marlinspike

Any shops in the area that do thermal barrier and heat dissipation coating, or am I stuck having to ship my parts?

Fabrik8

Send them off to a reputable place, you'll be glad you did.

Jarrod

I've used the place up in Hopewell.

On my stepdadas 700hp Nova, the coating has held up. Granted, it's a NA car and it's not a road race setup. But it looks brand new still.

Their turbo housing coatings seem to blend into the housing after awhile. Shawn R(Ramey Built on here or is it ratty goat?) had his housing done on his SFWD Civic. It's a drag car and it's def not daily driven but it held up and still looks amazing.

Take it for what is's worth.

marlinspike

My Jet-Hot coated headers are starting to have the coating pepper off...I guess that's not supposed to happen.

I was thinking about having a thermal barrier coating done on my air filter housing and a heat dissipation coating done to the valve covers...more because I'm tired of polishing them than anything else, but if I'm going to pay to have them painted I figure I might as well pay to have them coating in something that just might help performance.

Jarrod

What kind of car?

Ever thought of making a plate to seperate the intake and motor?

Fabrik8

That's not the first time I've heard that complaint about Jet Hot.

Thermal dispersant coatings won't really help your valve covers that much, unless there is a good difference in temp between your valve covers and the underhood temperature.

marlinspike

O Rly? I was fixing to call them soon to see about getting them redone under warranty (it's such a hassle to get these headers off the car though, so much has to be disassembled), but if it's just going to happen again...
Is there a header coating that is good and lasts?

That's a good point about the thermal dispersant coatings on the valve covers...I guess I'm just tired of the black paint on them always looking cruddy.

The air filter housing would be a trick...the lid is all aluminum but the lower has some plastic rivetted to it, so I'm guessing that can't be done.

marlinspike

Car is an old Benz with a modified Benz engine. Nobody is going to know it so no point in giving the model number. I'll take a pic of the engine bay at some point...in the mean time here is the old engine which is substantially similar on the outside, though the current air cleaner has two snorkels, and is kept better polished, and the valve covers are painted black and wider out (3.8 liter in this picture, now 5.6 liter in car)


And this is a shot of the current engine (more or less...the one pictured died after 1500 miles and is not as clean as the new one either, but same block)


??? When you say intake, do you mean intake manifold? If so, I have no idea how that would work. Otherwise, it already is.

Fabrik8

Swain Tech, HPC, and I can't remember the other one. There are some other really good ones that aren't in the US.

There are some companies that can ceramic coat plastics, and there are some water-borne ceramic coatings that you could spray on the plastic yourself. The good ceramic coatings are plasma applied, and that obviously won't work on plastic.

You could also just apply a adhesive backed heat shield to the bottom of the air filter housing to reflect engine heat. That wouldn't block as much radiant head from the engine bay though.

marlinspike

These are all companies that do an exhaust coatings that doesn't wear off, or just coating in general? Too bad about the Jet-Hot thing...sucks to have to do it all over again and not with warranty coverage.

Honestly, coating the air cleaner and valve covers is less about performance than cosmetics. With the Jet Hot on the headers everything is pretty cool under the hood, and the air cleaner is high up enough that it doesn't get that hot. It's just annoying spending an hour polishing the lid every month, and the valve covers take on this dull look (I suppose from the heat) that doesn't look too sharp. Any performance gain is just a perk, so I don't figure on doing an adhesive backed heat sheild....although....

Anybody know about that gold foil I saw on all the cars at the Rolex 24 Hours? If that would actually give a performance gain, I might do that.