400ex headers

[unitednations]

I notice on everyones pictures of their ex that the headers are a nice chrome metal color. My headers turned all blue and red and gold from the heat and its ugly . Any tricks to get them back to normal color? There are HFM headers.

[bkelley]

The head pipe may have gotten tarnished because your jetting was off. The coloration is apart of the chrome and to remove it you would have to remove the chrome entirely.

[unitednations]

So its not sposta turn colors? My jetting is off? Its blue and red right next to the motor and gold all the way to the pipe. I think my jetting is fine

[JOHNDOE83]

What motor mods and what jetting do you have?

Being to lean "WILL" turn your exhaust different colors, and make it run hot.

Do you have a pic?

[unitednations]

11:1 compression piston
Full exhaust
kn air filter
hot cam stage 2

Jetting 40 and 168

No pic at the moment, but i can take one sometime. but its not hard to explain its a blue and red tint at the headers and then golden all the way to the muffler.
So no one else's turns colors?

[NacsMXer]

That's normal for the header to change color like that. Chrome will turn that blue and red especially, but stainless can look similar with more brown/gold. You can polish it to remove the color but it will just come right back again in time.

If you want them to look a pretty "chrome" you can have it ceramic coated. It will not change colors and holds the heat in better. It will run you anywhere from 50-100 bucks depending on who does it. Here's my CT header I just had done in chrome ceramic.

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/7310/dsc0611oi.jpg (http://img130.imageshack.us/i/dsc0611oi.jpg/)

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/6233/dsc0612y.jpg (http://img248.imageshack.us/i/dsc0612y.jpg/)

[Thumpin440ex]

Originally posted by NacsMXer
That's normal for the header to change color like that. Chrome will turn that blue and red especially, but stainless can look similar with more brown/gold. You can polish it to remove the color but it will just come right back again in time.

If you want them to look a pretty "chrome" you can have it ceramic coated. It will not change colors and holds the heat in better. It will run you anywhere from 50-100 bucks depending on who does it. Here's my CT header I just had done.

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/7310/dsc0611oi.jpg (http://img130.imageshack.us/i/dsc0611oi.jpg/)

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/6233/dsc0612y.jpg (http://img248.imageshack.us/i/dsc0612y.jpg/)

Who did the ceramic on the pipe, looks great.. And if you don't mind what did it cost ya

Thanks

As far as the header pipe changing colors it is normal, will do this on all of it, besides the C coating... If it is slightly brown, blue it is normal..



John

[unitednations]

oh ok thanks! WOW i was all paranoid thinking my 400ex has been over heating for a year. im thinking my pipe is stainless steel. and yeah my headers are around 400-500 degrees i was thinking metal would change color at that temp.


thats a nice header, i wonder who would do that around where i live.

[bkelley]

Sorry to mislead you. I know tarnishing headers can be a sign of improper jetting on other vehicles.

[NacsMXer]

Originally posted by Thumpin440ex
Who did the ceramic on the pipe, looks great.. And if you don't mind what did it cost ya

Thanks

As far as the header pipe changing colors it is normal, will do this on all of it, besides the C coating... If it is slightly brown, blue it is normal..



John

I had it done by a local powder coating shop that also offers ceramic coating service. It was around 80 dollars I believe. There are also different colors like satin chrome, flat black, gray, blue, etc. You might want to call around with your local powder shops as they may do ceramic coating as well. If there aren't any shops near you, just google ceramic coating. There's a lot of shops that do business online by having you ship the parts to them and back.

It's cool because you can polish the coating to a nice luster with regular metal polish and fine steel wool. It doesn't start out all shiny after they coat it surprisingly. It comes out a very dull gray, then they put the part in a tumbling machine and the shine comes out. The pics above are after I put in a good hour of final hand polish.

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/9845/dsc0155vi.jpg (http://img535.imageshack.us/i/dsc0155vi.jpg/)

[CJM]

If you at least want the header to look ok you can take high heat grill paint or similar high temp paint sold at the auto parts store and paint it.

I seen quite a few people do that with success and im planning on painting the heat shield with some black high temp paint since its all rusty.

[bkelley]

I used some high temp Rustoleum and it came out really good, still looks good, too. If you want to do it, make sure to go for the engine paint and not the grill paint, though. The engine paint is resistant to gas, oil and other stuff.

[CJM]

Good point about the engine paint vs grill paint, didnt think of that.

[unitednations]

yeah i ordered some duplicolor header paint. Im sick of the gold tint so i'm going to try to paint them. I should sand them first right? I tryed painting my motor yellow and that turned out bad. It flaked off. Im thinking i should of sanded it 1st. well i guess it doesnt look to bad from a distance but close up its a nightmare :(

[riotact]

That looks sweet :D I'm gonna give the guy that just pc'd my frame a call and see if he can do the ceramic too.What did you use to polish it after you got it back?

[Thumpin440ex]

Bottom line is, if your bike is running well, no backfiring or things of that nature, the plug has a nice brown tint to it, then your fine. The head pipe will change color, as the exhaust temperature is at least 900+ deg.. I would not worry.. Like I said it isn't a big deal and will def happen on a stainless pipe, chrome pipe.. Just because it changes colors does not mean that it is a jetting or fuel issue.. Can it be YES, but if your bike is performing well it is the nature of the beat for this to happen..


John

[CJM]

Yea rough it up with some 180 grit i would say.

[unitednations]

Originally posted by Thumpin440ex
Bottom line is, if your bike is running well, no backfiring or things of that nature, the plug has a nice brown tint to it, then your fine. The head pipe will change color, as the exhaust temperature is at least 900+ deg.. I would not worry.. Like I said it isn't a big deal and will def happen on a stainless pipe, chrome pipe.. Just because it changes colors does not mean that it is a jetting or fuel issue.. Can it be YES, but if your bike is performing well it is the nature of the beast for this to happen..


John


thanks for the help and clearing everything up for me. Yeah I had some jetting problems at 1st but it was all on the rich side. I never had it lean. and now i think i'm dead on or close, brown tip.

[unitednations]

Originally posted by CJM
Yea rough it up with some 180 grit i would say.

Ok thanks, will do!

[NacsMXer]

Originally posted by riotact
That looks sweet :D I'm gonna give the guy that just pc'd my frame a call and see if he can do the ceramic too.What did you use to polish it after you got it back?

#0000 steel wool very lightly with some Mothers billet polish.

[sc400ex_rider]

I used the grill paint on my header and its holding up great. still looks like the day i painted it. i've seen header paint burn off.