There are plenty of jobs you can tackle in your own garage. Professionally ceramic coating a set of headers probably shouldn’t be one of them. Sure, you can buy products that promise a ceramic-like finish at home, but getting the kind of results you’d expect on a professionally built car is another story. Proper ceramic coating requires serious surface preparation, specialized application equipment, controlled temperatures and proper curing. Get any part of that wrong and the finished product may not look—or perform—the way you expected.

Fortunately, you don’t have to figure it out yourself. Stainless Headers Mfg. Inc. offers professional ceramic coating services for headers and exhaust components, with the equipment, experience and know-how to do the job right from beginning to end. Send them your headers. They handle the rest.

HARDER THAN IT LOOKS

Ceramic coating isn’t just a matter of spraying something onto a header and waiting for it to dry. To get professional results, the metal needs to be properly prepared. Contaminants need to be removed. The coating has to be applied correctly and then cured under controlled conditions. Stainless Headers Mfg. has the blasting equipment, specialized ovens and professional coating equipment needed to handle all of it.

Their process includes media blasting, baking the components to help remove residual contaminants, cleaning and degreasing, applying the coating and then putting the parts through a controlled oven-curing cycle before final inspection. Could you try to duplicate all of that at home? Maybe. But by the time you’ve gathered the equipment, materials and knowledge necessary to do it correctly, sending the headers to the professionals starts making a whole lot of sense.

THE RESULTS ARE WHAT MATTER

The first thing you’ll notice about professionally ceramic-coated headers is obvious: they look dang good. Stainless Headers Mfg. offers multiple coating colors and finishes, so you can choose something that complements the rest of your build instead of treating the exhaust as an afterthought.

But ceramic coating isn’t just cosmetic. A quality ceramic coating creates a thermal barrier that can help reduce radiant heat coming from the exhaust system. That’s a welcome benefit when your headers are surrounded by starters, wiring, hoses, electronics and other components that aren’t exactly thrilled about living next to scorching-hot exhaust tubes. The coating also provides an additional layer of protection against corrosion, weather and repeated heat cycles, helping protect the investment you’ve already made in your headers.