Should I coat my Stainless headers?
 

I have some Stainless works headers I'm putting on my LS3. Will these things turn ugly brown once they are heated?

If so what can I coat them with so they look perfect forever?

Uncoated.

I love the uncoated look of "bronzed" stainless headers....

They will tarnish - if that bothers you, jet-hot does an awesome job keeping them polished for decades. Comes with a lifetime warranty. Some like the patina look, though

I like the colored look when they first turn, but after a while they get pretty nasty looking, especially on turbo cars with the extreme heat. I ended up coating mine, looked MUCH better in my opinion, and cut some of the underhood heat.

John, If you engine is not broken in, do not break it in with new coated headers. I would go uncoated personally and coat later if you dont like the look.

Turbo heat is a whole 'nother animal. 321 stainless, and double top-secret coating for sure!

For N/A cars, the bronze natural look of 304 stainless is pleasing to my eye. What's cool is that the color slowly changes from the the exhaust port all the way to the tail pipe. The other thing about coated headers is that one little scratch ruins the whole look. They have to be sent out for re-coating. Natural stainless scratches can be rubbed out with some 3M red scotch-brite.

My Z06 headers are coated, and look good too, but are slowly losing luster. Of course, that motor stays near redline for 20 minutes at a time, so they see all the exhaust heat a normally aspirated motor can throw at it.

Engine is new. Thanks for the tip. I'll break in with uncoated and if the color bothers me later I can have them coated.

Thanks everyone for the replies. Much appreciated

If you can bolt on an old crappy set for engine break in that is best.