The 230 Headerfold project

[JimmieD]

This site might get you in the ballpark, never dealt with them:

http://www.thermal-spray-depot.com/

Failed to bookmark, but somewhere I found an inexpensive powder hopper/spray assembly that looked pretty good for hobby use. A deep web search may be in order......

[MoparNorm]

Just my two cents:
How many sets are you looking at making and how much per set are you trying to sell them for?
For the DTA Headers, my set up costs were $4,600., before one set was sold, plus my cost per set.
Selling each set at the lowest possible price was based upon selling 35 sets, in order to break even. The 35 set price was based upon the initial interest of 40 responses.
In reality, we had interest for only 23* sets.
So before you spend a great deal of time and effort on this I'd suggest getting at least 50 pre-orders for your endeavor otherwise you are going to be buried in overhead and doing this out of pocket.
*26 sets sold, 3 sets were bought back, another 3 sets were given away for various reasons and 3 sets were discounted to US servicemen.

[monkeymissile]

Jet-Hot

This site might get you in the ballpark, never dealt with them:

http://www.thermal-spray-depot.com/

Failed to bookmark, but somewhere I found an inexpensive powder hopper/spray assembly that looked pretty good for hobby use. A deep web search may be in order......

Jimmie,
Thanks, Jet-Hot seem to be THE guys for ceramic header coatings. I'll research some more later on. I think figuring out a coating solution (again, only if I use steel instead of stainless) needs to come after a functioning prototype is put through it's paces.

justin

[monkeymissile]

Just my two cents:
How many sets are you looking at making and how much per set are you trying to sell them for?
For the DTA Headers, my set up costs were $4,600., before one set was sold, plus my cost per set.
Selling each set at the lowest possible price was based upon selling 35 sets, in order to break even. The 35 set price was based upon the initial interest of 40 responses.
In reality, we had interest for only 23* sets.
So before you spend a great deal of time and effort on this I'd suggest getting at least 50 pre-orders for your endeavor otherwise you are going to be buried in overhead and doing this out of pocket.
*26 sets sold, 3 sets were bought back, another 3 sets were given away for various reasons and 3 sets were discounted to US servicemen.

Norm,
haven't gotten that far yet. I want to get a functioning prototype first and then consider a limited production if the shop I used to work for is interested in the project. People may look at my design and run away let alone request one! We'll see, still a long way to go!
Tell me more about your DTA headers.....

justin

[MoparNorm]

The DTA Headers are 14 ga. with 3/8", laser cut flanges.
They come raw, chromed or coated, of the three in the bottom photo, the two on the left are ceramic coated, the one on the right is chromed. The mounted header is "chromex" coating.





They are coated inside and out, the finish is guaranteed for 3 years.

[monkeymissile]

The DTA Headers are 14 ga. with 3/8", laser cut flanges.
They come raw, chromed or coated, of the three in the bottom photo, the two on the left are ceramic coated, the one on the right is chromed. The mounted header is "chromex" coating.





They are coated inside and out, the finish is guaranteed for 3 years.

Norm,
you will definitely be my go-to guy if/when I consider a limited production run of the headerfold design. Did you fabricate them or have them made to your specs? Not sure if you're in manufacturing or if this was just a side project. They are spectacular and I hope mine will look half as good! Thanks.

[MoparNorm]

Side Project from ****...ha!ha!
I started to build them myself, but I had too many irons in too many fires....
I had a shop build them for me, under an exclusive 5 year deal.
With my luck, after 5 years and 1 day, there will be 3,000 orders placed....= )

[monkeymissile]

regrets

Side Project from ****...ha!ha!
I started to build them myself, but I had too many irons in too many fires....
I had a shop build them for me, under an exclusive 5 year deal.
With my luck, after 5 years and 1 day, there will be 3,000 orders placed....= )

Like I am fond of saying, it's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done! Do you mind me asking who did your coating and how much it added to cost?

[MoparNorm]

The shop is in Auburn WA. right next door to the header fabricator. It's about $255 and the chrome is $50.
We could get a better coating price if we had more volume.

http://www.performancecoatings.com/

[monkeymissile]

convenient

The shop is in Auburn WA. right next door to the header fabricator. It's about $255 and the chrome is $50.
We could get a better coating price if we had more volume.

http://www.performancecoatings.com/

that's about the range I've been seeing too from other vendors, thanks

[maineSS]

You might consider doing the inside of the header with a thermal insulating coating- that would give most protection for the buck. Exhaust gases can be quite corrosive, and corrosion activity doubles with each 10 deg rise in temperature (your car rusts faster during the summer than winter, and pulling a snow covered vehicle into a heated garage helps the process along nicely). Another thing to keep in mind during the design process is access to other engine components- we've all wondered why the OEM's bury things that require periodic maintainence. The oil pump is probably one of the things you'll want to keep in mind- wouldn't be much fun having to dismantle half the exhaust to get it out. I've also looked for Tri-Y systems designed with wave tuning in mind, but so far no one seems concerned with it- it looks like it's considered to be a step between factory exhaust and regular headers.

