SS tubular mani heat cycle

[redtsi252]

how do I keep a polished SS mani from turning brown...i kno they wont stay silver...most turn shiny gold...I cant find the thread on how to heat cycle it

 

[redtsi252]

I searched But I cant find anything...I kno you have to heat cycle it a certain way to keep it from discoloring...I just cant seem to find the thread

 

[Flash]

Not too sure. Mine turned brown but I do believe it was from touching it with bare hands too frequently before I installed it. Over the summer I had it ceramic coated and it looks much better now. A manifold is something you will always touch. You remove the turbo, work around the turbo, just what happens.

 

[redtsi252]

I kno....but I remember a thread that told you how to heat cycle your manifold....the same way you did it with the FP mani....

If you look throught the pictures in the gallery....there will be members manifolds here an there where it is still shiny...usually a shiny gold....because they heat cycled it right

I remember seeing a thread and its driving me crazy

 

[Imback]

Raw stainless will always color. But you will have some darker spots due to the oil from your fingers and anything else that gets on it. To prevent the darker spots after your done installing it wipe it down with acetone. And the gold you see on some manifolds are because they were polished before hand. An unpolished manifold will turn brown.

 

[redtsi252]

All DNP are Polished...Look in the members gallery.....Some are Shiny gold with NO blemishes....other ones are brown and nasty lookin....

 

[kahl23]

Honestly I haven't ever heard of heat cycling a manifold to get that rainbow/gold coloration, but I do know what you mean. IMHO, the best solution for all tubular manifolds is ceramic coating. Not only will it stay good-looking, it also helps to control the insane amount of heat an uncovered tubular manifold radiates into your engine bay, which is a very good thing. I ceramic coated my DNP silver before I installed it, so i can't give a before and after on the heat, but the only change I've seen in color over time has been a slight dulling/darkening of the color. It looks loads better than the rust/brown ones and even when oil occasionally gets spilled onto the hot manifold it burns off pretty quick and looks good as new afterward.Pretty much I'm saying you should look into ceramic coating your manifold for both looks and performance.

 

[turboglenn]

The coloration of stainless is from the chromium and nickel in it getting hot and letting off fumes which form sort of an oxide layer, depending on how hot you get it the darker it turns... the stages are shiny silver, then straw/gold, then you get into the blues...once the has gone away the last you can actually get before you've "overcooked" the manifold is a salmon'ish pink from the last bit of chromium and nickel being fumed out. Once they are all gone you no longer have a true stainless alloy

Once the chromium and nickel are completely gone the mani (or welds)will turn a dull grayish color. So the only way to keep it from turning color is to not ever get it hot enough to start "fuming" or polish it with the right compounds to where the polish seals the material from the fuming, but even then you get it red ho a few times and you're going to get some coloration

This is all from a book on welding.

The chromium theory can be proven by heating ANY crhomed part, like a cheap motorcycle header and even though it might not be SS it will stall change color because the chrome is the same as the chrome (chromium) added to steel to make it stainless and will let off the same fumes leaving the same coloration behind. It wire brushes off or can be taken off with a Scotch Britte pad...