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Kind of curious what kind of life expectancy is normal for ceramic coated mild steel, with and without wrap.
I mean is anyone actually driving a 400-450 rwhp c4 on a daily basis? I've talked to lots of guys that have power, but they tend to be track, fair weather cars. Weekend cruisers etc.
Daily drove my 86 for years with TPiS headers, the ceramic re-coating in & out from Jet Hot lost its "luster" within about 2 years. About 2-3 years after that, it began chipping or flaking off and surface rusting on the collectors to the Y-pipe under the car, basically what would get wet from driving around in normal conditions every day. Never lost any structural strength so I just repainted over it with high temp paint, which has actually held up better.
The car was driven with about 400rw from the 398 engine for a year or two, since it was my only car. After the accident and transfer of parts to my current 88, its just a fair weather car. Its very hairy to drive an early C4 with that much power in rain.
Kind of curious what kind of life expectancy is normal for ceramic coated mild steel, with and without wrap.
I mean is anyone actually driving a 400-450 rwhp c4 on a daily basis? I've talked to lots of guys that have power, but they tend to be track, fair weather cars. Weekend cruisers etc.
My 96 was in that power range and saw probably thousands of miles of track, autocross, and street use over 12 years with a set of Hooker Supercomp headers that were wrapped but not coated. I daily drove that car for three years, including in salt/snow. One primary finally cracked, but the reason was because the header bolts on that primary backed out and it was completely unsupported. They would probably still be in there if not for that. There was no evidence of them rusting through or anything like that. In fact, I was so lazy that I only replaced the cracked header. I sold the car in February but I keep track of it, and the 12-year-old header on the driver's side is still on there.
Last edited by MatthewMiller; Dec 18, 2020 at 04:42 PM.
I have gone through 2 sets of Hooker Super Competition headers 2151. They were both coated. The first one rusted from the inside out after a decade or so, street/strip. Hooker does a crap job of coating. The second set was fine until I swapped to ARH headers for the track.
I have gone through 2 sets of Hooker Super Competition headers 2151. They were both coated. The first one rusted from the inside out after a decade or so, street/strip. Hooker does a crap job of coating.
I've heard that too. It may be better to buy plain 2151s and have them coated by Jet or some other outside shop.
My set of Stainless Works headers and RT cats were installed back in 06. I didn't have them coated in any way and probably should have as they blued right up and eventually settled into the patina that you see here 90,000 miles later. This set was not inexpensive but the headers have held up great for daily driving which I did for about 6 years so probably 50K in the rain. I've had to replace the cats twice over the past 90k. The engine is basically stock except for the hot cam kit and the tune by TJ Wong.
Kind of curious what kind of life expectancy is normal for ceramic coated mild steel, with and without wrap.
I mean is anyone actually driving a 400-450 rwhp c4 on a daily basis? I've talked to lots of guys that have power, but they tend to be track, fair weather cars. Weekend cruisers etc.
I drive it whenever there isn't snow on the ground. Rain? Absolutely. If it can't drive on the street on a daily basis, I don't want it.
TPIS coated header and not wrapped. I don't need the car to be show quality nor do I open the hood unless I am doing service so I don't care what it looks like.
Cool, thanks guys looks like I'll go ahead and use the dei titanium wrap and a couple cans of dei silicone on these hooker super comp HKR-2149-1 coated headers.
If they last 4-5 years I'll be happy with that. I will drive the car daily, but weather permitting. Here in Michigan a posi with wide tires sucks in the snow. But like now it is 32° roads are clear, dry. And I will be driving the car to work when I can. No other way to enjoy the car when you are working 58-65 hours a week with 1.5 hour round trip commute to and from work.
C4 and long tube headers
