Reply to "Exhaust wrap, paint or ceramic coating?"

Ron. They look great. In my experience though, the stainless is going to blue from the heat like chromed headers do?

Do you have similar experience with the stainless?

I've seen stainless that has been ceramic coated but I'm not sure what the advantage of that is other than the lack of potential rust on any of the tubes?

I don't know exactly how the coater did mine but it is difficult to find a spot anywhere internally that is bald of the ceramic.

That makes me think that the stainless is not necessary? I always had difficulty bending the stainless without crinkling it on tight radius bends. Yours look great. I'm sure that you found a better way?

Maybe just a better alloy of the stainless tube?


I agree on the deck lifts. The first time I put new lifts on it, the flanges of the hinges got torn out of the deck lid itself. Probably right where you say you see the cracking. That's all very thin steel sheet right there coming into an intersection.

Nothing that should have been stressed out like this BUT I'm sure that even now some cars have not shown the weakness in the area. NO ONE expected these cars took last this long and even if the builders were to be honest, they probably didn't care or didn't expect it?

Ironic though in that impugning the quality of work to an Italian craftsman is like challenging them to a duel?


I was working with Jon Haas on a non-pressurized lift cylinder, or more correctly tying to, but the project is shelved.

His system uses an air compressor for the lifts.

I have a slight disagreement with him in that I want to see those as electric and not needing the air compressor.

He's the electronic circuit genius on this stuff so until he is ready to go back and put some time into the entire thought process, I'm doing other things.

The beauty of electronic lifts is that it doesn't need the burden of the compressor, that there is no pressure in the lifts when the deck is closed, and it fits into the concept of power locks throughout the car.

There you would use a two frequency fob like we get on the current production cars now.

Unfortunately one customer like me is not going to pay for the "infrastructure" investment on his part to even just aid in the project.

Maybe you should email him to encourage him in that direction?


On the shield of the decklid, for me, just the air gap separation the shield creates is enough to save the painted surfaces.


Incidentally if you saw what happened to my decklid with the replacement gas struts you would have to think that the struts pushed the decklid out wards because the opposite and equal reaction to that pressure was in effect to pull the hinges out of the decklid.