marlinspike

If you're coating exhaust parts, Swaintech is pretty much the only way to go.

Priestiality

Yeah, original question wasn't really answered and it's the only thread I could find mentioning exhaust coating... gotta find someone local, this week Actually drove past there today and was planning on calling in the morning. Thanks.

Yeah, manifold, turbine housing and dp.. unfortunately Swain can't turn it around fast enough. I'm in a shitty situation and will have to go naked if I can't find someone local.

marlinspike

Well, everything except for Swaintech is going to come off after a couple of years. Why don't you just wrap it as a temporary measure?
http://www.heatshieldproducts.com/
http://www.designengineering.com/
make good wraps

nftuatn

you have to remember one thing richard....99% of these people will not have the car in a couple of years...if they do it will have been changed a few times and wont really matter....

so it doesnt really matter how long it lasts

Priestiality

I actually purchased some wrap but then got worried about possible damage. It's an OEM cast manifold that was modified from a Saab but I might go that route and start sourcing another if there's not enough time.

Fabrik8

Do you say things like this just to see if I'm hanging around and paying attention...?

If it's a cast manifold, most of the reputable brands of ceramic coating will work fine if the manifold is prepared properly. So JetHot, HPC, Swain, Tech Line, any of those will work fine. Tech Line is actually what Thermal Tech Coatings I believe; they're water born ceramic coatings so they're pretty easy for distributors to do without having much special equipment.

There are usually reasons that coatings have cracking or flaking problems, and those reasons aren't usually blamed. All that you ever hear is "______ brand of coating flakes off" but you never hear that it's a mild steel header that was chipped and has been corroding under the coating or that it's a one piece long tube header under high vibration with poor strain relief. The problem is always blamed on the coating and not the application.

And yes, Swain makes really good coatings but they aren't the only game in town for coating street car parts.

marlinspike

When the Jet Hot pitted off my cast headers (and then Jet Hot told me to take a hike on a warranty recoat), I started asking around. You are the FIRST person out of about 20 who has said non-Swaintech won't come off. Some of the people I talked to were themselves coating shops who told me that their work would eventually come off if I drive it a lot. Everybody I talked to about coatings said they come off, and eventually people started saying Swaintech's won't come off. Then I noticed that nobody I talked to who had a Swaintech coating had it come off. So, I've got the experience of about 20 people who had non-Swaintech, who all had it come off, and then about 6 people who had Swaintech none of whom had it come off.

That is why I say things like what I said.

Fabrik8

That's fine, I probably get completely different parts coated than you do... I like Swain Tech, but I've also had good results with other companies too. I guess most of those were on parts that don't get used every day though, and some of those were done by coating companies that don't exist in the US (like Zircotec).. I know people who have used other companies coatings for 10 or 12 years with no problems whatsoever. From what I've been told, cast parts are a double edged sword though. They have pretty favorable thermal expansion, but they also have corrosion problems because of what they are (castings have surface porosity). So maybe your manifolds weren't prepped right, and maybe that type of coating or the undercoat doesn't work well for cast parts. Who knows.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really haven't had any problems with ceramic coatings, but there are a lot of coatings done by a lot of companies. Those coatings have different application methods (plasma, water born, dip, etc) and different chemistries, with different bond coats and different preparation methods. I'm sure there are probably some horrible types of coatings out there.

marlinspike

They were prepped by Jet Hot themselves, so I can't help that.

At any rate, I think 30k miles in 3 year is prob a different sort of use than your parts see.
From talking to other coating places, they say the problem is my tri-y's have creases, and the coating gets thin in the creases, so it gives things a point to start wearing from early. That said, one of those coating places said it wouldn't have happened with Swaintech.

And yes, I wasn't considering anything not in the US.

Fabrik8

It just occurred to me that Swain is probably the only major aftermarket coating company in the US that is doing plasma applied ceramic coating, which would explain a lot. Most of the other companies are doing spray applied coatings, which are then baked. That would explain why Swain is not coming off in the really difficult applications. Most of the time, the spray applied coatings work just fine, which is why there are so many of those companies out there. I'm used to using HPC and JetHot for a lot of stuff (with good results) because it's cheaper, and the race parts are usually done by Swain or Zircotec (both of which do plasma applied as far as I know) or some other high-end companies. So it's possible that I just haven't pushed the lower-end coatings far enough to have problems with them, and I use the higher-end coatings for the places where I do....

Interesting.


What was this thread about again...?