Painting turbo heat shield
 

Hi Guys,

Has anyone painted their turbo and manifold heat shield (stock twin heat shield)?

My heat shields are in good condition with almost no rust and was thinking about using rattle can high heat spray on them. My thought is that it would further aid shielding the heat, but not sure if this is the right thing to do.

Moe Greene

I have done this..... it's held up fine. I also dei heat taped the inside of the shield too, also holding up. I posted some stuff about it in my build thread.

Did this help in anyway in terms of reducing intake temps or reducing overall temps in the engine bay?

I'll head over and check your build thread out!

I tried it on my FC back in the day and it was all gone and burned off in about 30 minutes :). The spots that get REAL hot you can't see that well in the car, and I bet most spray can paint will be long gone.

I'm not trying to second-guess CR-rex but those heat shields see CRAZY amounts of heat and most rattle can paint can't do it.

Dale

^Agree, they do get crazy hot and regular paint wouldn't last long. But I painted mine about 10 years ago with this stuff... http://www.designengineering.com/cat...licone-coating and it seems to have held up fine. Probably the same stuff cr-rex used. I scuffed it up with a coarse pad, wire-wheeled any scaled spots and cleaned it with reducer (brake parts cleaner works in a pinch) and used the silver DEI coating. It stuck and still looks really good. Put the studs on the wire wheel and used hi-temp anti-seize on the bolts and threads during reassembly.

i have no idea if there were any performance benefits. i made no effort to verify. i would imagine that there would be some kind of small decrease in temps or something. i did just as something to do. if you couldnt find it in my thread thats because the links to images are broken for some reason. its post 91. i have no idea where those images are now.

not sure how long back in the day was but maybe paint tech has come a way so that doesnt happen anymore. theres a lot of some really nice paints that can be had in rattle can. i used a rattle cna high temp on the flange for my single turbo manifold and it has done nothing along the lines of defects.

that.... that is exactly what i did. that process. i didnt use the same paint as your though. i used a high temp primer and paint but it was some japanese brand paint. i forget what temperature it said it was good up to but it was pretty high.

Have them professionally ceramic coated, not terribly expensive and definitely pays dividends :icon_tup:

My thoughts exactly.

^ Why exactly?
Why pay a couple hundred dollars to have the tin shields heat coated when there will be no measurable gain in temp reduction/protection, no cosmetic advantage that's visible, and when a $10 can of hi-temp over-the-counter coating properly applied will last the functional life of the turbos?

I cant see why you would put anything on the shield. No one will see it. A coating of any kind isnt going to make a measurable difference.

IMO the only reason to coat it is to make you feel better for some reason.

Something to prevent rust would be my priority. How good is ceramic coat for this? I assume it seals the surface and should keep the moisture out?

Yep....they rust.

Edit...OP, found a couple pictures from about 10 years ago (~40K miles) of manifold shield, but all the shields were done as described above and all look essentially the same today. I'm sure cerma-coating would also work to control the rust and pitting, just not sure what dividends would be paid by spending 20 times the money for it on the shields. If I could do it again, while the engine was out I might consider cerma-coating the manifold though.

Attachment 603152


Attachment 603153

Ceramic coating is not that expensive, I got my turbine housing done for $85. Besides if you get multiple pcs done in the same color the cost goes done pretty quick.