Exhaust painting

fourbarrel

fourbarrel

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May 5, 2003
Messages
2,767
Location
St George,New Brunswick,Canada
How often do you guys paint your exhaust?I do mine every couple of seasons and generally use PJ1 1700* exhaust paint.It would stand up a bit better if I cured the paint right but I can never seem to get the paint on and cured properly.I've never seen anything stand up like the factory finish yet though.
 
fourbarrel said:
I can never seem to get the paint on and cured properly.I've never seen anything stand up like the factory finish yet though.
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I cant either and i've tried many,i do know though curing the paint and surface prep is very impotant,i painted a guy's pipes last year needed to be cured at 500 deg well i know i couldn't throw em in the wife's oven so i used a torpedo heater and say them in front of that and just rotated them every so often for 1 hour,he's had them two seasons know and there holding up id say pretty good to ok.
 
fourbarrel said:
How often do you guys paint your exhaust?I do mine every couple of seasons and generally use PJ1 1700* exhaust paint.It would stand up a bit better if I cured the paint right but I can never seem to get the paint on and cured properly.I've never seen anything stand up like the factory finish yet though.
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I bought a $10.00 can of VHT 1300-2000 degree cilica-ceramic stuff and painted the outlet and the hot end of my stock '01s. The paint on the stinger end and muffler is still in great shape but the hot end and outlet tubes have needed re-coating for quite sometime. I think I got a good bake on the tubes but had to kinda - marshmellow on a stick - the pipe ends through the woodstove door. I just taped off the heat shields but painted the entire outlet tube and strung them onto a steel bar and hung them inside the stove at three different temps.

Managed to get a few miles down the river yesterday. Total at speed run time about 20 minutes @ 800-1100 degrees. First time I stopped I could smell the paint but when I got home the smell was gone. Still look great.....

I think I posted once before about never having much luck with header paint. I'm sure it had a lot to do with poor preperation and baking and also getting the un-cured coating dirty during installation. I tried to eliminate all the above this time around and even read the destructions. So far so good.
 
I agree with you on the factory paint on the exhaust, nothing holds up like it. A couple months ago I bought princess auto (powerfist) high heat paint and it is garbage, I started up the sled and idled it for a couple minutes, flaked a little around the beginning of the pipe where it attaches to the manifold, no big deal, anyways about 3 weeks ago I managed to go for a little run, went around the yard, opened up the hood and the paint was bubbling off and flaking all over the pipe. Today I started sanding it off and sometime soon I'll paint it with the duplicolor high heat paint "with ceramic" stuff i bought the other day, hopefully it works better than the other powerfist stuff. Curing it seems to be a problem because I cant cure it properly.
 
I recomend you guy's sand blast the pipe,just sanding doesnt seems to do crap,thats what i did and it seems to hold up better,prep is the key AND cure methods!!
 
daman said:
I cant either and i've tried many,i do know though curing the paint and surface prep is very impotant,i painted a guy's pipes last year needed to be cured at 500 deg well i know i couldn't throw em in the wife's oven so i used a torpedo heater and say them in front of that and just rotated them every so often for 1 hour,he's had them two seasons know and there holding up id say pretty good to ok.
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Getting 'em painted, installed and heated (without getting them dirty)before it has a chance to cure at room temp I think is the biggest reason for failure.

...and of course surface prep is a biggy. I never had access to a media blaster in the old days.

The stuff I bought instructed both on or off vehicle curing. The off vehicle said to bake them for 30 minutes at 250, 400 and 600 F with a 30 minute cool cycle in between.

On vehicle says two 20 minute idle/20 minute cool cycle and one 30 minute "normal operating condition" cycle and cool.

I think the OEM coating appears more of a satan finish compared to the flat the new paint looks like. Kinda makes my shinny new donuts stand out.

I kind of agree that the factory finish seems to hold up the best except for the hot end and outlet tubes. Not sure anything outside of ceramic coating or chrome would hold up to the high temps of these areas being they're so close to the cylinder. I'll be happy if the stuff I used this time holds up half as long as the factory coating.
 
I have given up on using paint on all exhaust components. I have started having the exhaust components ceramic coated by a reputable local supplier. Be VERY CAREFUL of having your pipes and exhaust components ceramic coated by anybody who just does powder coating. The coating of exhaust parts need special powders, preparation and curing equipment to do it right. I get my parts coated at central CT Coatings in Hartford CT. The coatings are so hard and adherent you can literally beat on the parts witha hammer and they do not peel off. I had a set off parts done by a different powder coating outfit that turned out to be junk, peeled right off. Done properly, the ceramic coatings on the exhaust components will last a svery long time although it is expensive: SRX exhaust flange: $20 ea., SRX exhaust pipe: $100, Bender can: $50, Clamp at the end of the SRW pipe: $10 ea. $440 for the complete exhaust system.
 
I have used every high heat paint known to man. I even bead blasted my pipes and painted them with Eastwoods ceramic 2000 degree paint and it still burnt off the cylinder ends. Even coated pipes from the aftermarket companies eventally burn off. Jet hot coating is the only thing i have seen stay on, but it is very expensive. Jeff Wurl
 
rx1jim said:
I have given up on using paint on all exhaust components. I have started having the exhaust components ceramic coated by a reputable local supplier. Be VERY CAREFUL of having your pipes and exhaust components ceramic coated by anybody who just does powder coating. The coating of exhaust parts need special powders, preparation and curing equipment to do it right. I get my parts coated at central CT Coatings in Hartford CT. The coatings are so hard and adherent you can literally beat on the parts witha hammer and they do not peel off. I had a set off parts done by a different powder coating outfit that turned out to be junk, peeled right off. Done properly, the ceramic coatings on the exhaust components will last a svery long time although it is expensive: SRX exhaust flange: $20 ea., SRX exhaust pipe: $100, Bender can: $50, Clamp at the end of the SRW pipe: $10 ea. $440 for the complete exhaust system.
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I'm hoping my paint job will hold up at least close to the OEM finish but I ain't holding my breath. Agreed that ceramic is the way to go for a lasting finish. I had JetHot do the pipes on my XCR and the coating held up extremely well. The kid across the street has them on his sled now and still look good. Although I see prices must have gone up a lot. I paid about half for three pipes and a can.

Are those prices for any color?
 
Smomofo, I don't know if any other colors are available. I know the coatings are comparable to those provided by the Jet Hot company. The website for the place that just completed my SRX ehaust is: www.centralctcoatings.com. The owner Gene Schaffer is a terrific guy, been in the coatings business for 30+ years. he coated my RX-1 exhaust system last year and it still looks like new after 2000 miles of riding. His website might have info. on the available colors.
 
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