I just wanted to show all of you an example of what my header looks like after it was coated by HPC Coatings. The process took ~2 weeks total, which includes me shipping the header to them. The normal charge is $155 to have the header coated, there was an additional charge for them to strip the header as their product wont stick to the carbon of the exhaust $20, normal headersare fine, however the HyTech is ~8.5" longer than a standard header, so I incurred an additional $20 charge for having a "four cylinder race header" and shipping was $20.

My reasons to use HPC Coatings is because they are the original coating company which was started by an engineer, they produce all of their coatings in house, they have excellent customer servce, I had spoken with them at SEMA 2000, and IAS 2001, their work has a lifetime warranty, within 3 years free recoat, after 3 years 50% charge...and after all of this reseach into the company, it also happened to be the same company that John at HyTech recommended.
Austin

Packaging...






Before coating...


After coating...




Before coating...


After coating...


Pics of the interior of the header tubes...


And here are HPC's way of taging the products that they coat.






[Modified by Austin, 12:05 AM 4/24/2002]

 

That looks like a whole world of difference.

 

i thought that coating the hytech manifold was not recommended? also your manifold looks used, if it is, why fdid you decided to coat the manifold?

 

looks good!!

 

John used to coat all of his manifolds to help with heat retention, that's before he switched to 304 stainless which has better heat retention properties than the Stainless Steel that he used before.

John and I spoke about it a couple of times and he did not seem to think that there would be an adverse effect to coating the header, more likely is that I would have positive benefits from the decreased under hood temperature, and the increased heat retention would increase the effieciency of the exhaust system. It was something that I wanted for my application, as I had some high under hood temperatres and needed to find a way to decrease them...coating seemed the only viable option, which also had the side benefit of increasing the effeciency of the exhaust.

 

haha that is way bling

le - who will have to seriously consider HPC when he is ready to coat some headers too

 

Wow, I wonder how long it would take to heat up the headers now. HyTech head takes forever to heat up and it cools down super fast as is. Great pics!

 

Looks Great!

 

AUSTIN

omg im so jealous

 

Looks awesome Bro!!!!!! I'll have to get John to send my header there also ...After the Mod's that he'll be doing to mine

 

WORD!

I've been telling people to coat their crap for y e a r s !

And, Yes, I will be coating mine - once I get a motor to put a header on!

 

.....looks like someone is having a little too much fun with their digi cam.

What? No molestor pics? Let me at that thing!

I decided not to coat my header this go-round... maybe next time.

John seemed to think I didn't really need it. Why didn't you go for the super duper effective black coating?

Ah well, some *bling* is good.....

Was grand total $215 then?

Also, for those concerned I believe the coating will reduce underhood temps, but actually keep the inside of the header HOTTER - so the header will heat up faster, and cool down faster, but it will also push hotter gasses while the car is on.

[edit] corrected mis-spelling of "bling" [/edit]


[Modified by Black R, 11:58 AM 4/24/2002]

 

Yes, I've been having fun with someone's borrowed digital camera, thanks IGGY

I decided to coat the header with the polished look(HiPerCoat2) because I was a little vain, hell I spent $1300 on a header and I wanted it to look good damn it!!! The other reason is that I felt that I did not need to use their HiPerCoat Extreme coating is that the other coatings would be a little overkill for my application, if I was experiencing some extreme exhaust temperatures, similar to something that you would find in a forced induction engine, I would have coated the header with the HiPerCoat Extreme.

Grand total was $215 shipped back to me, my shipping was ~$15 to ship it out to them, but I didn't use a box that big, or as much packaging material.

Here are the benifits of coating a header, and I simply copied this text over from HPC Coatings:

This unique process reduces ambient under hood temperature while increasing horsepower. Performance benefits can be attributed to: combustion chamber stabilization and reduced under hood temperature due to the improved air density; increased gas velocity due to the heat retaining properties of the coating; and better laminar air flow due to the elimination of oxide scale on the header's inside diameter.

 

and Flossy is spelled with two s's?


good **** mang!

 

**BLING BLING**

looks good

 

yO - I'm having mine "Platinum-ized"
WORD!

oh snap... i forgot i don't even have a motor yet, nor a header. oh how i hate when that happens. Doh!

 

Hell, if you spend $1,300 on a header, it should at least come polished... .

Nice $1,515 header.

 

I believe the basic idea behind coating the header is that it helps contain heat and allows exhaust to escape faster (i.e. heat kept in, exhaust gas retains energy, blah blah blah, physics, you know the rest). Plus, probably keeps the engine bay cooler. IMO, that simple fact makes the coating worth it.

 

Hell yeah, it's a show car!

Austin, how much more would've the black coating been? I like the sleeper look.....

 

To my knowledge it would have been the same cost.

 

Props to them and you ; they did a good job, and you got a blingin' header !

 

NICE!

 

Lookin' good Austin... Lookin' good...

 

 

Austin,
The header looks good, You should take pics of yours next to Mannina's polished one! John did a helluva job polishing that one, it looks almost like it was chrome dipped.