Hi Guys,

I am eyeballing a pair of gibby's for my truck but undecided about the material. aluminized steel, Stainless or Ceramic coated, the price difference is pretty significant from 550 to 950 , are there any benefits on getting the ceramic coated headers? I've herd that they keep temperature down under the hood, paying 9 bills for ceramic is very painful at this moment.

I've seen some knock off's on ebay for around $150 but I am staying away from that, rather get some quality stuff but unsure about the material.

Does anyone have any experience with ceramic headers?

 

well first off your on the right track about getting gibbys ... ive had a horible time with my eddys and thats a soapbox im not gonna get into..

gibbys are well made and youll like any model you get.. personnaly id get the stainless.. just for that reason.. never had to worry about corrsion if you live in a climate that has major seasonal changes... ceramics do help lower under hood temps ..

there all good.. just depeds on the amount of $$$ you wanna drop!

 

my ceramics started to rust after 2 years

 

gibbys? wow.. loll rusting ceramic headers.. dont get me started

 

yeah, im pretty pissed about it. i bought them because the exhaust shop said they would stay looking good.

 

I have a set of flowtech headers on my camaro that were Jet-Hot ceramic coated by the previous owner. They are still prety solid though have become a little stained over the years, but I've also seen some jet-hot coatings that look like absolute crap after only a couple years. Mine still look decent, luckily. Ceramic coating will cut your header surface temp down about 50%. I remember reading a Car Craft article on ceramic headers a few months ago and there was something like a 300*F difference in surface temperature between the coated and non coated. Ceramic coated headers will maybe produce 1-2 hp over the same headers un coated due to the fact that the ceramic coating keeps more heat in the headers and out of the engine bay, though I have seen on some occasions where guys have actually lost a bit of power. Only reason I picked up ceramic headers was because the guy who sold them to me totalled his car, got the insurance check and he basically gave them to me. Otherwise I would have went with normal steel and some fiberglass header wrap.

You'd be spending alot more money just for the ceramic coating if you go that route. If you're looking at the ceramic for performance reasons I think you'd be happier with the un coated gibby's and a fastman tb, if you don't already have one. The extra $$ you'd save by not getting the coating would give you some headroom for other upgrades(like the fastman) that would give you a larger gain in power.

If however you're wanting ceramic coated headers for the looks aspect, obviously nothing will substitute for the appearance, even stainless steel will eventually lose some of its luster and get some surface rust.

 

I saw where gibson made chrome headers as well. What's the difference between the chrome and the stainless?

 

'Chrome' headers will usually be mild or stainless steel with chrome plating. AFAIK all of Gibson's headers start out as stainless steel, it makes sense to me that their 'Chrome' or 'Ceramic' headers would be their base stainless steel headers with whichever coating, though someone feel free to chime in here and correct me if I'm wrong. Chrome provides a nice shine, but if you're patient with stainless steel you can achieve nearly the same luster and it would last much longer, be easier to maintain, etc.

 

My Edelbrock headers have what they call silver ceramic coating, and it has held up for 1 1/2 years so far. They still look very good. Not quite as shiney as they were the first day I installed them, but still look nice. It's the Edelbrock Ti-Tech ceramic coating that others have had problems with.

 

Thanks guys,

I thought about the ceramic and liked the idea of keeping under hood temps down, I live in AZ and the temp gets kinda crazy here in the summer.

Chris9450 Thanks, you gave me a great idea on the header wrap, I am sure that would keep the temp in the headers and away from the engine bay, if that's the case I can go with the aluminized steel ($550) and wrap them with some header wrap, no sense in getting stainless and then wrapping them.

I recall seeing a show on the DIY network "Tricked out" where they wrapped some headers and sprayed some type of water repelant/sealant. Will have to look in to that.

Thanks for the feedback guys, Will probably be ordering the headers with in a couple of weeks while I do some research on the header wraps.

Updates & pictures to come