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MarylandSpeed · 05-06-2010, 08:58 AM

The coating we do is all supercharged grade..and has a warranty against cracking, peeling, and all. It is durable enough that many tractor trailor companies are now using it on their smoke stacks since chrome is becoming an environmental no no. The coating itself is ceramic powder (think pottery) baked on the header. They then mix in silver and aluminum power and polish it to give it the chrome like appearance. The limiting factory on the coating is not how hot it can get before it fails..but more how much heat the silver power can take. For instance with extreme sterling silver we do on most headers, the coating is rated to 1700 degrees because that is where the aluminum in the coating starts to discolor. Even though the aluminum, which is just there for appearance is discolored, the coating itself can still do it's job for several hundred degrees higher. This is all kind of mute because the 1700 degree extreme sterling silver coating we sell is overkill for most cars. If your engine gets hot enough to damage the coating, you have worse issues to worry about than header coating.

That being said, the only issue I have seen (very rare) is the silver coating loses it's luster and turns a matte silver on the bends where there header primarys connect to the flange. This is normally the result of being run really lean at some point. One thing most people do not know is the coating does it's final curing during the first 20 minutes it run on the car. Basically, they cook it on at 400 degrees at the coater, and then when you first run the car, it gets to 700 or so degrees and does the final curing. Normally it is recommended that after you install coated headers you either run it down the highway for 20 minutes, or let it idle with fans over the engine for 20 minutes so the coating has consistant tempature to do it's final cure. The worst thing you can do is install headers and immidiatly throw the car on the dyno..this kind of shocks the coating and does not let it cure properly. The dyno is normally the hottest your car will ever get since it is going full blast, and because of the new headers is likely runing lean.

05-06-2010, 08:58 AM	#2
MarylandSpeed Account Suspended Drives: 2012 ZL1 & 2010 2SS/RS Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Maryland Posts: 3,378	The coating we do is all supercharged grade..and has a warranty against cracking, peeling, and all. It is durable enough that many tractor trailor companies are now using it on their smoke stacks since chrome is becoming an environmental no no. The coating itself is ceramic powder (think pottery) baked on the header. They then mix in silver and aluminum power and polish it to give it the chrome like appearance. The limiting factory on the coating is not how hot it can get before it fails..but more how much heat the silver power can take. For instance with extreme sterling silver we do on most headers, the coating is rated to 1700 degrees because that is where the aluminum in the coating starts to discolor. Even though the aluminum, which is just there for appearance is discolored, the coating itself can still do it's job for several hundred degrees higher. This is all kind of mute because the 1700 degree extreme sterling silver coating we sell is overkill for most cars. If your engine gets hot enough to damage the coating, you have worse issues to worry about than header coating. That being said, the only issue I have seen (very rare) is the silver coating loses it's luster and turns a matte silver on the bends where there header primarys connect to the flange. This is normally the result of being run really lean at some point. One thing most people do not know is the coating does it's final curing during the first 20 minutes it run on the car. Basically, they cook it on at 400 degrees at the coater, and then when you first run the car, it gets to 700 or so degrees and does the final curing. Normally it is recommended that after you install coated headers you either run it down the highway for 20 minutes, or let it idle with fans over the engine for 20 minutes so the coating has consistant tempature to do it's final cure. The worst thing you can do is install headers and immidiatly throw the car on the dyno..this kind of shocks the coating and does not let it cure properly. The dyno is normally the hottest your car will ever get since it is going full blast, and because of the new headers is likely runing lean.