Would ceramic coating the upper and lower intake manifold be better? I see others powder coat them. But the only issue I can see would be that after awhile the engine bay gets hot the ceramics are heatsoaked and may retain heat, but in the beginning it will be able to keep it cooler for awhile(I could be wrong about this)

 

if its a street car the benefits from the ceramic coating won't really be worth it. the money would be better spent on powder coating and having it look how you want. consider what you're using the car for and if spending the kind of money on one service vs the other will see any kind of benefit. powder coating looks good and the value of good looks knows no bounds. the ceramic coat offers the benefit of the heat barrier but what good is that driving stop light to stop light or going to lunch or dinner?

 

My ceramic coating was less than powder coating. I did both the lim and uim about 4 years ago. There are multiple types of coatings with different heat ranges. The lim gets the higher heat range blocker. The uim gets a lower heat range blocker on the bottom half and a heat exchange coating on the upper half to let any heatsoak blow off some into the engine bay, particularly with a vented hood arrangement. I ceramic coated every pipe in the engine bay including the turbos, exhaust manifolds, intercooler, etc. Lowered my charge temperature significantly along with all my other modifications.
Mike

 

I have not seen any significant difference with the ceramic coated manifolds. If you want/need a real heat barrier, inconel shield is the way to go and it is better to shield the turbo/manifold/downpipe as they are the heat source.

on the other hand, if you just want the appearance, powder coat will be just fine assuming that the turbo/downpipe is away from
the manifold.

i dont buy it that the charge temperature dropped at all, nevermind significantly

 

I do drive it around town or to work sometimes but I bring it to the autocross event or the occasional race/drifts.. made 600hp last time and I know my turbo even with the blanket was throwing out heat

The motor is going to get rebuilt next month and I plan on taking the turbo manifold, dp and cold and hot turbo side and get them done. But atm I have my aftermarket lim/uim at home and i can get that done now

 

I think at this point I would recommend vapor blasting. That should clean it up nicely and won't risk clogging up any vacuum ports. @JP3 Motorsports offers that service.

I had mine ceramic coated 10 years ago and some of the vacuum ports got clogged.