domi

I've been having my eye on the famous Flyryde/KFX headers.
Hopefully end of the year it should be on my car (I hope)

On the shoutbox I was having a talk with Bullfrog on the discoloration.
Headers brand new are all nice and shiny. But from my experience (watching), headers do discolor from time to time.
Mostly a 'rusty' look...
Bullfrog said on the shoutbox: (02:29 PM) Bullfrog - they turn colors, they only discolor if they have oil burned on them form handleing them. i believe that how it goes, they should darken and turn a shade of blue.

They should, but do they do it?
Is there a way to keep you headers nice?

An option is to ceramic coat them, to keep the heat down and to keep em nice.
But without you're doomed with an 'ugly' set of headers?

Mr. Muffin

just wipe them down after installing them and you will be fine, oils from ur skin will leave fingerprints on them... i think it will turn more of a gold like DTN's headers, and the prints show up bluish

optimoprime

keeping fingerprints off them is easier said then done... thats been my experience at least.

Bullfrog

but do they just turn a dull bluish after being "burnt in" ? i though fingerprints leave a dark black spot?

zoned019

I wiped mine down after I installed them, there are still a few spots. It's really a tough thing to do. Probably the only way to do it would be to wipe them with a degreaser before you put them on the car, and then wear latex gloves or something during the entire installation. Once they're on the car, it's really hard to get all the spots.

stealth

yea, I agree with zoned, as long as you wear some sort of protection to keep the oils from your skin off the headers you won't have a problem with any discoloration like what you are talking about.

SOCKS_old

getting fingerprints burned in and the headers discoloring are two completely different issues.

fingerprints/skin oils being burned in will make certain spots on the header look like crap from the oils burning.

any Stainless header will discolor from 5 minutes of driving. especially thin ones. theres no way to prevent it except cover it with a ceramic coated..

the ones that get the 'rusted' look are most likely not stainless, but a cheap 'chromed' mild steel pawned off as stainless.

you can expect the header to almost instantly turn a bluish gold, or goldish.


to keep fingerprints and oils off the headers, handle them with latex gloves AND a clean towel right out of the box. this will ensure no oils getting on the headers. you could even just handle them with a clean towel, and that should be fine.


but the 'discoloration' (golding or bluing) of the headers CAN NOT be avoided unless you ceramic coat or powdercoat the headers.

zoned019

The problem is that even if you do wear gloves, youll have to wipe them down using some sort of degreaser. Whoever wrapped them for packing was probably not wearing gloves, so there was oil all over them before you even got them out of the box. And if you miss a spot, you'll get the burn spots. Honestly, I think it's inevitable. Just try the best you can, and eventually save to get them ceramic coated if it bothers you that much.

dddude55

Like socks said they will go Goldish almost instantly after a 5 minute drive. Then slowly go bluish. Both tints look awesome. way beter then the stainless look. I don't have pics of the bluish tint yet but heres what they turned after 1 or 2 test drives.

javageek

While I was researching motorcycles I was reading through a thread on a Honda Shadow forum that talked about how to prevent discoloration on aftermarket pipes. It was saying that after install wipe it all down to get all the fingerprints and stuff off, then use a metal polish on it. Run it for awhile, then repolish. I forget the exact steps, but it is a place to start your research if you are interested.