I had a question regarding the various coatings offered nowdays for pipes. Do they hurt performance in any way or do bad things to the engine? I thought I read somewhere that coating your pipes can actually cause them to not cool as well and in turn do bad things to your engine? Is this true?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I am sure there will be lots of positive and negative arguments to ceramic coating pipes..

for the Trail Sled it would be a good addition IMPO.
Less Pipe Maintenece Longer Pipe Longevity "if yyou keep sleds around like me". They create a better Looking Engine Compartment. and they are like VFOCRE Reeds on a stock Motor No Performance Gains or Lost felt in the seat of the pants. Maybe sligtht improved throttle responce.. Once the pipes are hot and consiustent in temps

Never a problem with my 02 xcr 800 with HTG Pipes "Caoated" and Stock
Exhaust Can..

even my Old 87 indy 600 with Coated AAEN triples has been that way for
15 years and they still look good.. never a performance issue felt or lost..

I have a buddy that coats every pipe first thing on his new sleds. It looks awesome without those bulky heat sheilds.. :div20: .seems to hold up well year in year out. I probably should of done it to my sled since i have decided to keep it another year...but can't justify the cost.....guess i'll just spray it again with duplicolor high temp paint for another season.

I've bought precoated pipes before. This season I had my Fuse 6's entire system coated. Not for perf gains, but like Roger says.System stays looking good year after year, and for more consistent performance. Also on the Fuse 6 under certain conditions, the right foot can get pretty warm, from the muffler. Hoping the coating may help that a little?

I was thinking about jet hot coating and I just wanted to make sure before I did it that it would be worth it and that it wouldn't adversly affect my performance.

Thanks!

What Pipes are you doing... the Stocker XCR's or Aftermarket HTG, DYNOPORT or SLP's

If your doing it just for the look, there are other options out there, like header paint. I use eastwoods header paint on my exhaust and they look pretty sharp, but then again it prolly wont last as long at ceramic coating them...

I just painted my pipes. I had them practically down to bare metal. As close as I could and I painted them with bbq paint. Well I haven't had them back on the sled since then and now the paint is falling off of them just sitting there. Does the paint need to be burnt on there? It really makes me mad I spent a ton of time prepping these pipes the best I could. Is there a primer I need to use? Does the header paint work better? I think my problem is the fact that no matter how good I scraped them off and sanded them I can't get all the rust off of them and that is what killed my paint. Please give me some insight if possible.

Thanks,
Mitch

after you paint them, run a propane torch flame over the paint

yea its tough getting every bit of rust off, if u have the time and tools i used a small die grinder with an attatchment on it that housed little 3Mpads, this worked great just took a while for me, specaily doing three pipes and a can...and also if you did happen to use header paint, most of them its says after a couple coats have been applied and it has dried for 24hrs to bake the paint on the pipes for 20min...alls i did was put the pipes back on the sled and run it to get them hot...

The paint will never stick if the pipes have any oil on them, including finger prints. I bead blast mine, and then wipe them all down with acetone. Once wiped down, I only handle the pipes by the ends. Paint ususally lasts 1-2 seasons for me. Head pipe is the hardest to keep from rusting. Mine also get a treatment of WD-40 after every trip.

What I did is I first scraped them down with a big wire brush got the big chunks of rust off. Then I took sandpaper and sanded them. The final step was I took a small wire brush on the drill and hit it with that. After that part was over I wiped them down with paint thinner to get any crap off of them. Let them dry and then painted them. Not every bit of rust was off but most of it was. The paint I used was Rustoleum high heat 1200 degree paint. It seemed to never stick that well. It like dried right away but it is kind of powdery and when I picked the pipes up to put them in the garage the paint was dry but that powder was coming off on my fingers. I am wondering if running a torch or burning the paint on would have worked. Maybe it was my paint. I am unsure? Should I get the pipes sandblasted ya think?

Thanks for the input!

Sandblasting is the way to go.. use some black beauy 00
make the pipes fresh and ready for paint..

When you say "paint thinner", do you mean mineral spirits or laquer thinner? People seem to call either "paint thinner". If you used mineral spirits, its no wonder it didnt stick...its basically refined kerosene. Lacquer thinner will work correctly, as will acetone. Also, high temp (1200+) paint will not be durable until it is heat cured...its not like the 500* stuff...so I try to handle it as little as possible until its cured.

Once your able to get most of the rust and old paint off best as possible...i use hot water with some dish washing detergent to clean them up real good. Once wiped up with clean towels...i wipe them down again with acetone or lacquer thinner. I now heat the pipe with a propane torch to get any remaining moisture out of the metal....once hot enough to the touch i proceed to paint. I've never had any problems this way that would end up in a crummy job....always looks and lasts better then the original manufactures jobs when it comes to paint. :div20:

Hey guys thanks for the help. Yes the stuff I used said paint thinnner on the side of the bottle but it is mineral spirits. I figured it evaporated and didn't hurt anything or leave a residue but I now see I was mistaken. So you have to use acetone based thinners or lacquer thinner? I will give it a try and I am sure it will work great compared to what happened to me. One more question for you guys. Those high heat paints will stick to bare metal correct as long as the metal is roughened up? No need for primer?

Thanks!

use no primer

coating is nice

I had these guys do my exhaust. Cost me $180.00 from Y-Pipe to can. Took them awhile as it was in the spring and they were tied up doing car stuff but I think it was worth the wait and the cost. I do regret doing the can in cerma chrome. I should have went with the black. Too much shiny in one area.

http://www.newimagecoatings.com/