I've got some light surface rust and clay on my new stock exhaust pipe laying in the garage......I just bought a small angle grinder and a 1" sanding cup...my question is, to those of you that have done this, what kind of pads should I be using? I don't want to go too aggressive and scratch/swirl the hell out of it...I want to get that nice copper finish back, as smooth as possible... And also did you use any compound?

Thanks guys

 

I'm not sure if you meant to polish your exhaust cans or header pipes..

But I would not use any fine grade sanding cups against teh header pipes or exhaust cans.. cotton buffing wheel maybe.

If you want really durable and shinny exhaust headers, send them to JetHot coating:





For the 2000 Honda VFR800:





For my Supermotard XR650R and dirt bike WR250F:





I did the same with my Superhawk header pipes, $175, ceramic coated inside and out, cut down the heat between the legs and the engine seems to run cooler, too.

 

I am so doing that next winter...

 

Looks great but there's no way I'm spending anything over $50 to make a set of stock pipes look purrrdy.....lol

I started the polishing yesterday and it's looking promising...I'm not taking off anything structural just the very top coat of discolored garbage... If I make any progress to where it starts looking good, I'll post pics. Wonder what kinda color it's going to turn when I run the bike....blue? Gold?

 

Hit the pipes with brake cleaner when you're all done and they're installed. This will remove as much contaminants as possible and will keep them looking stainless for as long as possible....which will be exactly 10 minutes.

They will turn bronze color pretty much no matter what you do.

 

Just to be clear, I wouldn't spend money on anything other than personal supplies to make anything on my bike purdy. The ceramic coating has performance benefits, of course.

 

Bronze is what I was aiming for anyway, I figured they wouldn't stay the silver....the bike's got a gold chain so it will all work well....right now the pipes look like garbage!

Will post pics when I'm done

 

This was after about 10 minutes of idling and a quick run up my street and back. They started out looking like slightly polished (not mirror but slightly shinier than stock) stainless.

 

Personally, I've had ceramic coated header pipes on my 1987 BMW K75 since 3 years, 40,000 miles ago, the header pipe still looks the same as I received it, the color/shine never faded, ridden in all kind of weather.

The main reason I choose to use the ceramic coating for the headers is because of the heat insolating property. Because the ceramic coating is inside and outside of the header pipe, the heat from the engine exhaust is kept within the pipe until it gets to the muffler.

For a Superhawk, with the rear cyclinder exhaust cooking the rear shock, the ceramic coating not only reduce the heat between the rider's legs, but also prolong the rear shock oil's life span= less shock rebuild. The suspension performance is drastically different when you have less heat near the shock body. For that the ceramic coated headers are well worth the money.

 

+1 on the ceramic coating.

I did mine, but only for cosmetic purposes.

Geoff in Almonte
99VTR

 

I have mine boxed up and going to Jet Hot for the sterling ceramic this week.... estimate is 150 for the header, and $15 per foot for the mid pipes (High mount Jardine)... (mine are the ugly stock color).

They also gave me a 10% internet discount.... so total will probably be about 170-180 plus shipping. Not cheap, but should look great, and cool off things quite a bit.

J.

 

HEy guys, I just sanded out my stock header, started out at 400 and worked down to 2000 wet sand. I then went to a rubbing compound, then to Stainless Polish.

The pipe came up with an almost chrome finish, It looks really good right now, but It's going to go funny right away? I was hopeing for a bronze finish to match the calipers and chain, so I hope it gets there.



The picture makes the polish look distorted, but it's actually really nice

I also treated then painted the mid-pipe area with high heat black paint. Too complicated to polish down there, and I think it looks great.