Ceramic coating of exhaust manifold

[RichardHawkins]

I intend to have my tubular mild steel exhaust manifold ceramic coated, and would like some advice.

Has anyone done this?

Are there any companies to avoid?

Are Zircotec worth the money?

What colour should I choose?


Richard Hawkins

[Grizzly]

I have a Zircotec ceramic manifold on my Elan and really rate it.

I've seen Zircotec and Camcoat ceramic coatings, the Zircotec coating appears thicker and a rough mat finish where as the Camcoat looked smooth and semi gloss ..... regarding heat the Zircotec wins hands down (the one thing that really becomes obvious is how much radiant heat the Zircotec removes, i can comfortable hold my hand 10mm away from the manifold) but the big downfall of Zircotec is it's twice the price.

Even though the white Zircotec coating works really well it can get grubby quite easy, that said it has a self cleaning property to it and things like grubby finger prints vanish after a run. I quite like the Performance white manifold as my car is white and i belive it has the best thermal performance but knowing how much it costs i'd be tempted to go with a darker colour if i was doing it again......

[Mazzini]

That's really interesting, I had a Zircotec coating on the TTR manifold on my S2, it didn't seem to do anything at all, but perhaps that was down to the way the manifold was routed, it put heat into places where is shouldn't have been, after a short run the heat from one of the exhaust pipes melted the headlamp vacuum pipe! I ended up binding the manifold with heat wrap, that really worked well. Since then I've decided to rebuild the car as standard with the cast manifold.

[Grizzly]

What i found was the surface temp of the manifold dropped by around 25% ish but the thing that i noticed most was the lack of radiation in the surrounding area, i have a couple of nasty burns to show the surface is still very hot but i can get my hand surprisingly close to it. For mine to melt something it would have to be virtually touching the manifold.

[1owner69Elan]

Had ceramic coating professionally applied by JetHot. Have to ship your parts to them for application. May be a US only product. Don't know.

The coating was done on both the internal and external surfaces. (A little reading seems to indicate that Zircotec apparently only does external surfaces ?)

Looks good. Has held up so far. Has a lifetime guarantee - will recoat if it fails.

Lots of colors available, I went with a satin black.

Haven't scientifically determined heat reduction, but their claims seem plausible:

https://www.jet-hot.com/

(no affiliation, just a satisfied customer, so far).
.

[prezoom]

I chose titanium for my color. Looks almost like the color of the tubing before it starts to rust, etc.

[Mazzini]

Zircotek black looked shabby on my exhaust after a few hundred miles, probably graphite would have been a better choice.

[crannyr]

I have used JetHot on all of my 4 restorations and our race car. Both interior and exterior coatings hold up well with significantly lower under bonnet heat.

[nmauduit]

interesting thread, thank you : I've used wrap and found the result good in terms of under bonnet temperature control, but it's also quite fragile, and after taking the head out some chunks are missing and will need patching. I have a TTR header and the space is limited to access the fasteners, resulting in crushing the wrap fibers when bolting or unbolting the manifold. I'd rather go for a coating for my next project, esp. if it isolates as well as the wrap.

[rgh0]

I have used both ceramic coating and wrap on my Elans headers. The ceramic coating especially the metallic finishes looks better than the colored finishes as it does not pick up dirt marks the same and it lasts longer than wrap which gets damaged as you work on the engine. If its done on both inside and outside it also stops corrosion on mild steel headers so they last longer.

The ceramic coatings maybe stop half the heat that wrap does so I have used heat shielding on the fibreglass foot well, firewall and bonnet that surround the header and on the wires and pipes close to the header, this was not necessary with wrap.

Having tried both for about 10 years each in the last 20 years i will probably stick with ceramic coatings.

cheers
Rohan

[69S4]

Are these coatings fragile? Do they chip easily? Anything including the word ceramic in its description makes me think the wrestling match that is removing / replacing the manifolds, where the two halves are banged again each or the 'chassis', would end up with lumps missing by the time you got them out.

[rgh0]

The colored ceramic coatings are softer than the metallic coating and scratch easier but neither a really brittle and they do not chip off with normal handling. However both are much tougher than wrap.

cheers
Rohan

[69S4]

Thanks for that. I've been toying with getting my pipes coated as I liked the effect of wrap but not its downsides. I just had visions of being seduced by the prospect of less heat only to find that it introduced a degree of fragility that's not there with the raw metal.

[RichardHawkins]

Thanks everyone, it looks like Zircotec despite the price.

Richard Hawkins

[Davidb]

I went with a local company called Kool Coat Ceramic coating and had them done in black. After 5000 miles I can say there is no problem with heat although I did stick heat reflective coating to the side of the pedal box (l/h drive). There is no noticeable heat radiating into the foot well and the finish seems the same as when I had it done. The person at Kool Coat when I asked about coating the inside said "I cannot state that the inside gets properly coated and I don't believe anyone else can so I don't do it!" He charged $180Can which is about 100 quid.
I have previously used header wrap and was never satisfied with it and was always concerned that it is a fire risk. These engines leak oil and the oil seems to gather on the exhaust wrap and that is a cause for concern I think.