JET-HOT Makes Sure Your Headers Aren’t (Hot, That Is)
By Rick Reimundez
Heat is the enemy of performance, and JET-HOT has been providing heat relief for years. With their coatings on your headers you can expect them to last longer, boost power, and look great for years to come.
Here how it works: you can either send JET-HOT your headers and have them strip them, coat them, and send them back, or you can purchase coated headers directly from them. They carry the full line of Hooker, Hedman, and Dynatech Supermaxx headers.
In either case you’ll end up with headers that look great and have a durable finish that’ll stand up to the high exhaust temperatures — unlike powder coating or painting. The surface temperatures of the headers are also reduced about 50%, which also cuts down on engine bay heat. And less heat in the engine bay means less money spent out of your pocket replacing plugs, wires, fan motors, water pumps, and anything else that’ll break down faster over time with the added heat.
JET-HOT offers a number of choices for you when it comes to coatings. Their standard coatings will take temperatures up to 1,300 degrees F (JET-HOT 1300). But they also offer a couple of higher heat applications: one that will keep its finish up to 1,400 degrees and protect parts up to 1,700 degrees — called JET-HOT Extreme Sterling — and the other that will protect your parts up to 2,450 degrees for racing applications called JET-HOT 2000.
Want to customize those headers on your boat? They’ve got a JET-HOT marine coating that will protect to 1,300 degrees and also protect from corrosion in a marine application. Finally, if you absolutely, positively have to get that header cooled fast, they offer JET-HOT TDC.
Prices will obviously vary, but just to give you an idea, a Hooker header for a ‘69 Camaro finished in their standard JET-HOT 1300 will start at $330. You need to pay attention to your application though: you’ll need to know if you have power brakes, power steering, A/C, column or floor shift, and auto or manual transmission. For something a bit newer, an ’05 Mustang full SuperMaxx header system (headers and Y-pipe) will run you $1,750.
Supermaxx Mustang Header System with Y-Pipe [JET-HOT]
Hooker Competition Headers for Chevys [JET-HOT]
Get an Estimate for your own headers [JET-HOT]
September 27th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
There sure is a lot of marketing hype to filter through. Here’s my take on some of their claims:
Claim: Lower temperature = higher performance due to greater air density. This is valid (that’s what intercooler’s do afterall) though the actual peformance gain may be negligible. There’s really no way to know for sure unless you try it.
Claim: Lower temperature = higher exhaust inertia. I’m a bit skeptical about this one. Though it’s true that higher temperature gas trapped in the exhaust will have more kinetic inertia, it doesn’t necessarily mean more of it will escape. The problem arises in assuming that since the exhaust is going out the pipe, that more inertial will make it go out the pipe faster. The kinetic inertia is omnidirectional so you’ll get the same amount of kinetic inertia increase outwards as you will kinetic resistence inward, potentially cancelling each other out. The increased temperature trapped inside WILL however increase the wear on your catalytic converter and muffler.
Claim: Does not contribute to Hydrogen Embrittlement. Ok, this is “technically” true but in my 5 years of working in the production, transport and trasport of high pressure hydrogen systems, Hydrogen Embrittlement only occurs in the presence of, wait for it, Hydrogen. The same claim could be made of a PVC pipe. Unless you’re running some sort of converted hydrogen internal combustion engine AND you’re exposing the OUTside of your headers to Hydrogen (’cuz the coating won’t do anything for you internally), it’s a rather irrelevant claim.
I could go on but the bottom line is, do read claims carefully and see how relevant they are in your own application. Having a super duper coating that will make your pipes survive in accelerated salt spray tests won’t apply to you in the desert. Their test conditions aren’t clear and it’s hard to say how practical or severe their fatigue tests are.
Most header coatings suffer from cracking due to the difference between the Coefficient of thermal expansion between the Steel headers and the coating. There’s no direct mention of this but may be inferred from their fatigue testing.
September 28th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
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