Coated pistons diy

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Diesel92

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I was wondering coating the pistons in a ceramic coating is worth it. If it is I would like to do it myself. So my next question would be where to find the coating.
 
Maybe your first question should have been, "I was wondering if coating pistons myself would be worth it ?"

Easy answer, nope.
 
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Does anyone have any back to back runs on the exact same setup with/without coated or polished pistons?

I don't know if I believe the hype. Ceramic is a great insulator, but at these heat levels, and how thin the ceramic is... I'm not sure I buy it.
 
Why would the answer be no. Do have any real world experience with this or any factual evidence to back up your answer? I'm just wondering if it actually helps protect the piston from heat, or if it's just going to act like a Shell and the piston melt underneath anyway?
 
It will melt eventually, yes. Go watch diamond Pistons getting melted on YouTube. CorneliusRox made a good point, I've never seen a side by side test like that. Either way, I wouldn't skimp and do it myself.

Go cheap and build your own traction bars, or use hand me down rear ends if you're tight on money during a build. Too much money in an engine.
 
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For what it cost to have Swain tech coat my pistons it would be more of a pain to deal with trying to do it myself. I had them ceramic coat on the crown and teflon coat on the skirts. Also you have to make sure that the piston is preped correctly or the ceramic coating could end up flaking off in the cylinder.
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I've done a few sets with good results. I use the Cerakote oven cure products. It will drop the piston temps maybe a 100 degrees. Is it worth the trouble? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on cylinder temps. As far as decreased spool times and hp, hard to tell.

I do my own painting, powder and ceramic coating, so I already have my own equipment and it's not a big deal for me. Only takes a few hours of prep and spraying, plus baking time.

Prep is the big thing, make sure to follow instructions. With the Cerakote, the $35 sampler size will do multiple sets. With my current engine, I did the pistons, valve faces, combustion chambers and exhaust runners, and still had enough left for a couple more sets of pistons for my boat engines. I also used Cerakote Micro Slick for skirts, bearings, tappets, cam and etc. Is it needed, probably not. I do it because I can.
 
Drothgeb said:
I've done a few sets with good results. I use the Cerakote oven cure products. It will drop the piston temps maybe a 100 degrees. Is it worth the trouble? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on cylinder temps. As far as decreased spool times and hp, hard to tell.

I do my own painting, powder and ceramic coating, so I already have my own equipment and it's not a big deal for me. Only takes a few hours of prep and spraying, plus baking time.

Prep is the big thing, make sure to follow instructions. With the Cerakote, the $35 sampler size will do multiple sets. With my current engine, I did the pistons, valve faces, combustion chambers and exhaust runners, and still had enough left for a couple more sets of pistons for my boat engines. I also used Cerakote Micro Slick for skirts, bearings, tappets, cam and etc. Is it needed, probably not. I do it because I can.
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I've used Cerakote extensively in my profession life foe exhaust stuff. Have you ever checked an engine after multiple heat cycles to see what it looks like? We had bad adhesion after ~100 heat cycles. We had to play with some strange primers to get it to stick.
 
Diesel92 said:
Why would the answer be no. Do have any real world experience with this or any factual evidence to back up your answer? I'm just wondering if it actually helps protect the piston from heat, or if it's just going to act like a Shell and the piston melt underneath anyway?
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My answer was no, because you asked where you could find the stuff to coat pistons with. I assumed that you had no experience.

It's not too expensive to send them out and have them done professionally, but even pro coated pistons melt.

The way I see it, a properly coated piston crown will deflect heat, not absorb it. Heat is energy, energy is power.

Bottom line, if you coat a piston to protect it from melting, you'll be disappointed.
 
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Snedge said:
Bottom line, if you coat a piston to protect it from melting, you'll be disappointed.
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Local company that does the coating said it's all a joke. Ceramic is for external parts to help keep them looking good like headers. He laughed because guys weigh their pistons and rings to get them to be perfectly balanced. Then he holds the piston in his hand and sprays it with a spray gun and bakes it. But he said if he doesn't take their money someone else will. Customer is always right.
 
CorneliusRox said:
I've used Cerakote extensively in my profession life foe exhaust stuff. Have you ever checked an engine after multiple heat cycles to see what it looks like? We had bad adhesion after ~100 heat cycles. We had to play with some strange primers to get it to stick.
Click to expand...

I had to pull it down for a head gasket after a couple of thousand miles. Tops of the pistons looked good, even the valve faces looked OK. I normally use the Tubine Coating for exhaust housings, that stuff seems to be bulletproof. But, I tried some of their polished coating on an exhaust manifold, that didn't hold up so good.
 
