VHT Paint

Joel Chapman said
So I've been trying to figure out the best path forward for headers. I am probably going to go with raw metal doug's headers in my 71 dart swinger with a 318. With raw metal will I still need to sand on the headers or just lay down the primer? Also right now the engine is out of the car, but when I put it back in the car I will need to break in the new cam. Will I need to break in the cam with the stock exhaust manifolds first? I doubt I would be able to cure the headers in the oven in the house lol. Also this car will be a daily driver but not that much driving each day, I live real close to work and I live in southern Idaho which is pretty dry but does get snow in the winter. Am I making the right choice here? Or should I just suck it up and by the coated headers from factory? Thanks for all the help! Im ready to get the car back on the road and back to driving.

I bought TTI headers with the silver outside coating and the ceramic green internal coating. At some point in the first few hundred miles, the first foot or so of the tubes coming from the heads appeared a lot more porous and flat. They had been over heated.

A few months later, I had to pull the motor again to fix something, so I sprayed the headers down with brake clean and painted them flat black with VHT High Temp paint. That was over 10 years ago. They are still flat black and I did respray them one more time while I had the engine out during that period, but it was more of a touch-up spray job.

I did the same thing to another set of TTI's I used on my '68. This time I sprayed them flat black before installing them new. THose have held up for close to 4 years now.

VHT makes a very good, heat resistant spray bomb product, and I am not sure how much having that coating on them as a base coat helped the paint hold up so well. I have since sprayed my entire exhaust after cleaning it with brake cleaner, and it has held up very well over time. None of those parts had a baked on finish on them. It was common plated steel.

I do know that TTI wants you to spray down the headers with WD-40 when the car is not in use to stop them from rusting with the baked on coating they use.