ceramic header paint

[fordman]

i saw some in autozone last night. they had orange or blue in a spray can. they made others but az didnt have those colors on the shelf. is the spray can stuff any good? is that how it all comes? i though you brushed it on.

[cdeal28078]

When I bought the Hedmans for my 460 I stripped off the stock paint and bought the stuff from Autozone. I also bought the primer that goes with it. I am fairly happy with it. It has been about 2 years now and there is very little rust. Most of that is at the joints where the pipes connect to the flange. That might be pore prep. on my part though.
I honestly figured the paint would burn off as soon as it got hot but it didn't. I know it's no where as good as the real stuff but has kept my headers from rusting apart in the 1st two years
clint

[TNIceWolf]

When I had my exhaust manifolds machined and blasted I coated them with several coats of a VHT ceramic paint. I laid down a couple of coats of flat black as a primer and then three coats of the aluminum color. It took them a long time to cure without being on a running engine and I still dont have my engine work finished yet. But what I can say for sure already just handling the parts is that it is a really tough coating now that it has had time to cure. I am sure once I apply heat to it that the components in the paint will combine as intended and give some pretty good long lasting results.

[JMcTurnan]

The stuff is junk, I cleaned off my cast headers with wire brush really well. Painted, done many coats. Does not last worth a ****. I paid like 9 bucks a can.

[fordman]

is all o fit spray on? or does soem of it come as a brush on? i have no idea myself.

[DuckRyder]

POR15 and probably Eastwood make brush on.

As with any paint it is all in the prep, if it is absolutely free of old paint, rust and oil/grease it works reasonably well.

[cdeal28078]

The stuff is junk, I cleaned off my cast headers with wire brush really well. Painted, done many coats. Does not last worth a ****. I paid like 9 bucks a can.

All I can go by is personal experience. I took a long time making sure all of the stock coating was off of the headers. Cleaned them very well after that. Put on several costs of the primer allowing time to cure between coats. Followed the directions to the letter. It has been at least 2 years now since I did it and like I said there is very little rust and only in the areas that was the hardest to get clean. Maybe you should have used a TACT cloth. Or maybe it was that you were using old cast iron manifolds that would be pretty hard to get clean enough without some kind of abrasive blasting?
clint