behind ceramic coating? To reduce the thermal conductivity of the product. What does that mean? Keep the heat in the manifold. Why do we want to keep the heat in the manifold, because heat=energy and energy=good thus saying heat=good. So what have we learned? Hot exhaust=high energy.

Now lets continue, with a higher thermal conductivity on the manifold its increasing the energy in the exhaust manifold by keeping the heat in, but its also keeping the heat out of the engine bay. Now that means you wont have some gigantic radiant heat source sitting in your engine bay.

So you mean ceramic coating increases the energy in the exhaust manifold and decreases the under the hood temps? Thats exactly what I mean!!!

Now lets cover more tech while I'm not banned.

Someone may say my engine bay is still much higher ambient temperature, hell its higher than my intake temps post intercooler! I cant really get more air into my bay without getting an ugly aftermarket hood or adding air dams which the police may not enjoy. What can I do?

Well there is one theory of thought which is inregards to intake piping. The idea is after the intercooler, your intake charges will be cool. Now if your engine bay is hotter than the intake charge, why would you want a heat exchange. Well there is going to be a build up of heat via the friction of the air passing over the pipe so you do want some heat transfer, but how much? Hell if i know is the answer, but not a whole lot is what one would assume. So whats the answer? The theory is run LOW thermal conducitivy piping post intercooler. This idea is the intake charge is as cool as its going to get because the heat transfer in the engine bay will just increase IATs and who wants that? So by running a LOW thermal conducitivy pipe you are keeping the transfer of air to a minimum. Now again, this is just a theory of thought because there has to be a build up of energy(which is heat remember) via the friction of the air traveling. Now is that heat/energy build up going to cause higher IATs than the air being transfered via using some pipe with a moderate thermal conducitivity? I dont know, im poor and lazy. Someone go test it.

I should state obviously it would be optimal to have under the hood temps that are lower than your IATs, then you can use a pipe with high thermal conductivity, and decrease the IATs further post intercooler. But with manifolds made out of material twice as thick as they need to be, you have a big radiant heat source, so you may need to run IC pipes POST intercooler that have a LOW thermal conductivity to keep IATs from rising.

Sorry for going off topic, felt the idea was worth touching on seeing that everyone is worried about their under the hood temps and the effects on the IATs.

To sum up what I said about ceramic coating. Ceramic coating is good because it keeps the energy going to the turbo vs being wasted away into your engine bay which will just make your IATs rise because your under the hood temps are so much significantly higher than the IATs.

1-2-3 BAN ME!

 

I have asked before but does anyone make a clear heatcoating?

 

Found some pics of my experiences with Jet-hot. One set is new, the other set is 6 months old....yes, 6 MONTHS OLD! i'm not a coating expert so i'll let you decide what happened here.

 

the little that i know.....ive heard that some coatings (have no ideas which ones, just what i heard) contain a chloride base which isnt something you dont really want to use with 300 series stainless.

a basic google definition why...im too lazy to summarize it google link
Chloride stress corrosion is a type of intergranular corrosion and occurs in austenitic stainless steel under tensile stress in the presence of oxygen, chloride ions, and high temperature.

so i emailed a couple companies that came to mind...here's what they said.

HPC
their coatings do not use a chloride base and are compatible with all 300 series stainless.

Swain Tech
states that their coatings are truely ceramic as opposed to other companies paint based coatings. their process involves a solid material that is fed through a gun melting the ceramic. the molten ceramic is then applied directly to the base metal.

they also state
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Our coating is the only true ceramic thermal barrier available. Everybody else applies paint based materials. That is why they talk about temperature ratings (paint burns up at elevated temperatures) and colors (pigments can be added to paint). Those coatings look nice and if a certain look is what you are after, they offer some attractive coatings.</TD></TR></TABLE>

more to come....still learning about this stuff

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LiTtOGPiMp &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

one of my good friends recommended me to go to them as well. he had his sti turbo coated by them and suggested i coat the exhaust side of my turbo. i'm not too sure what he had done exactly though. what did you have them do for you? and how long did they take to do yours? pricing?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I just had my turbo mani done, I think it was $100 including shipping back to me, and they turned it around in a couple days + a couple more for the return trip.


Modified by rhettster at 10:26 PM 8/18/2005

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Full-Race Javier &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the little that i know.....I've heard that some coatings (have no ideas which ones, just what i heard) contain a chloride base which isn't something you don't really want to use with 300 series stainless.

a basic google definition why...im too lazy to summarize it google link
Chloride stress corrosion is a type of intergranular corrosion and occurs in austenitic stainless steel under tensile stress in the presence of oxygen, chloride ions, and high temperature.

so i emailed a couple companies that came to mind...here's what they said.