[monkeymissile]

You might consider doing the inside of the header with a thermal insulating coating- that would give most protection for the buck. Exhaust gases can be quite corrosive, and corrosion activity doubles with each 10 deg rise in temperature (your car rusts faster during the summer than winter, and pulling a snow covered vehicle into a heated garage helps the process along nicely). Another thing to keep in mind during the design process is access to other engine components- we've all wondered why the OEM's bury things that require periodic maintainence. The oil pump is probably one of the things you'll want to keep in mind- wouldn't be much fun having to dismantle half the exhaust to get it out. I've also looked for Tri-Y systems designed with wave tuning in mind, but so far no one seems concerned with it- it looks like it's considered to be a step between factory exhaust and regular headers.

mSS,
I've considered a design that has weld-on retainers in key locations so that sections of pipe could be easily removed to gain access to oil pump/fuel pump without full removal, something like these...
http://www.spdexhaust.com/AccessoriesB.html

[monkeymissile]

your preferences....

One of the voices in my head is getting louder everytime I sit down to work on this headerfold design....."keep it simple stupid!" it says.
So I have been thinking that I could design something much simpler, along the lines of the stock manifold, and easily use stainless. I'd probably end up with something that performed marginally better than stock, but was robust, worry-free and easy to install.
Or I could try to get more performance by applying more principles of header design, but would likely have to use steel tubing and get it coated for longevity. Also it would be much harder to build, probably trickier to install and likely to make getting at the oil/fuel pumps difficult.
What would you all prefer if you had a choice? I am leaning more towards the first option using stainless.
Appreciate your input, thanks

[MoparNorm]

You might consider doing the inside of the header with a thermal insulating coating- that would give most protection for the buck. Exhaust gases can be quite corrosive, and corrosion activity doubles with each 10 deg rise in temperature (your car rusts faster during the summer than winter, and pulling a snow covered vehicle into a heated garage helps the process along nicely). Another thing to keep in mind during the design process is access to other engine components- we've all wondered why the OEM's bury things that require periodic maintenance. The oil pump is probably one of the things you'll want to keep in mind- wouldn't be much fun having to dismantle half the exhaust to get it out. I've also looked for Tri-Y systems designed with wave tuning in mind, but so far no one seems concerned with it- it looks like it's considered to be a step between factory exhaust and regular headers.

As noted in my post, the coating is applied BOTH inside and out.
Tri-Y headers provide about 20% more performance than traditional headers, by dyno testing.

As for making a modified header, you're going to discover that, with a limited production run, your costs are going to be about the same, no matter what you build, so my advice is to make it the best you can make it. I'd pay $600 for an excellent set of headers, I won't pay $550 for a marginal set.

[maineSS]

There's some interesting data on header coatings at this site- http://www.centuryperformance.com/heatwraps.asp . It has some Jet-Hot test results on header oxidation at 1200 deg (dark red in daylight) temps. A set of 1010 steel headers lost 25% of its weight in 10 hrs, 410 Stainless lost 8% in the same time. Coated 1010 lost no weight. Another test involved running a car with identical headers, one coated, the other not, for 10 laps at 6900- 7500 RPM. The uncoated header was 750 deg 1" from the engine port (red visible in dark), the coated header was 300 deg 1" from the port. This site has a comparison between three different coating types using thermocouples and IR photography- http://www.flirthermography.com/medi...onte-FINAL.pdf .The orange-red to orange white colors seen in some header photos would be 2010- 2190 deg, unprotected steel would oxidize even faster at these temps. It would be interesting to see how hot headers get on a flathead under load- if there's a lot of fuel burning on it's way out the exhaust due to an inefficient combustion chamber, header temps could soar. Perhaps SickCall could get some measurements with an IR gun on his header after a long hillclimb? I know the muffler on my truck gets hot enough to warm the floorboard! One other thing about coatings is that they fuse with the metal, making any subsequent welding just about impossible, so it should be the last thing you do before installing them on the vehicle.