I'm wanting to chrome my lakes headers and beings the car is going to be black I thought about having the headers black chromed, My question is does black chrome show bluing as much as regular chrome?
Having had some exhaust pipes on a old Harley done in black chrome I can assure you it's not worth the expense,,they will turn also. HRP
Thanks for the input.. is there any coating worth a crap to coat the inside of headers to keep them from bluing?
If there is a magic bullet I'm not familiar with it. When I was building bikes we sprayed a VHT high heat coating..it helped for a while but withing a few weeks the chrome was turning blue again. HRP
The blue means you are using it for its intended purpose, driving your way to happiness. Perfect chrome is for trailer-queens.
done a couple of cars that we had the exhaust ceramic coated. looks awesome and extremely tough and didn't "blue". not cheap! If you go ceramic, the process doesn't like certain metals so check with the company who does it. Had good luck with powder coat and there are colors available now that may have the look your looking for.
It took me a long time and a lot money to realize, that for a street exhaust, all that fancy crap is bullshit. It's an exhaust system on a car that gets used. What do you expect? I painted mine over a year ago and they're just now reaching a point where I'm considering repainting them. Or, I'll just touch them up.
My stainless headers turned a yellowish gold tint after about 500 miles, then after 1000 or so miles they turned kinda dark grayish and real satin like finish and have been like that ever since. Can't figure it out, but I like it.
I have heard Old Bikers tell of coating the inside of drag pipes with grease! Thought was that the burned grease would form an insulative coating inside the pipe to stop blueing. Musta been a little smokey upon start up.
There is black chrome that holds up as well or even better than bright chrome. Look at Kawasaki GPZ bikes from the 80's. They had a real brilliance about them and stayed shiny for Years! The problem is very few shops do black chrome, and even fewer do it right. As for the Bluing, it comes from Heat. Motors that run hot will blue faster and more of it than properly tuned motors. If you really want to see how to turn it Blue to Purple, run with retarded timing. This caused some of the mixture to continue burning in the pipes after the combustion process when the exhaust valve opens. When you see a set that are really discolored, it tells you the tuner doesn't have a clue! As for stainless, the same thing goes. 304 Stainless pipes will turn Yellow from the "Right" amount of heat. Anything further is too much heat. If they are turning grey and dull, that is corrosion, not heat related. If they are turning purple or black, you are cooking them. The nice thing about stainless is you can repolish it right back to new without hurting the material, unlike using Blue Away on chrome which removes a layer of the chromium and causes them to re-blue even faster Dyno runs are another story as you are putting a lot of heat without air flow so that will discolor them as well. If you really want the most bad ass black headers, find someone that does Black Porcelain, but be prepared to spend some $$$$
Don ,I worked on the bikes listed ( gpz's and the KZ's) it was black ceramic coating , and thick almost like porcelain bathtub thick ,kerker also used it . wears great , but you have to make sure your fuel mixture is on as if it leans out it can spall and crack at the bends and rocks did chip it . and after a few years it would chalk up . a wipe with oil covered rag and let it burn off took care of this . and if the pipe rusted on the inside the coating would pop . some of the bikes still have it today 30 years later , but most guys replaced it after a few years here in the midwest as it popped and the pipes rusted out . a freinds car o/t we had the insides ceramic coated and the exterior porcelained black , big bucks , but looks nice when you look under the car . hardest part was finding a place to have it done .
the place we did the porcelain was a company that did the black cook pots , was up by Wisc state line by Rockford was a small town , it had a odd name this was 20 or more years back .. will look for pictures it was a O/T 60's Chevelle and went to World of wheels ( Chicago ) in the early 90's I Beleive there is pictures in a PHR of that era .
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