Ceramic coating necessary when buying headers?

grey5.0beast said:

I just wanted to get you guys' opinions, as I plan on ordering some soon.

Is it necessarry to get ceramic coating on a car that never has and never will see salty roads or snow, and is well maintained? I am on a budget, so everybit helps me out and I was wondering i fi could get away with 140 buck painted headers over the 230 dollar ceramic ones. Thanks

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Necessary is a totally subjective idea in the world of cars. Is it necessary for you to be installing aftermarket headers?

I have two sets of aftermarket headers in two different cars, a set of full length Hooker Super Comps in my '65 Fairlane, and a set of Ford Motorsport shorty headers in my '89 mustang.

Both of my sets of headers are ceramic coated. It is more expensive, and while it isn't "necessary", I wanted the ceramic coating for a few reasons. First, longevity of the header. Ceramic coating is the best protection against corrosion for headers money can buy. Once paint burns off on non-coated headers, which is usually very quickly, the steel will start to rust. Most headers are made of a good enough quality steel that the headers won't rust through and create exhaust leaks for a long, long time...but they will look nasty if aesthetics means alot to you.

Second reason is underhood temperature. Prior to my Ceramic Coated Hooker's on my Fairlane, I was using cast iron hi-po manifolds. Cast iron manifolds typically run a lot cooler than plain painted headers, but I can say from experience that the ceramic coating on my headers keeps them running even cooler than the iron manifolds did, which at least with long tubes ensures a longer life span for my starter, plug wires, and other temperature sensitive items that close to the headers.

If you're just interested in performance and not how the headers will look 1, 2, 5, etc. years from now, go with the non ceramic-coated ones. My personal preference is when I do a modification, I want it to be the last time I do it, so I want any part I install to hold up for the long term, so I go with ceramic coating.

for $230 i would get ceramic

painted headers rust quick, had some flotecs on a camaro and the factory paint melted off after an hour of driving.

i got chrome bbk's on my mustang and they took a lil less then a year to turn blue and there is a good bit of surface rust around the collector areas (lts) but i live in West Virginia where every thing rusts.

I had ceramic headers the **** chipped off then they rusted. Ford Racing sucks ass.