painting headers?
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Lead Driver
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 6,335
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From: Midwest
painting headers?
a friend gave me a brand new set of flow tech headers for my truck. they are painted flat black. i am thinking it is the kind of paint that will burn off after the engine runs for awhile. Can I just paint over the black paint with a good quality heat paint or do I need to strip them down to bare metal? And what kind of paint will with stand exhaust heat? If I do need to strip them,what would be a good way to do it? I do not have access to a sand/bead blaster. thanks for any tips/ideas.
Elder User
Joined: Jan 2004
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From: houston
I would call the manufacturer and ask what type of paint they used. Some use the cheapest paint they can get, just to keep things from rusting. Others do use a hightemp paint. If you do need to strip them, I suggest having them dipped. This will get into all those tiny spaces. As for paint, VHT is a good choice but I'm sure others will be mentioned. Really saturate the area where the pipes enter the collector. Let the paint run down into that area between the pipes. One more thing to remember is that hightemp paint does not cure/dry hard until it has been heated up. It can be handled but it will nick and scratch easily. So try not to bang them around too much until you can get them hot. Good luck.
Posting Guru
Joined: Mar 2006
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From: Salmon Arm
even high temp paint will still burn off eventually will it not? your best option is to see if there is some sort of do it yourself ceramic or just see if you could send them off to be coated.mho
New User
Joined: Aug 2005
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I used Duplicolor, high heat ceramic paint. It has performed well. Any good ceramic will do fine, but it doesn't last forever. Some of the more exotic ceramics need to be heat set with cycles of heat-up & cool down. They don't seem to work any better. The one good thing I've found is that you can just re-apply if the coating burns off as long as there is no burned-on oil on the surface. I gave a can to my buddy for his headers. He has been real happy with the results>