HPC
their coatings do not use a chloride base and are compatible with all 300 series stainless.

Swain Tech
states that their coatings are truely ceramic as opposed to other companies paint based coatings. their process involves a solid material that is fed through a gun melting the ceramic. the molten ceramic is then applied directly to the base metal.

they also state


more to come....still learning about this stuff</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sounds like swain is using what is know as "Plasma" coating.. It's more expensive then the regular spray types.
I'll have to see what grade stainless Pratt uses on their jet engine combustion cases as we spay them every day with ceramic. If it would cause fatigue of the base material the military wouldn't do it..

 

But this does actually explain why we have to heat cylce /stress releive some stainless parts after we degrease them in out Triclorethene degreaser
Titanium is also a material that can embrittle when exposed to chlorinated solvents..

 

very informative thread

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tbone &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">But this does actually explain why we have to heat cylce /stress releive some stainless parts after we degrease them in out Triclorethene degreaser
Titanium is also a material that can embrittle when exposed to chlorinated solvents..</TD></TR></TABLE>

did not know this...good thing Im taking material science and thermal this term

 

heres mines, jet-hot

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ladysman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

ITR,
what heat wrap did you use that it melted away? I guess I won't use the stuff I bought! </TD></TR></TABLE>

It didnt melt away. It works very well. it just burns and smokes quite a bit for quite a while.
DEI was the brand

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by begwolf &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">This thread is overall lacking severly and is missing BASIC fundamentals which is covered in your early stages of science.

What is heat? In short it is energy. Now energy=good. Energy=The capacity for doing work.

What is the idea behind ceramic coating? To reduce the thermal conductivity of the product. What does that mean? Keep the heat in the manifold. Why do we want to keep the heat in the manifold, because heat=energy and energy=good thus saying heat=good. So what have we learned? Hot exhaust=high energy.

Now lets continue, with a higher thermal conductivity on the manifold its increasing the energy in the exhaust manifold by keeping the heat in, but its also keeping the heat out of the engine bay. Now that means you wont have some gigantic radiant heat source sitting in your engine bay.

So you mean ceramic coating increases the energy in the exhaust manifold and decreases the under the hood temps? Thats exactly what I mean!!!

Now lets cover more tech while I'm not banned.

Someone may say my engine bay is still much higher ambient temperature, hell its higher than my intake temps post intercooler! I cant really get more air into my bay without getting an ugly aftermarket hood or adding air dams which the police may not enjoy. What can I do?

Well there is one theory of thought which is inregards to intake piping. The idea is after the intercooler, your intake charges will be cool. Now if your engine bay is hotter than the intake charge, why would you want a heat exchange. Well there is going to be a build up of heat via the friction of the air passing over the pipe so you do want some heat transfer, but how much? Hell if i know is the answer, but not a whole lot is what one would assume. So whats the answer? The theory is run LOW thermal conducitivy piping post intercooler. This idea is the intake charge is as cool as its going to get because the heat transfer in the engine bay will just increase IATs and who wants that? So by running a LOW thermal conducitivy pipe you are keeping the transfer of air to a minimum. Now again, this is just a theory of thought because there has to be a build up of energy(which is heat remember) via the friction of the air traveling. Now is that heat/energy build up going to cause higher IATs than the air being transfered via using some pipe with a moderate thermal conducitivity? I dont know, im poor and lazy. Someone go test it.

I should state obviously it would be optimal to have under the hood temps that are lower than your IATs, then you can use a pipe with high thermal conductivity, and decrease the IATs further post intercooler. But with manifolds made out of material twice as thick as they need to be, you have a big radiant heat source, so you may need to run IC pipes POST intercooler that have a LOW thermal conductivity to keep IATs from rising.

Sorry for going off topic, felt the idea was worth touching on seeing that everyone is worried about their under the hood temps and the effects on the IATs.

To sum up what I said about ceramic coating. Ceramic coating is good because it keeps the energy going to the turbo vs being wasted away into your engine bay which will just make your IATs rise because your under the hood temps are so much significantly higher than the IATs.

1-2-3 BAN ME! </TD></TR></TABLE>

That was covered on the first page of the thread.

 

Okay, what do you want to know about coatings? I don't think we can spend that much time on it. Let's just say that in racing, you should be looking for thousandths of a second. Coatings can help you get there in that performance coatings are designed to reduce heat and fatigue that leads to catastrophic engine failure. Ceramic coatings on headers, intakes, turbo components reduce underhood temps. Ceramic coatings on piston tops reduce heat migration through the piston into the crankcase. Friction reducing coatings on bearings and piston skirts reduce friction coefficient thus reducing temps. Oil shedding coatings on the crank and rods reduce parasitic drag on the rotating assembly. Oil shedding coating in the oil pan, windage tray, and scrapers increase oil flow back to the pump.

