Stainless Steel Headers... worth it or no?

[troublemaker427]

I put a set of REF headers on my car just yesterday. They fit like a glove. The quality is great also. After years of fighting my old Hookers these REF's were a dream to install. Everyone I've talked to say they make good power too. I highly recommend them and have them coated.

[Chad Rhodes]

Originally Posted by ron mattson

The coefficient of thermal conductivity for mild
Steel is 26.98 stainless ls 9.3 and mild steel
Conducts 219 % more heat pr ft than stainless.
I have shot my header tubes with a infrared
Heat gun both coated and stainless and not
Once have I seen mild better. Ever see a pro
Stocker with coated headers, if they were better
I'm sure they would be using them!

I'm sure if I were a pro stock guy, running stainless headers, and was looking for an advantage I'd get creative. Maybe I'd coat just the inside of my headers. The would gain me the thermal efficiency, without telling all my competitors what I up to. But that's just me, and what I would do. Go on believing what you will though

[Angelo DiTocco]

Any thoughts about coating on a stainless header?
would there be any advantage there... other than that you would have to worry about the headers rusting from the inside out?

[Jim Caughlin]

I've built lots of both ms & ss headers. In spite of price, ss is definitely the way to go, virtually indestructible. Having run both ss and ms headers on my own car, I can tell you that they hold heat way longer than ms, you can't get anywhere near them even 20 minutes after coming back from a run. Regarding tri Y's, don't consider them unless you are willing to commit the time to tuning things in, they are very unforgiving if you miss on the combination. In an ideal world, I would recommend ss headers and having them coated to at least keep the under hood heat radiation under control. The other negative to ss (besides the cost) is that the tubing tends to be 16 ga and that makes the overall weight higher, I have always prefered to use 18 ga on race headers just to keep the weight down. If money is really not an issue, consider the Nascar tri Y paper thin Inconell version, can't even imagine what those cost.

Jim Caughlin
SS 6019

[Bill Grubbs]

Approx $9000+/-

But they can be very brittle.

My Elston Stainless both sides together weighed less than one side of our old Heddman headers.

[gmonde]

I have been build headers for several years now ,steel and stainless , I always suggest the stainless ,, you don't have to coat them and no rust issues will offset how often you will have to coat steel and rust will build up in steel no matter the company who does them ,, also if your building new engines and dynoing them with coated ones you will burn the coating off the top bends , but ceramic coated headers do offer the heat being contained in side the tube ,, stainless doesn't offer any heat barrier , if your r&d ing with header sizes a lot then steel is the way to go gmonde


www.gmondeperformance.com

[Randall Klein]

I talked with Kromer a few years ago and he needed the car on premises...do others mentioned here (Lelchook, REF, Elston etc) have that same requirement?

Kromer also requested spec sheet on port design, flow, etc.....others?

Thanks in advance for any opinions

I run my 1995 Jack Davis headers, it sounds like I may be giving something up, they are looking kind of rough

[rallye bob]

gmonde... Your site link shows a virus. My AVG caught it...

[RonP]

I worked with Kromerkraft from about 1995 to roughly 2005. I'm guessing we built 1 set of stainless for every 80-100 sets of mild steel headers during that period. A good ceramic coating will last several years. I can't remember any customers complaining about rust during this period. We never recommended SS during that period of time. After the first set, we tried to talk the handfull of customers out of SS.

And yes, he likes having the car on site to fit the headers. They are custom fit.
We had a fixture for Gary Russell LT1 F-bodies in that time. Gary sents numerous customers to us.

We never had a customer do a back to back test,....so I don;t know if there is a perf. benefit.

Generally the Tri-Y's help the mid range and peak torque and lose a little max power.
(based my experience and it varies from car to car if there is a benefit).

Thanks, Ron

[340Cuda]

Originally Posted by Randall Klein

I talked with Kromer a few years ago and he needed the car on premises...do others mentioned here (Lelchook, REF, Elston etc) have that same requirement?

Kromer also requested spec sheet on port design, flow, etc.....others?

Thanks in advance for any opinions

I run my 1995 Jack Davis headers, it sounds like I may be giving something up, they are looking kind of rough

Randall at least for Mark Lelchook at Performance Welding he does have some cars he can use to build headers if the customers car is not there. I think his website may have more information. I don't think he will build headers out of anything but stainless anymore.
Bill