Ceramic coating

[Phil S]

As the new manifolds are on route....anybody got any experience with having their manifolds ceramic coated? (I'm told it only hurts in the wallet)
Phil

[Aubrey Hawkins]

Hi Phil, I was looking at this last year for my Stag SS manifolds. The company I was thinking of useing is called Camcoat performance coatings. Look around big differance in prices.

[bullstarz]

I have used camcoat before. I used black BHK which was good for heat resistance and you could touch the exhaust within five minutes of stopping the engine. Wasn't that expensive unless you do their in house which isn't cheap. The cam Chrome was good against corrosion but was difficult to complete. They do work, their turbo one is where they treat both the inside and outside which makes a huge difference in gas flow velocity.

Best off to go for heat wrap, not the cheap stuff, does the same thing by containing the heat within the exhaust. I coated my exhaust in a DEI coating (cheaper alternative to camcoat) then covering the exhaust in overlapping layer upon layer of heat wrap. Keep the under bonnet temp right down. The exhaust gas temperature, EGT, was up in the 600 deg C on the gauge but the laser temp reader showed the outer exhaust of 150.

[Phil S]

Have had prices from £400 upwards even of £900 +vat so will use exhaust wrap tape. Used it on my kit cars.
thought they were giving a price for manifolds and coating.
American TV prog recently fitted a set of v8 small block manifolds that were ceramic coated at a quoted cost of $380.
bigger country with a lot more suppliers so better prices.
Phil

[jpyke]

I have used Camcoat and had a set of Phoenix stainless manifolds coated inside and out with their race spec coating. It has made a massive improvement to under-bonnet temperatures, even when you've just switched off the engine after a run you can put your hand down near the manifolds and feel more radiant heat from the heads than the manifolds themselves. I personally think it was worth the investment.

The Phoenix manifolds have quite a few pipes that run close together so it can be tricky to get wrapping tape around them. I had previously decided to go down the wrapping route and did one manifold which I stored whilst restoring the car. I later found to my horror that the tape had caused the manifold to sweat and despite being stainless was riddled with lots of rust pin-holes which wrote it off and I ended up having to approach Phonenix for a new set. (The other, unwrapped manifold was stored in the same place and suffered no problems). I think this is due to being stored in an unheated shed, rather than getting periodically warmed through when fitted in the car, but nonetheless it's put me off the wrapping tape I'm afraid...

[TR5convalescent]

Hi Phil. Bit late arriving here, but I have been struggling since the changeover to v5. I had my TR5 manifold coated in Zircotec by the company in Abingdon. This was some time after leaded petrol became unavailable and the car would run slightly hot at all times on unleaded and very hot in traffic. I had added an electric fan which i had to switch on at every traffic light.

From memory, the coating cost me about £120 about 10 years ago and it was the best money I ever spent on the car. It literally made the electric fan redundant overnight and restored the temperature gauge to dead centre from about 2/3rds up.

[bullstarz]

I have used Camcoat and had a set of Phoenix stainless manifolds coated inside and out with their race spec coating. It has made a massive improvement to under-bonnet temperatures, even when you've just switched off the engine after a run you can put your hand down near the manifolds and feel more radiant heat from the heads than the manifolds themselves. I personally think it was worth the investment.

The Phoenix manifolds have quite a few pipes that run close together so it can be tricky to get wrapping tape around them. I had previously decided to go down the wrapping route and did one manifold which I stored whilst restoring the car. I later found to my horror that the tape had caused the manifold to sweat and despite being stainless was riddled with lots of rust pin-holes which wrote it off and I ended up having to approach Phonenix for a new set. (The other, unwrapped manifold was stored in the same place and suffered no problems). I think this is due to being stored in an unheated shed, rather than getting periodically warmed through when fitted in the car, but nonetheless it's put me off the wrapping tape I'm afraid...

If the manifold is made from poor quality steel and the exhaust doesn't flow very well and you use heat wrap, coupled with a weak mixture, yes this will cook the manifold. The heat can build up and its not long until the heat reaches a critical point when it will start to change as it will absorb carbon from the exhaust gases. This will change the properties of the steel. Its possible to, although unlikely, to turn the steel into a ceramic, Iron Carbide. While very hard it's brittle and will crumble away.

One of my old manifolds showed signs that it got too hot as the steels properties had changed. So i got a freer flowing manifold and a straight through exhaust system with a bigger bore. That worked it was a tad loud though but didnt get to hot.

[Phil S]

Hope the manifolds are a reasonable quality as they are from pheonix
they are being picked up in the morning to go to camcoat for the racespec internal and external satin black coating.
may as well do it once, and hopefully right the first time.
phil

[Aubrey Hawkins]

Hi phil, Have you got your manifolds back ? I am thinking about this for my stag.

Aubrey

[Phil S]

Not yet....bad weather to blame!!!!
Phil