For you engineer types:

I'm having my own little conversation, but if the coatings work, EGT should be (maybe unnoticeablely) higher due to heat rejection?

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Snedge said:
The way I see it, a properly coated piston crown will deflect heat, not absorb it. Heat is energy, energy is power.
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I disagree with this. The way I understand it, an engine works by transferring power. You start with chemical, you release that in the form of heat, and then you turn that to mechanical force through expansion of gasses that forces a piston down and a crank around.
Theoretically, the more heat deflection you get in the cylinder, the more heat that goes towards expanding gas and more power instead of loosing that energy to heat absorption of the engine/coolant.

I would think, if materials in in the engine could handle it, an infinitely hot engine, with an infinitely cold intake gas would result in the most power possible. The hot engine would not absorb any heat from the ignition event because of 'Newton's law of cooling', and the cold air would be so dense that it would have way more potential energy of expansion when mixed with the fuel.
Unfortunately, lots of things would melt or crack...

All that being said, I'm still not sold on ceramic coated pistons...

I'm not saying this is all fact, just the way I see it. :Cheer:

Drothgeb said:
I had to pull it down for a head gasket after a couple of thousand miles. Tops of the pistons looked good, even the valve faces looked OK. I normally use the Tubine Coating for exhaust housings, that stuff seems to be bulletproof. But, I tried some of their polished coating on an exhaust manifold, that didn't hold up so good.
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More info on this Tubine Coating? I'm always interested in trying new coatings.

biggy238 said:
For you engineer types:

I'm having my own little conversation, but if the coatings work, EGT should be (maybe unnoticeablely) higher due to heat rejection?
Click to expand...

If they're doing their job, I would think EGT's would be slightly higher since less heat would be transferred into the piston/oil.
 
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CorneliusRox said:
I disagree with this. The way I understand it, an engine works by transferring power. You start with chemical, you release that in the form of heat, and then you turn that to mechanical force through expansion of gasses that forces a piston down and a crank around.
Theoretically, the more heat deflection you get in the cylinder, the more heat that goes towards expanding gas and more power instead of loosing that energy to heat absorption of the engine/coolant.

I would think, if materials in in the engine could handle it, an infinitely hot engine, with an infinitely cold intake gas would result in the most power possible. The hot engine would not absorb any heat from the ignition event because of 'Newton's law of cooling', and the cold air would be so dense that it would have way more potential energy of expansion when mixed with the fuel.
Unfortunately, lots of things would melt or crack...

All that being said, I'm still not sold on ceramic coated pistons...

I'm not saying this is all fact, just the way I see it. :Cheer:



More info on this Tubine Coating? I'm always interested in trying new coatings.



If they're doing their job, I would think EGT's would be slightly higher since less heat would be transferred into the piston/oil.
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Aahhh if you could see the things I type and delete ?



Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk
 
I had my pistons coated by PolyDyn when I had my CR engine apart (heat reflective on the crowns, Teflon on the skirts) along with the exhaust runner inside the head, and combustion chamber inside the fire ring. Before the engine build, all the powdercoating on my hot/cold pipe was fine, but after the engine was apart, I guess I heated the intake charge so much that all the powdercoating flaked off, and I could wipe it off with my hands. Not sure if that helps, but that's my two cents.
 
CorneliusRox said:
I disagree with this. The way I understand it, an engine works by transferring power. You start with chemical, you release that in the form of heat, and then you turn that to mechanical force through expansion of gasses that forces a piston down and a crank around.
Theoretically, the more heat deflection you get in the cylinder, the more heat that goes towards expanding gas and more power instead of loosing that energy to heat absorption of the engine/coolant.
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You disagree, then use more words than I did to say the same thing. :Cheer:

If the piston does not absorb the heat, that heat is then used in creating more energy.
 
Snedge said:
You disagree, then use more words than I did to say the same thing. :Cheer:

If the piston does not absorb the heat, that heat is then used in creating more energy.
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Ahh, I must have misunderstood you. And I think you're right, we're saying the same thing! :Cheer:
 
Heat rejection = higher cylinder atmosphere temp, same thought process I used to arrive at my EGT conjecture

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I used cerakote air dry on my pistons so far they seem good i have not had the truck on the road yet but it has been on a dyno made six passes over 600hp and I have cut open the oil filter and found no sign of the coating coming off in the oil. I don't know if this was due at all to the coatings (I also did my exh ports) but six runs in a row on a 90 degree day and my electric cooling fans never even came on. I think at least skirt coatings work or the oems wouldn't be using them all the time now. To me it was worth it but as stated above prep is critical and it won't be worth setting up to do one set of pistons.
 
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