Re: Header experience

[Simon Favre <simon@domain.elided>]

As for headers igniting oil, actually, it's more like a candle wick. 
Think oil lamps... =:0

The other traditional problem with header tape is rust. If ANY moisture
gets in there, the headers will rust very rapidly due to the temperature
cycling.

The ceramic coatings are very nice, but they are fragile. If you hit the
header with something, you might scratch right through the coating. I have
Performance Coatings satin black on my Formula Junior headers. No obvious
performance improvement, but they sure look great, and no more rust. In
places where the pipes touch something else, like a support bracket, or
a slip joint, the stuff does wear off. The best user-applied treatment
I've seen is Eastwood Header Paint. You have to bead blast the headers
and paint them IMMMEDIATELY without touching them with your bare hands.
This stuff looks great, holds up, and can be retouched easily. The paint
can't easily be applied to the inside, tho.

David R Johnson wrote:

>As for the tape, I have not used it but a friend did.  This was on a car with
>very little clearance between the plugs and headers, and he found the extra
>thickness of the tape a problem.  I have also heard reports that if the tape
>gets soaked in oil or similar fluids (what, an oil leak on an Alfa ;-), then
>the heat from the header can cause it to ignite in a rather spectacular way,
>causing a serious or terminal engine fire.  One person experimented with some
>tape soaked in oil wrapped around a pipe heated with a propane torch, and found
>that it was possible to ignite it without a direct flame.  The oil apparently
>becomes very flammable when distributed over the cloth surface of the tape
>(like flour explosions in bakeries, I presume).  Admittedly this was not a very
>scientific experiment, but it would scare me away from the tape.

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