Hey folks,

Did a 7000 day search on "ceramic"...

...came up with brake pads and a little bit of ceramic paint...

Thinking about getting my header pipe ceramic coated, inside and out as I would like to reduce the engine temp a bit.  Does anyone foresee any problems with this, suck as too low an oil pressure?  Also, I would then not be afraid to run header wraps, for looks.  A major problem with header wraps, to my understanding, is that they can rust the heck out of the header... not good.

Thanks for any input,

K

Ceramic coating will keep exhaust gas temp up so the engine will see a shorter header,more revs.

Clive W  

well, I may be the first to find out, then!  I will probably add the header wrap at the same time.  I do like the looks of header wrap... a lot!  

Savage_Rob wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:10:



So you're saying I can make my rat smell lousy too?  YES!  

Thanks for the tip! (seriously)

Ahhhh Rat Bikes ... they have a charm all their own!! My LS is still relatively new, so for now I wanna keep 'er shiney ... but, when she gets 10 years or so under her belt, I wouldn't have too much aversion to "Rattin' 'er out"!!

Doesn't "Oklahoma-Mike" work at a place that does all types of plating?

When I had my cylinder bored and the "silicone carbide treatment" done to the cylinder, I asked about the other services available...especially for the piston, and was told that unless I was building an all-out racing engine it would be a waste of money.  It just would not make any significant difference on a street bike.  
The silicone carbide treatment was not very expensive and did make a noticeable difference.

I have no direct experience with that process or the cost of it.  It would seem that with the higher compression ratio the exhaust valve would be under greater heat stress, but is it more than a stock valve can take?  I don't know.  

With things of this nature you have to find out what the stock parts are made of, how much is the engine really stressed beyond normal, what trick treatments are available...what do they do...how much do they cost...is it really necessary....and what is the cost vs return difference?

That is what I went through with my bike when having the cylinder work done.  I was prepared to have all sorts of stuff done at a cost of about $1000.  The guy I talked to at Bore-tech was asking questions about what the bike was to be used for, how I rode it, what else was being done to the engine...like cam/carb/exhaust, and what were the results that I was really looking for?  After going through all of that he suggested that I just stick with the silicone-carbide cylinder treatment...anything beyond that would be a waste for me and my situation.

The silicone-carbide was cost effective and resulted in extending the engine life (miles), reduced friction and lower engine operating temperature.  All very practical things even for a dead stock engine.

I would highly recommend Bore-tech to anyone, they treated me very well, saved me money, and turned the job around in about 10 days.
The same can be said for Web Cams Inc, they did my cam regrind, walked me through the process, did not cost much and did it in less than 2 weeks from when I sent the cam to them.