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Ceramic coated exhaust manifold


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I had my 6 phoenix stainless ceramic coated by Zircotech 3 years ago now. It does help with the heat in the engine bay, but it still gets hot in there.

You can put your hand next to the manifold and it radiates warm not scolding, plus it cools down quicker.

I would use Zircotech again. Costly but I think worth it.

Zircotech are based in Abingdon and are used by all the motorsport teams.

Steve

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I have heard great things about this, but have also heard that dissipation of the heat moves down the exhaust. DO you need shielding to the underbody?

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Hi Peter,

not sure if you can (easily) ge a 6 branch in mild steel. Everybody seems to be doing them in SS.

 

I had my Phoenix 4 branch coated by CamCoat in Warrington. They do a three coat technique - base coat + top coat on the outside & base coat inside.

It sort of works. The enigne itself will give off a great deal of heat and whatever comes out of the exhaust adds to that.

Having said that it does keep its surface finish better than a naked SS pipe. Mine is 7 years old and is still a reasonable shiny SS colour.

 

As stated the heat must go somewhere. In my case - out the back. The tail pipe can get very warm.

 

All the processes are very thin so make sure you are happy with the pipe surface finish before coating - deep scratches may show up.

 

Don't go down the TRactor route and use the wrapping - fire risk, tatty etc.

 

Roger

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HI Peter

 

I have a 4 branch s/s exhaust, a silencer plus all pipng on my 3A all fully wrapped to the cruciform from Moss and duely painted over, with their special paint. My engine bay is never that hot as a result of the wrapping, but my rear over-rider does get heat discolouration showing that heat is going out of the back of the car not in the engine compartmentwhich is a good thing as the hot exhaust gases get away faster. I can recommend this set up on a 4 cylinder car but don´t know anything about a 6 cylinder.

Dave

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We've had them done on the six cylinder Bentley engines when we've had special manifolds made to try and reduce the heat they otherwise radiate. It does make a difference, but it's very expensive at £300 each for two manifolds, three cylinders each.

 

TBH most six branch manifolds make barely a measureable difference to the power output, so I don't see the point. We only get them made because we're fitting a Silver Cloud engine in a MKVI or R type and the manifolds can't be used.

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Peter

 

Many years ago I had a mild steel tubular extractor manifold fitted to the tuned 2.5l in my GT6. The heat generated by this in a very cramped engine bay was phenomenal. So much so that any journey over 20miles meant driving in your bare feet and on one occasion the security remote got so hot that it refused to work!

I eventually replaced this with a SS tubular manifold and wrapped it with heat resistant wrap. At the same time I fitted homemade heatshields to the twin HS6 carbs. The improvement was dramatic to say the least. The heat is transferred further down the system-in my case to the single pipe under the gearbox, which is handy since it burns off all the leaking gearbox oil.

My E-Type's cast manifolds have been ceramic coated by a PO but this has started to degrade and burn off, so I would go down the wrap route. I don't have the wrap info to hand but I thought that it was fire retardant as well as heat resistant-but don't quote me on that. I also like the look of the wrap-it's more vintage racer, but that's a personal choice.

 

Cheers

 

Alan

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Hi just to indicate how much heat can be given off by a standard tune engines manifold. In my younger days at the local technical college in Peterborough (uk) they had a ford 2litre pinto engine on a test bed attached to a water filled load device. The engine was standard tune and most likely from a local scrap yard or the like. At full chat the exhast manifold glowed cherry red and you could almost see through the cast iron as it appeared you could see gas or more likely heat waves in the metal. This was over 35 years ago and it has stayed with me and its still clear in my memory and shows how much heat can be radiated from a manifold, I'm amazed more damage is not done given that experience, but I guess air flow through the engine bay must help.

 

Mark

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By far most heat in the engine bay comes from the radiator. Silverback proved this when the radiator was in the back, and the underbonnet was cold.

 

Sure, the exhaust manifold will be hot and will radiate heat, but units closeby, carbs etc, can be shielded.

 

JOhn

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Peter and Alan

 

After I had wrapped the four branches individually to as far as you can, then in pairs etc. and finally I painted the wrapping with HYCOTE very high temperature paint, giving a temp. resistence of 500ºC/ 930ºF. The can I got from MOss i think and on the can is a drawing of a 4 branch exhaust manifold, colour I used is Aluminium but it comes in other colours as well. I have not got any heat shield for my S.U.HS6 carbs or for the alternator and I have had no trouble in the 18000 miles I have used the car, including distances of 900 kms. in one day. The tin is an aerosol of 400ml. and you will need two if you go down the exhaust pipe as well as far as the cruciform.

 

Dave

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Zircotec - amazing stuff & worth every penny.

