Kal-gard doesn't list it on their website, so maybe it has gone the way of the dodo. The can finally ran out a couple of years ago and I couldn't find another. It looked and worked OK, but would only last a couple of years before needing to be redone. I had read that Kerker used Header Kote as the finish on their painted systems from the factory. I don't like the look of heat wrap either, my choice would be the ceramic " brushed chrome" finish, it looks very nice inded! Cheers, Terry.įor years I had a can of Kal-gard Header Kote that I used to keep the Kerker exhausts on various motorcycles covered. If you want shiny pipes, then you'll either need to get them ceramic coated or re-chromed, if you can find a plater who'll do it, most won't want to risk your pipes internal carbon and oil etc contaminating their chrome baths. Also, the most critical area is the first 6 inches (no dirty pun intended) particularly the area around the 90 degree bend, maybe because that's where the headers are their thinnest, but after about a foot from your exhaust ports, you can pretty much paint them with house paint and it'll last pretty well. If you paint over dirty, rusty, or oily pipes, don't expect the paint to last very long. Like most paints though, heat paints are only as good as their preparation.
It looked like the ceramic silver coating that I've seen here, and stayed on the pipes for a couple of years until they were replaced, and never rusted, although the heat from some 140+ Mph runs baked a sort of "gold" tint into the pipes, which looked pretty cool. I guess there are heat paints and heat paints, but before I had a new pipe made for my Suzy GS1000S, I sandblasted the rusty old pipe, lightly "etch primed" it with a "zinc heavy" etch primer called "Super etch", then painted it with Motospray 1500 F flat silver, let it air dry, fitted it to the bike, ran the engine for 30 minutes at idle in my driveway to "bake" it, (and to avoid baking bugs to the fresh paint) then switched it off and let it cool and cure for a day. It's amazing how detailed science can get on things seemingly as simple as color and surface finish. The matte surface difuses these reflections, allowing more of the energy to escape. The shiny surface acts as a reflector for heat. A thin matte coating will radiate better than a thick shiny one. Surface area, color, and texture of the radiating surface make a big difference. This could make the resultant peak heat achieved at the outer surface higher.ĭo you suppose those big finned flanges that Honda put on the stock bikes helped keep the header temps down?Īnyway, I learned a lot about thermal chacteristics/theory and practice while doing power supply design and trying to put lots of power and/or parts into very compact spaces.
A thick coating or multiple layers will insulate the pipe causing it to retain heat. Radiation and conduction should lower the header temps pretty quickly, though I have no quantitative data. However, unless you are doing a high speed run, it seems doubtfull the header exterior temp gets this high. Most engines average 1400 - 1600degrees F WOT for an exhaust gas temp.
I do have some info you might make use of, though.
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