adrial

http://www.lindseyracing.com/coatpol.htm

Thoughts?

Does it last I guess is the most important question? Is it effective?

TIA,

Adrial

Mike S

Check out www.swaintech.com also. I'm on the fence on this one. There's some previous posts from another rennlist member (Geo) that had lots of positive experiences in his other cars with the coatings, but nothing with a 944. I'm looking into the PS-9 piston and skirt coatings.....along with the rod bearing coatings. Another question is "how does this affect the clearances".

Dwayne Williams

Not sure about the coating stuff but cyrogenic treating of metal can be effective. People have been freezing gun barrels, musicalal instruments, razors, knives, etc... for years. Apparently it helps re-align the molocules and makes the metal stronger.

Sam Lin

I'd go with Swain over anyone, personally. Does it work, does it last? Hell yes, there have been numerous magazine and other tests of various coatings.

Sam

adrial

Their exhaust coatings are interesting...and they're in NY! Bonus points for them! Too bad they're 5 hours away, though. It would have been great to be able to just drop the stuff off and avoid the shipping costs.

Has anybody seen any comparisons of Swain's exhaust coatings to Jet-hot?

Ski

I've been on the fence about coatings for pistons too. I mean how much more effective will it be for a street car. I can see it more on a dedicated track car than a street car. What I can see more benefit in for a street car is a bigger oil cooler, whether a KISS one added in conjunction with the factory one or a larger stand alone cooler. I have a block that's going to the machine shop at the end of this month and I can't decide on piston squirters...I think that would help on the piston cooling - better than coating - I don't know.

As far as external coatings go, I firmly believe in Jet Hot.

Geo and I got into a discussion of the two. He's been by the Swain factory, believes in their system. I've been by Jet Hot in Pascagoula MS, I have their products on my boat, 951 and my Grand Cherokee. It all looks as if it was new. BTW, the 951 exhaust lost almost 200° in heat with the Jet Hot coating, inside and out on the exhaust. I have the exact numbers recorded at home.

Mike S

Yeah...i should mention that I have used a local coating person to do the headers on my 944 turbo. After installation a few months ago I saw a drastic reduction in underhood temps. I went with a gray ceramic coating that was good up to 1800F over the spiffy looking chrome-like stuff that jet hot offers. I talked to a few places at the time and two of them told me that the chrome stuff was only good to about 1600F. Well, my exhaust temp gauge reads 1550F when at WOT, so....that's a little close. However, a couple of people here seem to have used the jet hot stuff with no ill effects so take it for what its worth.

Seems like there are two major players now:

www.swaintech.com
www.hpccoatings.com

On HPC's website there was some testing done in a "car craft" magazine article. Apparently they picked up 11HP and 18lbs of torque on a 350Hp chevy crate motor. I don't know if I beleive that, but its interesting.

TonyG

I use the Thermotec aluminized coatings! :-)

Guaranteed not to burn off.....

PS>joke (but I use tons of that stuff... it really works well)

TonyG

H2Opumpr

When I did my motor last winter I had Swaintech coat my piston skirts. It picked up the clearances enough to make the piston fit a bit tighter. I was actually trying to tighten up the clearances a bit. The factory iron coatings on our pistons is really old tech.... The more modern coatings do a better job. I have had no problems a year later.

I was not convinced of the ceramic coatings for the piston tops, I've read that it wears out and ceramics chunks flying through my turbo is not something I wish for.

Sam Lin

A number of magazines have compared them with minimally different results, but among people I've talked to, the Swain coatings simply are more durable, I've seen numerous Jet Hot coated parts cracking/flaking after only a few years of use.

As for how much more I prefer Swain, I have a Jet Hot right here in town, under 30 min away from my house - I will be shipping my parts to Swain to have them coated.

Sam

Sam Lin

Oh yeah, and the last 2 parts I got estimates for, Jet Hot was the most expensive of the 3 (Swain, HPC, Jet Hot).

Sam

adrial

Ski,

If you could, please post all your temperature measurement data.

Ski

Yeah, it'll take me a couple of days. The exhaust before was something like 489-502, went down to 298-312. The down pipe was 460-472 and it went to 328-350. I'll get you the exact in a couple of days.

jwl just had the complete exhaust system done on his rebuild: exhaust manifolds, X-Over pipe, turbo down pipe, all coated both sides; the intake manifold was coated outside only. The cost was $339 shipped. If you've gotten an outrageous quote from Jet Hot, then call the toll free number and talk to Todd Beiswenger, tell him I sent you, and get you your own account number.

If Jet Hot is so bad for cracking, I must be one lucky SOB. Its been on my MasterCraft Indmar 350 intake and exhaust manifolds for 9 yrs and they still look new. The 951 stuff is still like brand new but it's only 2 yrs old.

adrial

Ski, where were those measurements taken?

How much did the coatings run you for the crossover and exhaust manifolds?

Ski

I took them with a laser temp gun, just where the manifolds attach to the head, and I put the laser on the parts without the heat shielding right at the head.

My cost was around $249 or $249 for my stuff; manifolds, down pipe, and intake. Call Todd if your interested.