| Author | Message | ||
     Deuceman |
I know this has been discussed before, but I am wondering what heat issues I might have if i polish my headers to a mirror finish. I am thinking of starting with about 600 grit sandpaper and working up to about 1000 or so to polish them. I have done the Eagle One polish which worked great, but I want to have it more polished. Does anyone know if there will be a heat issue or will it dissipate heat better? I have heard two different things. | ||
| Tomd |
Hi, Since the exterior surface will be smoother, it should have slightly less surface area to dissipate heat. Following conventional wisdom, this heat will remain in the exhaust flow and be delivered to the muffler. This may result in you feeling less heat from the header pipes. Tom | ||
| Deuceman |
I figured the amount of surface area that is decreased would be negligible, but I just wanted to make sure. Has anyone else done this? Just wanting to know how long it takes, how difficult it is, etc. Thanks. | ||
| Kccyclone |
I've done it...started with 200 grit and worked my way up to 2000 grit...Many hours of hand sanding followed my some Mothers polish...Great results... Larry | ||
| Whodom |
Deuceman, I have a 2000 S3 that had some seriously oxidized header pipes when I got the bike. It would flat cook my right leg while the bike was stopped. I found that after polishing the pipes, my right leg was MUCH cooler. I went ~220, 320, 400, 600 and then Eagle One Mag & Aluminum polish and that produced pretty close to a mirror finish. A couple of tips I picked up from polishing stainless steel trim on an old car: Alternate directions with each grade of sandpaper. I.E.- if you start with 220, sand lengthwise; when you switch to 320, sand side-to-side (and so on). Do NOT skip a grade of sandpaper or the sanding marks will reappear during final polishing. You probably don't need to go much finer than 600 grit if you use the Eagle One polish, but it certainly won't hurt anything to go to finer grades of sandpaper. | ||
| Reepicheep |
And less heat dissapation, on headers, is a good thing. Better power, and the heat then ends up just going out the pipe. Thats the same reason people put on header wrap... I polished the headers on both my M2 and 9sx, never noticed any difference. | ||
| Norrisperformance |
www.caswellplating.com has good how to info. And they also have good prices. It took me about 20 minutes with a buffer and supplies ordered from here. |
