painting new headers.
send them to the Mistress of Metal
Nope Eddie, don't send them to me. I got out of high temp ceramic coatings a few years ago mainly because the shipping costs were just too prohibitive for my customers. The last ones I coated, a pair of full length headers, were almost $100 EACH WAY just to Mississippi one state away!!
It's not so much the excessive labor or time involved that makes professional ceramic coatings so expensive; it's the ceramic material itself that's so pricey. I bought two quarts, one silver and one satin black, and with the shipping it was almost $300. A little bit goes a long way too -- I've gotten 3 or 4 full sets of headers out of the silver and have used the satin black on all of my oven racks (to keep them from rusting and dropping rust flakes on customers' parts) and still have quite a bit of each left over for future personal projects.
All you need to do it yourself is a way to blast the exhaust components, wash and dry them with compressed air, and hang them up on wires or hooks so you have 360-degree access. (You'll also want them low enough that you can direct the coating into the tubes too for interior coverage.)
The high temp ceramic coating is applied with a simple HVLP spray gun and you let it dry in the open air. You can handle the parts within an hour or two (when it's no longer tacky) and it fully "cures" over the next five days whether it's hanging on wires, sitting on your shop floor or already installed in your car.
My cosmetic powder supplier is the same place that makes the best high temp ceramics available and you'll all be happy to know they will deal with the public directly (as far as I know anyway). This is where you start ...
http://NICIndustries.com
I know the Jet Hot et al., guys aren't going to be too happy with this post but I see no reason to continue to keep it a big secret, especially since this is ultimately a DIY Automotive Forum. I can't teach you how to do custom powder work over the internet but there's nothing difficult at all about working a paint gun and pretty much anybody can do it with satisfactory results.
If you have a couple other guys/gals in your area who also want to get their exhaust components done, you can all go in together and split the cost of the ceramic coating. As I said, a little bit goes a long way ...
I hope this helps! :-D