painting an exhaust

[sarniarebel]

so i have a old 2 stroke exhaust i have painted a few times but the paint always seems like it like to come off where i put it. ive sanded down the pipe and everything but the rust comes back. i put 3 layers on it and it always fails. any advice? it there a special header primer? the kind of paint im using is for headers so im sure it can stand the heat

[Rebel]

There is some high temp paint, I don't really think any paint is going to stay for a long time, primer is not going to help either. If you don't want the bare metal showing about the only thing I've ever seen last for much time is a wrap on the pipe. Personally I prefer just the bare metal or chrome.

[jmkjr72]

well i normaly can get a 2 stroke pipe to last 2 or 3 years primed and painted
but you need to use vht primer and paint and bake it as directed on the can of paint so unless you want to piss the old lady off you better have a gas grill

www.vhtpaint.com/flameproof.html

thats the stuff i use

anything less then 2000 deg will not last long on a 2 stroke pipe

[90GTVert]

I'm a fan of BBQ black. It's easy to work with and easy to touch up. It's just flat black, but it works for me. If the pipe is bare metal you can use Mop N Glo. Sounds silly, but look it up.

[sarniarebel]

I've been using the vht paint but not the primer. Didn't know you had to bake the stuff on so I'll have to look into that.

[jmkjr72]

yeah not properly cureing the paint will kill it

i dont like to do the on the scoot method it doesnt seem to work real well

and most ele ovens wont get hot enough to bake the paint for the final stage

i use the primer becuase i normaly strip off the oe paint that comes on pipes if they are painted and i dont care for chrome pipes too flashy for me

[Rebel]

Will a gas grill get to the 600 degree temp to bake it?

[jmkjr72]

mine did with the lid down and all 4 burners on high took a little bit of time to get up there but irc it was about the same amount of time that the cooling time between bakes was

funny thing is the can i have says 200 400 and 600 the website now shows 250 400 and 650

[sarniarebel]

well i guess its a good thing that i just got a new gas grill! ill crank my old grill up and ill see how hot i can get her up too. last time i got it to 600 the grease tray caught on fire (for obvious reasons) and nearly burnt the side of my house off!

[bluefront]

I painted my exhaust with the 2000degree paint (no primer), cleaned the surface well, but didn't have any way to bake the thing. So I hung it up from a rafter and used a heavy-duty heat gun....back and forth multiple times. It got smoking hot like this (took a while). That was a year ago and 9K miles.....the paint still looks like new.

[Rebel]

Well, I'm glad this topic was posted, I never knew people had such good luck with the paint.

[sarniarebel]

yea, especially the heat gun one. would of never thought of it!

[sarniarebel]

so when i was sanding down my exhaust, i noticed that the spot where i sprayed some clear coat on the exhaust when the exhaust was hot and i just couldnt get it off for the life of me. it took a good 5 mins of sanding the same spot to get it off. after i got the pipe sanded and painted i heated it up with the heat gun and then remembered about the clear coat, so i heated my pipe up and i sprayed some clear coat on. the paint smoked when i put it on but it is rock solid on that pipe now! couldnt scratch it for the life of me!

[skuttadawg]

I bought some high temp paint so a heat gun will help it cure faster ?

[jmkjr72]

it will help it bake as they have verimac particals in the paint

it wont actauly be fully cured for about a week even if you heat gun or torch it