ceramic coated headers on break in

TXDart said
There are other ways to cure the coating other than the procedure specified by the manufacturer. Some cure in an oven....but who has a oven that big,powder coaters do.
I know of people who have heated them with a heat gun and ir thermometer and did the heat and cool cycled before put on their car and survived the break in period.

Powder coater I know has huge ovens he cures his in. And he uses the heat cycle thing too. 150 first time. Then 250. Then 350. Or something like that. Even still at the end of the day, aside from some serious industrial ovens, most ovens still doesn't get as hot as most exhaust. I know he also doesn't recommend using them on break in. It's just an extra precation. Why potentially wreck your new coating? Almost everyone has an old set of headers/manifolds lying around.

rumblefish360 said
Lustle, on a do it yourself attempt on header coating, I burned my coating right off. UGH!

Reason? Yep, ran lean as hell!, vacuum hose popped off and it was done! Baked right off! Carb was a hair on the lean side to start with.

Otherwise, to the OE poster, or anybody going to use coated headers on a new engine;

Do! make sure the carb is within reason of a tune. Not to rich or lean.

Timing close; Not so off for it to cause problems. AKA, more heat

Isn't that a *****?

I mean you can do everything possible to set up an engine and have it run perfect right out of the box. But I personally still wouldn't. Swapping headers (out of the car at least) is an easy job. Even in the car it's worth it. I just would hate to risk the however many hundred dollar coating. Especially if it came from the factory like that. And then you gotta bead blast it and sand and re-coat and yeah. Hassle city straight ahead.