Wrapping ceramic coated headers

[double ugly]

My replica is being painted red and I would like the headers and sidepipes to be white to go with the white stripes going on the car. I have checked with the local ceramic coating companies, but they don't offer white ceramic. I know that Swain Technologies offer white but due to time constraints, they are not in the equation. I am thinking of silver ceramic headers but wrapping them with white header wrap. Will this create any problems? I'm going to just paint the sidepipes with a hi-temp. paint. As always, I appreciate your inputs.
Thanks alot.
John

[DavidNJ]

Nothing is even close to the ceramic coatings. Doing the coating initially can reduce some internal wear. However you could just coat them next winter.

[niles]

Don't wrap them.
Wrapping just captures moisture which causes corosion.
Wrapping was a stop-gap bdfore the invention of ceramic coating which does the thermal barrier better wrapping.
Silver coating is much perferred over white anyway; silver matches perfectly the alum. head/manifold.
gn

[double ugly]

The car is a pretty accurate "re-creation" of an original. Thats the main reason I don't want silver headers. I am trying to stay as period correct as possible. Thanks for the input though. With as few miles as it will get over a years time, I'm hoping very little damage will result.
John

[dlampe]

I have a different understanding of why the pipes rust. I have always understood that the extremely high heat trapped in the pipe causes the chemical make up of the pipe to change and become brital and eventually just go away. The thickness of the pipe is a big issue as well as the temperature of the exhaust. The cermic coating is a big help towards making a wrapped header last longer. If you wrap the sidepipes, they will show very little damage over time. The headers will damage sooner do to the heat. It is the same chemical make-up for siver or black. Black will accept paint better than silver due to the satin finish. You could have your pipes coated in black and use a high heat white to capture the look you are going for.

By the way, I really like the look of white pipes. They will require some touch up from time to time. Check my gallery for some pictures.

[double ugly]

That's a thought. Sure would be easier to paint the pipes than wrap them. Thanks, John

[sideoiler10]

When I purchased my Cobra 3 years ago the headers were wrapped down to the slip joint. Last fall I removed the entire exhaust and took them to AirBorne Coatings in Oklahoma City to have them ceramic coated. When I removed the wrapping, the coating on the headers started flaking off into a coarse powder. When I delivered them to be coated I was told that ceramic coated headers should NEVER be wrapped.

Airborne Coatings did a beautiful job on them, coating both inside and outside of the headers and the sidepipes. I also took them a new rear end housing to be silver coated to be used on my brother-in-las's deuce coupe. I called a couple weeks in advance and they set up an appointment for me to drop the parts off on a Monday at noon, and I picked them up Wednesday at noon. They are very reasonable and are very professional and know what they are doing. Check out their website.

Bob