Paint: What paint for intake and exhaust

[doubledaddy]

I have a Bill Cathcart engines in my 50 champion and would love to hear any experience anyone has with painting the cast iron exhaust manifolds and the aluminum intake. I can clean the aluminum head and intake but don't like the idea of painting them. Anyone have an effective way to keep them looking clean? Also would like to paint the exhaust aluminum, what's the best paint for this? Searching online only yelded a ton of conflicting information. Thanks

[52-fan]

I would be interested in some real world success stories also. I had a set of exhaust manifolds that I had cleaned and intended to paint, but had to press the prepped bare manifolds into service before making arrangements to bake them after painting. I have always suspected that the horror stories about how the better quality products fail is because the users don't follow the directions, but I may be wrong.

[jimmijim8]

VHT brand paint available from Auto Zone, Summit and other sources makes a clear coat that is designed for use on disc brake calipers. { they get hot} I polished the upper and lower tanks on my radiator and then clear coated with VHT. 12 years and still looking good. VHT stands for {very high temperature} may work on your aluminum head after you polish it and thoroughly wipe it down with soap and water followed by paint prep solution. cheers jimmijim

[doubledaddy]

I just talked to tech support at VHT about curing VHT Flameproof paint (2000 degrees). He said it can be cured several months on an exhaust manifold but it must be hung somewhere and not touched or allowed to be handled before curing. Think I will hold off on the exhaust paint for now. Still need to know how to keep the aluminum head and intake looking good.

[jimmijim8]

I recently explained how to keep the aluminum head shiny.

[Swifster]

Eastwood makes a exhaust manifold dressing that's supposed to hold up well. For the intake, I'd powder coat it in an aluminum color. Unless they come out with a streetable alumnimun manifold in the next couple of years, I'm powder coating a cast iron manifold to look like an aluminum one.

[52-fan]

I would think that an aluminum part that was polished would stay in good shape for a long time if it was kept clean and wiped fairly regularly.

[CaffeineRacer]

I have the VHT Flameproof paint on my cast iron manifolds. It works great. I did bake them in 3 cycles in my oven like suggested on the can to cure the paint. It makes a lot of really nasty smelling smoke. I would recommend curing them using the engine running method instead. At any rate its held up really well for the past few thousand miles so we shall see if it stands the test of time. DO NOT clear coat your manifolds. You'll make a big mess that then you have to figure out how to scrape off. Your exhaust manifolds are hotter than any other part on your engine, but a few hundred degrees at least.

One thing I will note is that I used the cast-iron color which when sprayed is fairly silvery. Once the paint had gone through a couple of heat cycles it darkened an became a more greenish/brown cast iron color. Still looks fine, just wanted to point out that the heating will change the color a bit.

As for the aluminum stuff. Its pretty much impossible to keep polished like it was when it was new unless you pull off the carb and consistently buff it with polish and a rotary buffer. I have aluminum valve covers which I use some buffing compound and polish by hand, but even that doesn't really work all that well and I'm not willing to spend the hours required. I have an aluminum intake, which I painted and I think it looks a lot cleaner that way (see photo). To paint aluminum you need a zinc chromate primer that you can get at aviation or boating stores and then for the color coat I used the Duplicolor engine enamel and after a few heat cycles that stuff is quite durable.

[wdills]

I had my exhaust manifolds (V8) done by Jet-Hot coating. I have seen several drivers with manifolds done by this company and they look great. They are not cheap, but I think it will be worth the money. I hate to see beautifully restored engine compartments with rusty manifolds between the nicely painted engine and the stainless exhaust.

http://www.jet-hot.com