Black Headers - paint them silver or leave them black?
 

Need your opinions here... I've got a set of black Summit 4-tubes I'm about to put on... should I leave them black or paint them silver?

I would paint them which ever color you like better. I sandblasted the black paint that came on mine off, and repainted them black.

that paint will burn off almost instantly. you need to remove it and paint them with a high heat resistant paint. black would be my choice.

sand blasting
 

I've got a blast cabinet available at the base so either color paint will have a freshly blasted surface to adhere too.

OR they're black now... should I just leave the factory black alone?

V/R,
Ty

If you leave that factory black alone it's going to burn off in a couple of hours. The best thing to do with painting headers is to get them sandblasted and then paint a hi-temp paint on them like POR-15's stuff or Eastwood's stuff, or get them ceramic coated, which is the best way to do it (but it's $$)

Any non-hi temp paint will just burn off quickly.

Paint
 

Ceramic coating is not in the budget...
Even though I got these headers for free from Formula8! Thanks again Steve!!!
They'll get blasted and painted with either a black or silver high temp paint.
The poll is 50/50 right now so it's not really helping with my decision. LOL
V/R,
Ty

Cool Ty, glad you are getting some use out of them. They have about an hour of run time on them.

Pypes system?
 

Formula8,
What Pypes system did you put on your 71?
What muffler(s) did you use? Would you do anything different?
I'm looking at a new exhaust to put behind those headers you
gave me... (c:]
V/R,
Ty

"Paint headers black" is not one of the choices but if it was, that's what I'd choose. I was told by someone at Summit that the factory black is only a coating to prevent rust during storage.

I ended up media blasting the old factory paint off of mine (box got wet & all the paint bubbled) & painted using POR-15 high temp paint (the cast iron colored stuff). Seems to be holding up well.

I've got that same set of headers. I'm planning to blast and paint mine too.
I was wondering about the Eastwood and POR manifold paints. Do they require baking/curing to get the heat resistance up?
I know that if you don't read the small print, you'd never know that some of the high temp paints don't really work without curing for an hour or so at 300~400 degrees F. It's kinda hard to bake a set of headers in the kitchen oven.

They will be "re"painted...
 

The headers will get blasted and then "re"painted either black or silver...

Get VHT header paint. I used the silver and it wont burn off. Actually it was the aluminum color and it looks really nice.

Ty, I run the 2.5" X pipe (XVF10) and had to order the tails seperately since they didn't carry the muffler I wanted to run. I wouldn't do much differently. Maybe I would run the ultraflows or Xclerators but I'm happy with my Magnaflows as well.

Pypes exhaust...
 

I'm definately going to go with one of their systems and like you said either the ultraflows or the 18" Xcelerators. I've been thinking about the crossflow system quite a bit but I'm afraid it would be too quiet... Tom Hand made a muffler suggestion to use with the crossflow for a little more rumble... what are your thoughts? I want something that sounds good at idle, quiet enough to hear the stereo inside the car without too much resonance, and I want it to roar when I hit the gas...
V/R,
Ty

I don't think an 18" muffler will fit under the rear seatwells. It sounds like you want either the ultraflows or magnaflows. My magnaflows were very quite behind my 400. The new engine, not so much but still probably quieter than most anything else that flows well.

UltraFlows
 

So you're running the 14" Magnaflows? The 14" UltraFlows are supposed to be "a little" louder than the 20" versions so that may be the sound I'm looking for... quieter but still have that musclecar sound...
V/R,
Ty

Yep, my 14" magnaflows were surprisingly quiet behind my stock 400 with an X pipe and your headers. I think 14" ultraflows would represent a very nice compromise of flow, sound and fit.

Crossflow?
 

What do you think about the crossflow system? Other than it's more expensive than the traditional dual muffler set up... ground clearance...
Did you have any clearance issues with your Magnaflows?
What headers are you running now? Just curious...
V/R,
Ty

The rear of my car is stock height and whenever dual mufflers are used, you are going to lose some ground clearance. I can certainly live with my ground clearance. If you are running low, the crossflow presents probably a better option. I don't know what muffler was being used but I heard a sound clip and I can't say I cared for the sound.

I run a set of the elusive tribal tubes, Tri-Y headers from Ron Watt.