[CoolerKing]

As I was making dinner last night I started thinking about extrude honing my intake manifold and how teflon might affect it since nothing seems to stick to it in the kitchen. Has anyone ever heard of having the inside of the manifold teflon coated or coated with a similar type of material? I figure that a teflon type of coating would be a lot better for airflow than going in and grinding as teflon would create a very slick surface. I just got off the phone with Dan at ICS Technologies, http://www.icstechnologies.com/ and was asking him about this. He said that it could be done but would depend on the type and grade of aluminum that was cast. They have different types of coating that they can use but have to be baked at certain temperatures and the higher the temp the better and longer lasting the coating. However, it all depends on the type of aluminum that the manifolds were cast. So, does anyone have any idea what type of aluminum our manifolds are made of and if not how we can find out? The price to have this done would be approx $180 for the first piece and $50 for each additional piece, so if there were three people interested the first person would pay $180 the others would pay $50 of course it could be worked out so the varitaion could be spread. Comments please.

 

[Mus408]

CoolerKing.....you're spending too much time in the kitchen!! But really, a coating isn't a bad idea,maybe one that would act as a heat barrier,to keep the air flow cool. Years ago,ol' Smokey Yunick,coated the intake ports,of a Hudson stocker,with lacquer,then polished them out. The rules NASCAR rules then,didn't allow for any grinding to open them up,so he slicked them up!!! It worked too!

 

[Blakwing]

The only problem.. well real one anyhow is that Extrude honing removes the imperfections, bumps, ridges, etc that are in the intakes to begin with. If you just coated it wouldn't the bumps, ridges and other imperfections remain.. just coated? Also.. How thick would the teflon be? Would it possibly restrict the airflow by decreasing the air path diameters?
Good Idea though.. I wonder how feasible it is?

 

[Bullitt4003]

Well if Coolerking spends too much time in the kitchen, I apparently spend too much time watching the Food Channel. Just last week on Good Eats they talked about teflon and how it was invented during WWII to help reduce friction on various machinery. It wasn't used on pots & pans until the early '60's (French inventor).
If you look at what Smokey was trying to do, he was acheiving a fine micro finish without honing by painting and polishing the paint. The paint fills in all the slight imperfections and allows for a very smooth surface (look at your exterior sheet metal). Teflon helps when you have solid to solid interaction, not solid to liquid (air to aluminum). If you look at a telfon pan, it's smooth, but not nearly as smooth as a non-teflon coated pan. In my opinion, you want a very smooth surface finish to reduce the friction between the air and aluminum casting (reduce the boundry layer). A teflon coating would accomplish this only if it smooths out the casting irregularities. Otherwise, honing/polishing could ultimately provide a smoother finish. Those of you who have more experience with honing can add your comments.

 

[CoolerKing]

Well, all I can say is I tried. I just spoke with another company out of CA and it basically can't be done. They have to be able to get inside of the manifold and blast it with sand or beads to take of any impurities and stuff hanging around. Teflon has to be sprayed on and since they cannot get inside the manifold to blast they cannot spray the teflon coating on either. Aside from that, teflon has to be baked on at temps between 600 & 700 degrees which everyone I have spoken to doesn't think the aluminum castings would hold up to that kind of heat. Oh well, it sounded like a good idea when I was cooking. :smile: So, how much does honing cost anyway?