Painting the Exhaust, corrosion protection
 

Living in Chicago and using my Z as a year-round daily driver surely exposes the car to the elements. I have a Stillen CBE which uses T304 stainless on the tips, mufflers and resonators but T409 stainless on all the tubing. Per Stillen, it's expected to have some light surface rust on all the T409 parts, which I now have. The T304 sections still have a perfect surface shine.

My plan is to lightly sand off the surface rust this spring and then paint the T409 portions. Do you guys have any recommendations regarding the best paint to use? Obviously I need something that will protect from corrosion but withstand the heat from the exhaust gases.

ceramic coated would be best, but for a DIY, I would go with VHT ceramic spray paint. I powdercoated my muffler back with regular powdercoat to see how it would hold up, and it burnt off of the piping. The muffler and tips are great, but the actual piping between them didn't hold up to the heat.

I've seen people use the VHT FlameProof on headers. It's probably overkill for the exhaust beyond the cats but I believe it is all much the same price.

Great. Thanks guys. Now i just have to figure out how to mask everything so I can spray it while the exhaust is on the car. Seems easier to cure on the car rather than figure out how to bake it.

The easiest thing would be to dismount the exhaust, paint it, let the paint dry, remount and then cure on the car using the cure directions supplied with the paint.

I wouldn't worry much about the stainless exhaust... Surface discoloration is just that. What I would address is the metal underbody parts that are prone to rust in your environment. The finish quality under the car sucks. Pushing Tin had some good shots of what was happening to his....Not pretty.

I painted my Stillen CBE pipes with primer and rustolium flat black engine enamel- just did it so can't say if will hold up

I did the rear of mine, just because I didn't like the shiney can showing under the valence. Flat black BBQ paint stealthed it out..

http://images52.fotki.com/v1567/phot...MG_2059-vi.jpg

http://images47.fotki.com/v1588/phot...MG_2203-vi.jpg

As it has been stated you won't have to worry about the corrosion penetrating all the way through and actually causing leaks or anything like that. And if that does happen, just send me some pictures and we will send you a new system.

My recommendation for painting the exhaust would be lots and lots of newspaper. If you decide to paint the parts on the car then just line the underside with news paper. Don't worry about the newspaper being really pretty or anything like that. It's only going to be on there for a little while. I've masked off roll cages and what not in the past and the important thing is making sure the area that you're painting has plenty of area around it for you to paint and that anything you don't want painted is covered up. It really doesn't matter how pretty the masking job is since it's only going to last a few minutes.

One thing to keep in mind is that you will have to deal with some overspray if you don't do a really thorough job of masking. If it were me, I would simply remove the exhaust from the car and re-install it later. The finish will be a lot nicer and the overall time will be a lot shorter.

[QUOTE=Modshack;385537]I did the rear of mine, just because I didn't like the shiney can showing under the valence. Flat black BBQ paint stealthed it out..

Yea I was thinking of blacking out the can too- pipes all black just cosmetic not worried about rust - just wanted the tips to be visual

Nice, I might do the same when I get my Berk CBE. What did you do to prep? Just clean and flat black BBQ paint or did you use a base paint as well?

Just a good clean-up, some minor masking and spray the parts that show. Took maybe 10-15 minutes max.

I did this on another car with a similar set-up and 5 years later it still looked great. When I went to sell the exhaust, a bit of solvent and it came right back to shiny stainless..

Nice, thanks for the feedback Modshack :tiphat:

Thanks, Kyle. In the essence of laziness, I probably won't be pulling the exhaust off the car to paint it. I'll see what the rest of the winter brings in the way of surface corrosion. Fortunately, the underside of the car doesn't see much daylight (and it better stay this way through track day season).

I like KG coatings and cerakote... but some of them have to be baked. there air cure is great but it is ALL ABOUT PREP of the surface to be painted. I used this on parts and on firearms that see more abuse then some people's car parts. and the finish is going strong.