Coat a new Stainless header?

[Famous Frank]

OK, I recently purchased a new Stainless Header, and I must say , they look terrific! I've never owned Stainless Headers before and as such, I always had my previous headers coated ( with the equivilent of a Jet Hot application ).

What happens to the look of Stainless Headers after being driven? Do they stay the same color? Do they turn blue? Black? Do you have a picture?

What are everyone's thoughts on having it coated? Will it increase HP or Torque?

[stugilmour]

I don't think I have a pic handy, but mine turned a sort of streaked grey blue with use, and did not look that great. I coated it in a nice silver colour. Looks way better and cooler too!

[mfast]

Who makes the header? Any pics?

[stugilmour]

Mine is from Dave Bean. I believe he has them in regular steel and stainless steel for extra cost. It is a two piece affair, 4 into 2 into 1 at a Y-pipe under the car. The two inside cylinders are one pipe, and the two outside cylinders are the second pipe. Uses four individual gaskets to the head. In order to fit it easier with body and engine in place the studs into the head are replaced with socket head (Allen type) fasteners, as some of the studs would require removal to fit the piece, and the studs located under the thermostat housing are difficult to access.

Here are pictures (of sorts) showing the header before and after ceramic coating. It fits OK in the Spyder frame without modification, but is a bear to remove and install with the body and engine in place. I understand from previous threads the stock Elan chassis may require some relieving to fit the header, but I do not recall needing this on my stock Plus 2 chassis.

I believe I only had the ceramic coating applied externally, although I understand others have had them coated internally as well.

HTH

PS for Randy (Sea Ranch) in BC (off topic, kind of promised some pics of blocks and jacks a while ago)...


Randy, you can see the blocks I made up for body removal and servicing the car. Two sets of four, one set is ~10 1/2" high and one set is ~6 1/2" high, and approx. 12" x 12" square. The four red platform screw jacks from Princess Auto and are listed for raising a motorcycle or ATV. Very good as they collapse to a very low profile, are large enough on their platform to lift the car from the floor of the body with 12" x 12" plywood pads, and have a relatively long raising height (12 1/2") compared to a hydraulic jack. They are temporarily screwed down to the top blocks during this operation to provide stability to get the built-up frame under the body. Their capacity is 1000 lb each. At $99 each not a bad deal.

http://www.princessauto.com/workshop/ga ... e/atv-lift

[Famous Frank]

Stu, it looks great! That's what I purchased was a Dave Bean Stainless header. I'll take some close up pics. It comes with a nice long collector which should help midrange torque.

[Sea Ranch]

Yup, that's outstanding, Stu!

The header coating is an "aluminum" colour, right? Looks good. And those ATV/bike lifts are really neat. You feel fine about lifting a completed car from under the floor (with a square foot of load spread)? What do you use to turn the lift screw mechanism, other than by hand??

There's one thing I just don't understand, though: I looked carefully and I can't see a single drop of oil on that beautiful concrete driveway!?!?!?!?!?!? Explain, please

Randy

[gjz30075]

Looks great Stu. Does your 'before' shot of the headers have run time on them? I presume they do because they look dullish gray.

Greg Z

[stugilmour]

Looks great Stu. Does your 'before' shot of the headers have run time on them? I presume they do because they look dullish gray.

Greg Z

Yes the dull gray with blue and brown streaks 'before' pic is the result of about 500 miles of run time prior to tear down.

Yup, that's outstanding, Stu!

The header coating is an "aluminum" colour, right? Looks good. And those ATV/bike lifts are really neat. You feel fine about lifting a completed car from under the floor (with a square foot of load spread)? What do you use to turn the lift screw mechanism, other than by hand??

There's one thing I just don't understand, though: I looked carefully and I can't see a single drop of oil on that beautiful concrete driveway!?!?!?!?!?!? Explain, please

Randy

I think the ceramic coating colour was billed as 'silver', but it looks like aluminum. I think it has dulled down a bit in use, but the colour is even.

I used an impact air wrench to manipulate the jacks, but it wasn't kind to the precision Chinese bushings and grub screws in the mechanism. I found a hand crank handle more gentle and effective. I usually jack the car up on the front cross member or the rear wishbones using 3/4" plywood pads, but have found it OK to jack and support on the fibreglass floor if I need the wheels & suspension free. The platform jacks are great for this as they will collapse to only 2 1/2" high and fit under the car easily with an plywood pad.

Ah, the oil is there now! The pics are from before I used the car a lot. One thing great about the TC is it doesn't leak a lot after it sits for a week.

[Sea Ranch]

Right!! If we just didn't drive 'em, they wouldn't leak on us.

Thanks for the jacking tips, Stu. I just realized as I read your reply that one of these platform jacks would be perfect under the front cross member, too. Egg-cellent.

And now . . . back to regular programming: coating headers . . .

[bcmc33]

Frank,

I had my new stainless headers ceramic coated as it was said to reduce under hood temperature. However, I could not say I noticed any difference in temperature, but the gray color stayed unchanged.

Last week when looking for the source of an oil leak with the engine running at full temperature, I was being very careful not to touch the hot headers. Having found the oil leak I switched the engine off to let it cool down, and after a few minutes returned to remove the alternator - and accidentally touched a header pipe. To my surprise the pipe was only warm to the touch - and the rest of the engine and particularly the header nuts were still untouchably hot.

So with this experience, I concluded that the ceramic coating was effective.

[Famous Frank]

I know I owe everyone pics. I love pics too. But ever since I lost my camera at VIR (Virginia International Raceway) I have been amiss at that task. I'm working on it.

OK, I've decided to get the new headers coated. But before I do, I want to weld in bungs (spelling ???) so that in the future I can check my A/F (air to fuel ) ratio. Where should I weld them in, .......1) one single one at the end of the collector, or 2) two of them with one in each downpipe going toward the collector, or 3) four of them, with one in each pipe coming off the head?

I'm guessing one in each pipe would be best but it would loose some of the beauty of those wonderful headers. Two, with one in each down pipe is what I've leaning toward. And of course a single one in the collector end woul dbe the easiest and least expensive.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks, Frank

[stugilmour]

Frank, consider ground clearance at the Y pipe when deciding on the bung location. On my Plus 2 the Y pipe at the single pipe end seems to be where the pipe wants to scrape on speed bumps. Even 1/4" of extra stuff here could be very annoying. I have used hose clamps instead of a larger exhaust pipe clamps and raised the front spring perches to gain more clearance in this critical area. If you think a single bung would be OK, perhaps well aft of the Y pipe would be better and work the same? Might be a different scrape point with the Elan wheelbase and with the stock bell housing (I have the MT75 bell which is larger and may re-locate the exhaust pipe a bit).

HTH

[memini55]

Frank,

I swapped over to fuel injection and run a wide band O2. Since it is FI and all hits the same so no issue with one bung.
If you are running webers it would be more help to run four. Running two would make little sense to me since the two outside are combined and the two inside combined. Which if you think about it would match up to two different carbs and not be any more help than running one bung at the collector end.

Just my thoughts of course and stand to be corrected, as normal.

Mark

[bcmc33]

I tend to agree with Mark - it's either 4 or 1.

This is the standard I used for the Lambda sensor:

[Sea Ranch]

Plus, those sensors aren't too cheap, are they??

But with dual carbs, one for each carb's setup would be perfered, no?