You also have to figure the cost of replacement parts if you have a catastrophic failure. It' like the old "pay me now or pay me later" addage.

I will be glad to send literature to any and all that respond. I can be reached here on this site, at dadams@calicocoatings.com, or 704-483-2202 X-1111.

 

we understand the sales pitch, but what i know i am looking for is a reason why yours are the best.

what are yours made of?
what are the others made of?
how are your caotings applied
how are their coatings applied


thanks so much for joinging this thread. Whoever can provide a good service at a good price will get more business than they know what do with from this site.

 

IMO swain tech is the best. They even do piston skirts.

This is a really great thread, and Mase was wondering where all the good tech discussion went!!

 

As promised Geoff. Keep in mind nothing is proof read

* What's Swain Tech's turnaround time?

Typical turn time for internal engine parts is about 1 1/2 weeks give or take a few days. It is closer to 2 weeks give or take a few days for exhaust parts.

* Is there an advantage to using Swain Tech's coating over another company's coating?

Swain Tech was founded by Dan Swain, a ceramic engineer and at the time of our inception, a NASCAR asphalt modified racer. Our coatings were developed by Dan as he used his ceramic engineering education and applied it to his race team. Early versions of the coatings were developed in the early 1970's. In 1973, Dan took his internal engine coatings to NASCAR country and worked with Junior Johnson and other leading crew chiefs to perfect and prove the technology in the demanding Winston Cup series. Once the technology was perfected, Swain Tech Coatings was established.

As the 1980's got under way and Swain Tech gained acceptance of this type of technology, there were companies such as HPC and Jet Hot that came onto the scene. When they first started, those guys would go around to trade shows selling their exhaust coatings as good looking corrosion resistant coatings and they were correct. Over the years we have recommended many people to Jet Hot if they were looking for that shiny look. Where I get disappointed in those companies is somewhere in the late 1980's those same coatings that were formerly sold as corrosion resistant and cosmetic coatings were now being sold as "thermal barrier coatings". In the 1990's we would see basically a copy of our advertisement, but with their names on it claiming a slightly higher radiant heat reduction than what we advertised. This disappointed us because both of those companies really do have good cosmetic coatings and those coatings are excellent for show cars, motorcycles or other applications where the shiny looks is the primary function of the coating. However, there is no way their thin, paint based exhaust coating can come anywhere near the heat insulation of our pure, thick ceramic exhaust coating. Those companies do have a good looking product that will offer some thermal insulation, but it really is a looks first coating.

What makes Swain different is that we are a true engineering company that offers hundreds of different coatings to help solve the problems of heat, friction, wear and corrosion. We do have our racing division where we deal with pistons, heads, bearings, headers, etc., but the bigger part of our company is our industrial division. We have ceramics, metals, carbides, polymers, organic, platings, metal conversions and many other techniques. There are other companies that talk about "industrial" coatings but when you look at what they are doing, they are using the same coating 3 or 4 coatings for every application that comes in their shop. We look at the specific challenge and then use our vast coating choices to engineer a specific answer for a specific need.

Another thing that makes us different is we have stayed with one location for our work instead of setting up regional shops. Though this may add a day or two in shipping, it has allowed us to maintain the critical quality control needed on precision high performance engine and exhaust parts. Cleaning, surface preparation and masking are almost as critical as the materials and application techniques used. We (the owners) feel strongly we want to be right here overseeing everything to be sure quality is where it needs to be. Ask around and you will find those companies that tried to regionalize have really struggled with quality. The work is tedious and painstaking and we feel it is critical that we are right here and part of the process to be sure we ship parts with the quality they should be.

* With turbo exhaust manifolds is it recommend to coat the inside, outside or both?

This question along with "What is the heat range of your coating" are two of the questions that came about due to the companies offering the paint based coatings. The most critical step in making a coating bond is applying a good abrasive blast to the substrate. This thoroughly cleans the surface and increases the surface area of the substrate to improve adhesion. There is no possible way to blast all the way through a header tube, a manifold, or a turbo housing. If that area cannot be blasted, there is no possible way a coating will permanently bond to the substrate.

The people like HPC and Jet Hot can get away with coating the inside because their coatings are based on very thin paint based materials. When the part comes back, it will look like it has a nice coating inside. However, since the inside cannot be thoroughly blasted there is no possible way the coating will actually stay bonded for much of any period of time. When those coatings come free, they are so thin (about .001" thick) they are not likely to damage turbo parts. I believe the two reasons those companies coat the inside are 1) it does look when the part comes back freshly coated in a shiny paint and 2) it is so much easier to coat all over the part than it is to take the time to mask off the inside to protect the internal surfaces from the blast to prep the part and the coating that is applied to the part.