Camcoat - no better than a £10 can of Sperex VHT IMO & not cheap.

Exhaust wrap- fine on a mild engine, do not use on mild steel manifolds or the whole lot turns to ferric oxide. Stainless manifolds wrapped tend to fracture right by the flange when used hard.

Excessive manifold heat is caused by Triumphtune rear silencers or other appalling constrictions, lean mix, or over-advanced cam timing. A happy engine actually runs a fairly cool exhaust.

Our latest 4-pot manifold & system allows 100bhp/L at 7000rpm & runs remarkably cool because all the heat's straight out of the rear end & gone without constriction causing heat soak.

Big 4-pot engines need big exhausts. Therefore no heat buildup anywhere.

Pip pip!

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If you intend to get a 'ceramic coating' done make sure the manifold fits perfectly before the process is done.

 

Having to hit/smack/file/grind/bend a tubular manifold to fit your car, that you have just lashed out some hundreds of drinking vouchers on, will cause severe humour failure.

 

Cheers

Peter W

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Zircotec - amazing stuff & worth every penny.

Camcoat - no better than a £10 can of Sperex VHT IMO & not cheap.

Exhaust wrap- fine on a mild engine, do not use on mild steel manifolds or the whole lot turns to ferric oxide. Stainless manifolds wrapped tend to fracture right by the flange when used hard.

Excessive manifold heat is caused by Triumphtune rear silencers or other appalling constrictions, lean mix, or over-advanced cam timing. A happy engine actually runs a fairly cool exhaust.

Our latest 4-pot manifold & system allows 100bhp/L at 7000rpm & runs remarkably cool because all the heat's straight out of the rear end & gone without constriction causing heat soak.

Big 4-pot engines need big exhausts. Therefore no heat buildup anywhere.

Pip pip!

Stan

 

slight thread diversion

 

i'm just rebuilding my 4 engine (89mm pistons, ported 4A head, new crankshaft & flywheel etc) with most the parts coming from Ken Gillanders in the US incl a set of SS extractors - I was contemplating getting them and the pistons ceramic coated. I hadn't yet got to thinking about the exhaust downstream from the extractors. Do you have a recommendation on what type of muffler / silencer to fit (and where to source them unless I get them made here)

 

thoughts appreciated

Edited by Graze
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Tony

 

It's just the tops of the forged pistons to give them longer life, suggested by Jim Gray in US who has been giving me some advice on the engine rebuild and on the mikuni carbs. He runs a very competitive 4 in the US racing scene

 

Graze

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Zircotec - amazing stuff & worth every penny.

Camcoat - no better than a £10 can of Sperex VHT IMO & not cheap.

Exhaust wrap- fine on a mild engine, do not use on mild steel manifolds or the whole lot turns to ferric oxide. Stainless manifolds wrapped tend to fracture right by the flange when used hard.

Excessive manifold heat is caused by Triumphtune rear silencers or other appalling constrictions, lean mix, or over-advanced cam timing. A happy engine actually runs a fairly cool exhaust.

Our latest 4-pot manifold & system allows 100bhp/L at 7000rpm & runs remarkably cool because all the heat's straight out of the rear end & gone without constriction causing heat soak.

Big 4-pot engines need big exhausts. Therefore no heat buildup anywhere.

Pip pip!

Hi - was thinking of cam coating my exhaust as their fairly local to me. Can you expand on your view / experience of it?

Thanks

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I also had my exhaust manifold coated by Zirotec, and very happy with the results.

 

The coating is Zirconium Dioxide that they sputter onto the manifold using a plasma arc running at 10,000C

It is a very hard coat and an excellent insulator.

They supply a variety of colours, though I went with silver

Have a look on their website for more info www.zircotec.com

 

TT

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I have a TR3A with HS6's on a TR4A inlet manifold and a Phoenix 4 branch into

a 60mm big bore stainless system with two straight through boxes .... Sounds great and no heat problems under the bonnet and often can cruise at modest speeds without any fan assistance at the radiator ( Kenlow type system)

 

No exhaust wrap either, no apron cardboard duct either, plus then there's my set of car badges and twin spots in front of the apron!!!

 

The bigger the exhaust the better

 

Regards

 

Bill G@ NB

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Bill, sounds like you built my engine too ! I have the same inlet / out system, except I only have one box ?

 

I find the throb of the exhaust slightly less "great" with a tinny hardtop on.

 

Installing the duct made a big difference to keeping my old rad cool, but not sure what impacts it is having on heat in general in the engine bay with less air flow?

 

I sense the carbs are wheezing a little now, so hopefully installing a vent pipe to get air through to them will assist.

 

I was concerned that reducing the air flow and increasing heat in the bay in general might affect the alternator which is waiting to be installed ?

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