| Author | Message | ||
     Jimincalif |
My situation: I have had a KT Engineering exhaust system in storage for years, a leftover from a stolen-and-crashed '96 S1 (God I loved that bike!). The KT pipe was tuned for the cams in the '96/'97/early'98 S1 and S3. When Buell started to tweak cams in '98 and was obviously going to continue doing so, KT went out of business. The pipe produces BIG power with "it's" cam, being thicker and thinner in sections to match cam-powered exhaust timing pulses. It's basically both legendary and irreplaceable. Unfortunately the storage wasn't perfect and there's some spot-rust. I was considering just heat-wrapping it mainly for cosmetics but it turns out that destroys pipes in rapid order due to heat retension in the base metal. Ooops. Somebody on the XB forum pointed out these guys: http://www.jet-hot.com/ What we established is that $190 plus $31 in shipping gets me a fresh black coating after a thorough blast-prep. This is the "1300deg" coating both inside and out; it gives all the normal higher-exhaust-temp performance benefits of a thermal wrap BUT it won't damage the base metal and it gives excellent rust protection. We went with black instead of silver in case minor surface imperfections from the minor rust now present would make the silver come out looking funky. It's in the mail to them now, they say they'll have it for seven to ten days tops. This will let me salvage a cool old pipe and keep it for a good long while, even commuting in the Seattle-area rain (did I mention it's WET UP HERE?) (and yeah, I'll have to change my handle now, sigh). One other thing: Forcewinder Buell pipes are linked from their home page. Force might be using these guys for their coatings. In addition to black and silver, I could have gone with "Ford engine blue" which I thought about but decided against. | ||
| Voltage_vector |
Jim, good deal. I love those S1's too. I have read one here who had some bad luck with Jet-Hot. I asked why, but never got or saw the responce. I on the other hand have had great luck with those guys, fast service and great looks. And on my mustang you really can measure a heat difference under the hood. I did it over 10 years ago on a Bevel-drive Ducati 750, and it looks as good today as it did then! I used silver. I'm thinking of doing it on the XB. Best of luck with your project. Lets see some photos when your doing it and when compleat.  | ||
| Tom_b |
Jet coating is GREAT! I also used silver and still looks good after 3 yrs | ||
| Ragnagwar |
I'm getting my M2 header back from "Jet-Hot" this week, "Sterling" finish. | ||
| Al_lighton |
Jet hot is what we use in our header exchange program. I have them coated on my bikes, and it holds up well. I have silver. Some want black ($20 more), due to cosmetics. But I often talk people out of black. TO understand why, here's some tech talk. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law: Radiation Power ( * absporptivity ) = emissivity * Stefan's Constant * Radiation Area (Temperature of Radiator^4 - Temperature of surroundings^4) Since the temperature difference between your frame and leg and even the ambient surroundings is substantially lower than the temperature of your header, radiation heat transfer is a very significant part of the heat that is coming from your header. At slow speed, it may be the predominant mechanism, moving more heat than convection. At speed, I imagine convection is the predominant mechanism, but I haven't done the math. Assuming all else is equal, we can look to the emissivity of the surface to see what the difference is between a black header and a silver header. I cant find specific data on the Jet hot coating emmissivities, but I can make an educated guess from the table here: http://www.infrared-thermography.com/material-1.htm The emissivity of black is likely in the .90-.95 range, and the emissivity of the silver is likely in the .25-.4 range. The emissivity is a linear term in the radiation heat transfer equation, and it is 2 to 3 times higher for the black than it is for the silver. So it stands to reason that the amount of heat radiated to your leg and frame from the black header is going to be 2-3 times higher than for silver. The goal is to keep the heat in the exhaust stream for best scavenging. Since black radiates heat better, it is removing more heat from the exhaust gasses than silver. Can you measure the difference on a dyno? I dunno. But the heat transfer to my leg is the reason why I choose silver. Buell has indicated that heat to the frame may contribute to vapor lock issues as well, so anything that helps minimize the heat transfer to the frame is also good. There is conduction from the frame to my leg, so keeping the frame cooler is also a good idea for personal comfort. Al | ||
