By who else, Cooper ( some time technical assistant who must inspect everything).

 

I do remember reading that article, and then some. All the coating companys spout the same issues. I remember also looking at independent articles as well which confirmed what the coating industry says about wraps.

There are some big fans of coatings here and elsewhere. I recall finding one independent article that didn't recommend coatings either. Only one article out of many that didn't recommend the coatings. I'll be damned if I can find it though. This came up earlier in this thread and I was never able to find that reference. Dumb-me.

Saw your pix, Norm. Indeed there is a variance there. Is that an OEM gasket? Or the OBX?
ciao!

 

BluMiniMe, That is a new OEM gasket. The bolts ( heads only ) you see I cut down so I could register the gasket over the port's in as perfect alignment as possible. I will post some pictures of what it looks like now after reworking.

I bought a racing CAT to adapt but am concerned that it is nothing more than a silencer with a couple of 02 bungs. It's straight through , bought from the same guy on ebay that was selling the OBX first ( Sparktec ).

 

Interesting. Mine was a perfect match to the factory gasket.

I've seen those "racing CATs" too....on ebay. I was gonna jump on one, until I found out from a buddy that they were indeed a hollow can without any catalytic element. Having tried a cat-less header once on my mini, I can warn you that if you use it, its going to be SUPER loud... painfully so.

 

About a month away from more headers.... For what it's worth...

matt

 

I am one of the victims of the missing the Donut gasket. My mini is at helix's getting a new head put on. I was going to have everything done at once. I emailed Danny and he metioned that they knew of the problem and was waiting for more of them from OBX. I contacted the two OBX Distributors ( California & Florida) They both said they are waiting for more Gaskets and it was going to be awhile

I purchased mine about a month ago, but didn't realize I was missing it until Eric at Helix mentioned it. So be careful if you havn't started your installs yet.

 

does anyone have a picture of the donut gasket. Or even better know where to get one besides OBX. They will not have them for awhile. Which means the headers are not going to be sold for awhile, sorry for the bad news.

 

Supersprint uses exact the same connection between header and cat. Try to get the supersprint donut-gasket.
I startet this thread and i`m quite surprised about this feedback here. Now i have 6000 miles with the OBX and i´m still satisfied with it. My Cooper S runs with MTH, 56,5mm Pully, K+N CAI, Remus and the OBX with OEM-Cat in 6. Gear on the autobahn 6300 rpm and 240 kmh / 150 mph.
Mick

 

No way 150mp on autobahn.....................Cool

 

This is a great point. Anyone know where or how to get just the donut gasket for the Supersprint header???

 

Euro spec'd MINI's don't have required top speed cap. -- blame the lawyers! They'll go as fast as the motor is capable of pushing it.

 

I called supersprint today. They will not sell the gaskets without an invoice number of their headers. They know all about the missing gaskets from OBX. It seems many of us have been trying to get them from them. They consider the OBX a direct knockoff of their product.

 

Tony, I didn't see a reply by you about a quote from hpcoatings. So I asked for one and they blew my socks off, I didn't ask for gold plating just the stuff they recommend for a supercharged engine.
[size=2]Following is the quotation you requested;

Part(s): One piece all Stainless Steel 4 cylinder header for a 1.6 liter

supercharged engine. (This header is smaller than one side of any V8

header set.) < my description per jlm's recommendation about size.

Coating: HiPerCoat Extreme, .013-.015 mil thickness, black or gray in color

(Please specify). Mask as required.

Quantity: This quotation is based quantity of 1 units.

Freight: Customer is responsible for delivery both inbound and outbound.

Delivery: Delivery of 2-3 business weeks.

Valid: This quotation is valid for through 9/9/05.

Terms: Cash On Delivery.

Cost: $325.00 per unit.


I have a quote from jet-hot for $175.00, don't remember if that was with shipping have that at home in the packet they sent. This is more in line but still a little high, cost more than the header.
Anyone have any experience with their heat coatings??

[/size]

 

norm, thanks for the follow-up! I never got a reply back actually . That is a bit steep though. I'm cool with the 175 though . I too would like to hear any feedback re jet-hot...

I'm otherwise in no major rush as I plan to do this mod when I replace the head, and that's later this summer. And, I'm still waiting for someone to make a header for us that's already coated. Peter of M7 has shown interest, so we shall see...

 

I an a set of Jet Hot coated headers about 20 years ago. They worked well and the coating was still in tact after about 45K miles when I sold the truck.
Cost me about $425 for small block Chevy set.
Steep but worth it. Under hood temps alone made it worthwhile.

 

Really. Make a mild steel unit and coat it. And sell it for something less than the ridiculous amount people are still charging for MINI headers.
And....somebody please do some testing and tuning. There has to be someone out there that can tune a header to work better in the lower RPMs.

 

If anyone has done the OBX header and 1 ball exhaust - drop me a line, i would love to hear your comments.

Bahamabart

 

This has just been the best deal to come down the pipe for a header yet.
I missed the first go round and when another ebay store popped up with this header I jumped on it.
I to am looking for the mid range power where this 4,2,1 design shines.
Pacesetter and jet-hot could team up and slay the existing header market

 

Let me know how this works out for you.
Sounds like a good deal.

 

I called a few places about ceramic coating the obx header. A few of them mentioned they don't ceramic coat them they powder coat them with a high temp paint? Is there any performance advantage to powder coating vs ceramic coating?

 

It would burn off in an instant and stink like h3ll! :smile:

Check out ; http://jet-hot.com/

 

From what I understood they do exhaust,manifolds,blocks and heads. With a high temp powder coat. The guy said that ceramic is prone to chipping and has a rougher finish compared to the high temp powder coating?

 

Powder coat as I know of it is a process where a powder made up of plastic and pigment is sprayed on the parts then heated in an oven to a controlled melting point where it flows.

Older heat coatings were prone to chipping I know but there are new formula's with metal (silver + possibly others to lower melting point IE tin ) and ceramic that fuse to the metal surface. It is cured in a oven at 600 deg. F
JET-HOT Sterling is good to 1,300 deg.F. I have video of a guy hammering on a coated flange with no chipping and he was wailing away at it.


I going for the Jet-Hot myself

 

Did you get a price from them yet? I just filled out their form on the website.

 

Not sure if anyone else stated this and correct me if i am wrong, but ceramic coatings are known to help contain the heat and keep engine bay tempatures down. Many people who turbo their cars get their pipes ceramic coated to keep tempatures down. Powder coatings i believe do not offer this and is meant more for a better finished look.

Garrett