Anexos

Here are a few quick photos of my Garrett turbine housing, factory exhaust manifold and AMS downpipe that I just got back from Swain Tech. It looks significantly thicker compared to the local shop that coated my Perrin STi header and downpipe (coating cracked after a year). Boostin' Performance ported and polished the turbine housing and manifold.

Shawnmsr

Looks good. I did the same thing to my manifold, turbine, O2 housing, and downpipe too. Made a noticeable difference with under hood temps.

BehindSpace999

iTrader: (1)

Will also make a noticeable difference shortening the lifespan of your components. It's a tradeoff.

Roger350

Is this comment on life of the components based on personal experience? I just haven't heard about coatings, especially good ones, negatively impacting part life?

What did these coatings set you back $$$?

01CBR929

iTrader: (8)

o rly?

I have it on my CBRD turbo kit and love it. Second time using their coatings myself.

BehindSpace999

iTrader: (1)

Creep. Creep is when a material deforms slowly and
permanently under stress. The rate of creep is a function of stress and heat, period. For metals and alloys creep occurs significantly faster at
higher temperatures and duration. There's a lot of factors that will determine just how much lifespan is being reduced such as the metallic composition of the component and thickness of the component being coated. Thinner cross sections obviously will be more negatively affected by the heat coating.

Then you also have to worry about heat cycling and mechanical stresses introducing cracks into the coating which can penetrate through the coating and into the metal/alloy underneath. The thicker the coating the more damaging to the material undernath by microcracks in the coating.

The only time I would use heat coating is if the component is in a position to melt other components

EJEvo

iTrader: (18)

This should work out well for you. Based on my personal experience: don't paint the header w/ aluminum look high-temp paints - leave it white. Did a Swain coating on my tubular JMF header (paired w/ a CBRD BBK full on my Evo 8) and then decided to paint it w/ a hi-temp aluminum paint and the aluminum literally melted off the header - my header flange looks great, but the runners didn't hold up. I had these nice little metallic tendrils that formed on the runners and took me months of rubbing them off after each heat cycle. The runners looked fuzzy after a track session. After many heat cycles they finally stopped forming.

Based on the components you've coated, I'm betting the coating should stand up. My tubular header's White Lightning coating peeled off portions of the runners after a few months due to cracking. The rate of expansion of the runners was too great for the flexibility of the coating. With your cast header it should be much more stable.

Besides the heat benefits, the other thing I really like about these coatings is that it keeps corrosion from forming. My dp has a Jet Hot 2000 coating on it (very thin compared to the Swain stuff) and while it might not have as good performance from an insulation perspective, that pipe looks as good as it did when I received it back from Jet Hot 5 or more years ago. Probably should have done my header with Jet Hot rather than Swain, but live and learn.

Good luck!

Anexos

Cracking is a risk. Melting a wiring harness at the track due to more heat from a larger turbo is a risk. Risk is cost. Take your cost times probability of occurrence and you can find an answer. There are a lot of assumptions around the risks involved. Make the best educated guess you can.

I have friends at my company that match turbos and calibrate 20+ liter engines. They all said they wouldn't coat the parts for the same engineering reasons BehindSpace mentioned. They also said the likelihood of the parts I've coated cracking would probably take longer then I'll own the car.

I can drive home from the track on a cracked manifold. I can't drive home on melted wiring harness.

For the sake of transparency I'm an accountant.

CBRD

iTrader: (60)

the only coating we use typically but it does wear-

cb

spdracerut

iTrader: (2)

I love Swaintech for use on cast components. I had my old SR20 cast manifold coated for 6 years and it still was 100% functional when I sold it. I would even use it on tubular, but know it will crack and flake a bit due to the typically greater thermal expansion and contraction of those parts. However, I figure still being 90% coated after cracking is better than 0%.

Now, there is just about always a compromise when you do something. Pros of coating these components: improved performace (heat = energy = spin turbo better) and keeping heat out of nearby components which don't take well to heat (electrical sensors, melted valve covers, electrical wiring on the firewall, brake lines where you really don't want heat in them). A number of high power Evo X's with aftermarket turbo setups and exposed manifolds and such have fried the wiring on the firewall. Replacing the wiring harness is neither easy nor cheap. Cons: reduced life of the coated components.

As Anexos pointed out, you have to examine the risks involved with the associated failure modes. I agree, I would much rather have a cracked exhaust manifold (which tends to happen over time and not be a catastrophic type failure) than a failed wiring harness (would could possible prevent loss of car control and end in a really really bad way).

Furthermore, consider what you're doing when you increase the power the engine produces. You just shortened the life of your engine in the name of more performance, yet no one even gives a single thought to it.