| Jimincalif |
Ah. That's damned interesting. As I just shipped it yesterday, it's not too late to call 'em and swap it to silver. That's what I'm gonna do I think. If it wasn't clear yet, this pipe is going on my tuned-up '97 S3, which I now like even MORE than the S1  . The S3's nose doesn't want to loft like the S1 due to ergos I suspect, but I find the S3 a more "balanced" bike overall. | ||
| Interceptor |
Jet Hot is the way to go. Had my headers for the camaro done in sterling finish. The guys are quick and the finish is awesome. They do the inside AND the outside of the pipe. Its very cool. | ||
| Scooterroid |
That makes sense, Al and matches my experience. I had a Thunderheader ceramic coated in semi-gloss black and installed it on my Street Glide. I can definitely feel the heat from the pipes much more than before. HPC did my ceramic coating and it is awesome. Steve-O | ||
| Ryker77 |
I used swaintech.com for my cars turbo manifold. very think coatings.. looks good on a car. | ||
| Voltage_vector |
FYI everyone, if you email Jet Hot, they send you a VHS tape and info free and quick...also, often they give out a 10% discount # for future orders just for asking for info...pretty good customer service IMHO. | ||
| Lonexb |
i don't know Al. i have over 15k miles on my black jet-coated header. and 10k miles on it before that. i really can't say i feel a difference between the before and after.  brian | ||
| Buellin_ri |
Good stuff! I have been thinking about doing my pipe over. Jet-Hot has been at the top of the list of things to do. | ||
| Al_lighton |
Well, Brian, I'm comparing the silver to black coating, not the black to the natural pipes. Between the lack of a coating at all (i.e., no insulative coating) and the darker color of the discolored stainless pipes, which near as I can tell has an emissivity of about .6-.7 or so, I'd bet that the black and uncoated stainless probably would be about the same. But the silver would still be cooler than either. | ||
| Voltage_vector |
Buellin-ri, you can come and check out how it looks on the Ducati sometime... | ||
| Buellin_ri |
Sound good.  | ||
| Indy_bueller |
Al, this brings up an interesting question. Would you be willing to do a Jet-Hot header exchange for Micron headers? | ||
| Al_lighton |
Pete, I need to figure out a way to prime the header pump, so to speak. Not sure if Micron will sell just the headers, but I need to push on that. Al | ||
| Littlebuggles |
I had a Sea-Doo with a purple ceramic coating on the exhaust, I think it was Jet Hot. It was great, I could put my hands on the header after running the machine for an hour. I'd like to have that kind of heat protection on my bike. -Mike | ||
| Al_lighton |
One of our local customers, Scott Karp, was recently in getting a Jet Hot coated header and other goodies. He works at a shop that had some thermal imaging equipment, so I asked him to perform a reasonable test to measure the header temperature differences with the stock amber SS header and the Jet Hot coated header. Here are his words about the test he ran (with some formatting and spelling corrections): "I checked for the spots that had the highest temperatures. This was consistently at the outside radius of the first bend on both pipes. I also took readings from the collector and my Drummer SS. Unfortunately the readings were done a day apart so the ambient temperature was 4 degrees different. The test drive I used was exactly the same 7.4 miles. All readings were taken within 30 seconds of reaching the shop. My findings are as follows. STOCK Header Pipe ambient temp. 67 deg. F First bend rear 492 First bend front 475 Header collector 307 Front of Muffler 92 JET HOT ambient temp. 63 deg F First bend rear 351 -->355 (corrected for ambient) First bend front 317 -->321 Header collector 285 -->289 Front of Muffler 96 --->100 I hope this will help answer questions you have had about this product. Many variables exist, but the difference is so great I'm convinced it will keep my right leg cooler on hot days." So, not a 100% controlled environment test that zero'd out ALL the other variables, but a reasonable test nonetheless. The numbers seem significant to me. FYI, this is on an XB12 with a Drummer SS and race ECM. Note the muffler temp. It is HOTTER on the Jet hot coated header. Makes me wonder if a jet hot coated header might be BAD for a glasspack muffler, as the muffler sees more heat as a result of the header not losing more heat. But on a muffler that is baffled, not packed, where muffler heat isn't a problem, seems to me that the stuff is doing what it is supposed to, by keeping the heat in the exhaust gasses to help scavenging, and keeping heat off your right leg. Al |