Because we are applying a true ceramic, not a paint, we do not have the luxury of not taking the time to mask the part. Our ceramic is applied about .015" thick vs. .001" for the paint based stuff everybody else offers. There simply is not enough room for the coating in a turbo housing and the coating is thick and hard enough that it would likely damage the turbo if it came off from the inside of a turbo header or manifold. If a header or manifold is naturally aspirated, we will coat the inside as deep as possible, but any coating on the inside of a header or manifold will only be bonded about as deep as you eye can see and cannot wrap around corners or bends. When we can coat the inside of a naturally aspirated exhaust, it will offer some benefit but it will be a marginal gain because so little of the area will have a permanently bonded coating. What your eye can see would be coated and we could be like everybody else and claim it is "internally" coated, but we would be misleading to claim that.

* Is it true coating the inside of a turbo exhaust manifold creates an exogenric reaction of the heat (keeping the exhaust heat from radiating throughout the surface of the metal)?

Because so little of a manifold will have coating permanently bonded it is almost a moot point. Those applying the paint based coatings not only would have little permanently bonded coating, but they would have a coating that is so thin and has so little ceramic in it that it makes little difference in heat transfer.

* Is it true coating the outside of a turbo exhaust manifold helps keep the heat inside the turbo exhaust manifold?

The primary purpose of our coating is to keep heat inside of exhaust parts to keep exhaust gas velocities high and underhood temperatures low. This does keep more heat in the parts, but it will also move that heat more quickly through the parts. Also, the ceramic will spread the heat on the part much more evenly than a bare part would see heat distribution. This means areas that would typically be a hot or weak spot like the first bend coming off the exhaust port, a weld or collector area would actually have less stress on the base metal after it is coated, not more even though there will be higher temperatures inside the part.

The most challenging environment for exhaust parts that we see are not the latest turbo set ups, they are the vintage motor homes running big block V-8's. These motor homes have extremely limited air flow for cooling and are under heavy load at all times. It is unusual for these manifolds and headers to not be glowing red hot. We have a cult following with these folks because our coating is the only thing they have found that will reduce the heat cracking of their manifolds that occurs due to the extreme heat. We are only coating the outside of these manifolds and it typically extends the life from about 3,000 miles to 20,000 miles on their exhaust parts.

* Do coatings fade or flake off?

It would be unusual for an exhaust coating to flake off, but it could happen if the base metal expands more than what the coating can expand. That is why we chuckle when we are asked about "temperature ratings" for our coatings. Temperature ratings came from the paint based folks because their paint based materials would literally burn off at relatively low temperature for a performance exhaust and they put temperature ratings on them to help give them an out if somebody burned the coating off. With a true ceramic like we apply, the melting point is over 3,000 degrees F, but we do not advertise that because it does not mean anything practically to users of the coating. Does that mean somebody can run EGT's of 3,000 degrees? Can any motor be anything other than a solid chunk of aluminum an metal if it is close to 3,000 degrees?

The truth is if an exhaust part is at or close to the point where it glows it is possible that the outermost layer of our multi layer coating can fracture because it simply cannot expand and contract as much as the base metal does when it starts to glow. Two things to remember here are 1) if it is hot enough to fracture our outermost layer of coating, any other material would have been long gone by that time, including wraps and 2) Even if the outermost layer was fractured, there is still about .010" of bonding and a mixture of bonding coating and ceramic that is still on the part offering thermal insulation superior to any other coating.

It is unusual for any cracking or peeling to occur, but in the case where the parts glow, you can see some of that occur on the outermost layer of even our coating. Those who have tried coatings can attest to the fact that the paint based coatings would literally be gone in that type of situation and our coating could fracture, but would still have plenty of good insulating material left.

* Would coating the inside of a turbocharger's turbine housing throw off tolerances?

See above.

 

My turn around time for pistons is usually 3 days or less and 4 for manifold for reference.
As far as coating the inside of mani's go, you blast what you can see and about as far as the grit will travel, the same goes for when you spray the inside, so the paint is only going to go as far as your blast did(even a little less) therefore there will be adheasion on all the paint thats sprayed in. The only way to coat all the way through is to sponge it, and I think swain is forgetting that there are ways to scuff the inside of the tubes if grit blast isnt possible. It's just way to time consuming and not cost effective..
When I do turbo mani's and housings its only .001-.0018 thick and wont affect the tubine to housing clearance(or at least hasent yet).


Full Race, unless you want to pay through the nose for specialized aerospace type coatings for your manifold, your going to get pretty close to the same thing from all of us. The difference between your choices is going to be who has the best quality controll .

 

Bla bla bla... Swain tech makes there own coatings I think some of you should know that.