WHICH WOULD YOU BUY AND WHY.
PROS AND CONS OF BOTH. THANKS

 

im buying and rmf and i dont know which to buy. i realy want the stainless. they look better i think and the coated ones are not coated on the inside so after time moisture will rust out the inside wont it? thanks everyone

 

aren't the coated headers just to protect it from the elements or am i thinking all wrong?

 

i have a coated header if i were to do it again i get a stainless.
after one winter the ***** rusted aready.

 

wouldn't it make a difference what quality of coated header you had on there? Is yours good or cheap?

d

 

The header is coated on both the inside and the outside. You left out a third choice in your poll; stainless AND coated. Coatings that provide thermal barrier protection also provide protection from the elements. Plus you will decrease under-the-hood temperatures as an added bonus. HPC Coatings...

 

I used a high temp powder coat on my headers and I noticed a large improvement in under the hood temperatures. It also looks great

 

i have seen both ceramic and stainless rust after 6 mos,

 

youre talking about a 300 dollar price difference too jason. 1k for a header is hella money. Im getting coated mild steel for sure

 

so does stainless rust or not?

 

a friend of mine boughr dc sport 4-2-1 stainless headers and within 6 mos. he had rust spots on it. it looked like surface rust, but rust none the less. i am not saying that they all rust, maybe he got a bad batch. i wanted stainless but they wernt aval. at the time so i got ceramic dc 4-1 headers about a year ago and dont have any rust on them but i have seen the same ones i have with rust on them same as the stainless ones.

 

DC stainless headers hold up very well. I have had mine since last summer and it has been beat up quite a bit because of how low my car is. Needless to say I see no rust on it.

 

Stainless for me

No fuss, no rust

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 93gsrcoupe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">DC stainless headers hold up very well. I have had mine since last summer and it has been beat up quite a bit because of how low my car is. Needless to say I see no rust on it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Glad to see you have had luck with a DC header. Personally I have never seen one DC header, stainless or coated hold up for very long. I had one a long, long time ago and it was showing sings of rust within 2 months. The coated DC headers last around 3 or 4 months before they start rusting and the S.S. ones might last 6-9 month. DC = **** in my book.

 

Stainless does rust, but generally only on the surface.

And a coated stainless steel header is the way to go.

 

jason sucks

but i ran a coated header and never had ANY rust problems...just had problems of it not falling apart (AN-R)

 

Coated Stainless is the way to go. If you're getting an off the shelf header like a DC, don't waste your money and spend the extra hundred on a stainless. The coated are usually a very cheap mild steel that's proned to cracking after time.

Stainless is far superior in bling and strength even though I've seen stainless steel top speed headers crack.

 

I got my header coated by jet hot over a year ago and I have had absolutely NO problems with it. After my car has been sitting for less than an hour, my valve cover is plenty hot but my headers are already cool. It is coated inside and out by the way.

 

True stainless steel will not rust. Cheap stainless, its a different alloy will.

 

Stainless gets my vote. Too many stories about ceramic cracking.

 

Coated "stainless" header for me. I want to keep heat in the header, as well as strength to prevent cracks. I will have a Hytech coated by PolyDyn.

 

i have a 4-1 jdm dc

stainless... well, most of it!!

the flange is rusting, but my primaries, are RUST FREE come on stainless dont rust. but it might corrode..

 

doesnt matter how good the stainless is..it will rust at the welds no matter what.

 

If both the welds and the tubing are good quality stainless steel they shouldn't rust.

Cheap stainless doesn't have enough chromium mixed in there (I don't remember how much is the minimum though). Basically what happens with stainless is that the chromium oxydises first, it forms a real thin coat that then stops further oxydation. But of course to get that protective property you need a certain concentration of chromium or else iron oxydation eventually happens

 

All coated headers will eventually rust...I dont care what the coater tells you.. If they say they wont then tell them you want to see their salt spray analysis reports . Now some do last longer than others, but they will break down after time.. Coating the insides of headers is vey tricky and you will never get the controlled coverage you get on the exterior.. Make sure whoever does coat them , coats the insides though..
I run mild steel coated on my crx btw..