LeeU
05-19-2008, 10:53 PM
I have had to educate myself the last month about powder coating, the hard way. I started a month ago and removed my valve covers and black blower inlet tube and the black bracket on the front of the blower and a never installed Roush strut tower brace. The “First” powder coater said no problem, they could do the work and it would look almost like chrome and would match my 428R’s blower, but that turned out to be like silver paint, my fault, I did not wait for a sample first, which he was out of. “Second” powder coater had samples and even a rim he had done, but I now wonder if it was polished or something else was done to it as my parts did not look the same. Now keep in mind I took them fully sand blasted and 600 grit wet sanded parts. He did the parts 2 times as the first time the valve covers bubbled, he did not clear coat them as well, which is a mistake as anything that touches the parts oxidizes it, and the reason he did the other parts twice was he ran out of the one brand of powder coat. At this point I’m calling Roush for a second time asking as nice as I could for a little help to find out who does the blowers for them, no luck as everyone I talked to said it was proprietary, I understand but I really wished they would have helped me out as I did call before I had the parts done the first time, and they could have saved me some money. Ok by now your may be wondering when I’m going to stop writing, so to summarize about powder coaters.
1)Be very very carful who you pick.
2)Take them very clean, sanded/sandblasted parts if possible.
3)Chose a powder coater that only does powder coating and not fabricating and every other metal working job you can imagine under one roof as there is way too many contaminates.
3) Caswell Inc’s Extreme Chrome may be a little better than Prismatic Super Chrome.
Now for the fix: And the best part.
I realized powder coating was not going to be the answer, although even in Roush's sales brochures they list the chrome 428 blower as powder coated, it is not. I thought maybe they did the blowers in ceramic, in my opinion a much better looking coating as far as a chrome replacement. I thought I was on to something but I was not sure about ceramic coating the valve covers from having my Super Coupe’s bundle of snake headers ceramic coated, the stuff keeps in heat and may not be what I wanted to do with my valve covers. Rats dead end again. I said crap, and a few other choice words and decided to do a US Patent search and after a few hrs found out about this company that uses state of the art Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) equipment to deposit an ultra thin layer of metal onto parts by the name of American PVD, guess what this time I had the company “that DOES DO THE ROUSH BLOWERS” I finally had what I needed. Now for the bad news, they can only do 24”X24” parts so I can’t get the strut tower brace done but at least the valve covers, blower inlet tube and alternator brackets will now match the blower.
Now to the strut tower brace, ceramics have a few advantages for tubes/exhaust work like on Harleys, you can 1500-2500 wet sand and polish the stuff to an almost perfect chrome finish, so one can maybe match the strut tower brace close enough to the blower where you may not notice the different coatings.
Ok prices:
Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD)
Valve covers $75.00-$85.00 ea
Blower tube $50.00
Ceramic
Strut tower brace $75.00 $100.00
Plus shipping
Links:
Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) http://www.americanpvd.com/
Ceramic coater I chose http://www.moorepower.com/
My parts are going out by FedEx tomorrow, I’ll post photos when I get the parts back.
Sorry for the book.
LeeU
1)Be very very carful who you pick.
2)Take them very clean, sanded/sandblasted parts if possible.
3)Chose a powder coater that only does powder coating and not fabricating and every other metal working job you can imagine under one roof as there is way too many contaminates.
3) Caswell Inc’s Extreme Chrome may be a little better than Prismatic Super Chrome.
Now for the fix: And the best part.
I realized powder coating was not going to be the answer, although even in Roush's sales brochures they list the chrome 428 blower as powder coated, it is not. I thought maybe they did the blowers in ceramic, in my opinion a much better looking coating as far as a chrome replacement. I thought I was on to something but I was not sure about ceramic coating the valve covers from having my Super Coupe’s bundle of snake headers ceramic coated, the stuff keeps in heat and may not be what I wanted to do with my valve covers. Rats dead end again. I said crap, and a few other choice words and decided to do a US Patent search and after a few hrs found out about this company that uses state of the art Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) equipment to deposit an ultra thin layer of metal onto parts by the name of American PVD, guess what this time I had the company “that DOES DO THE ROUSH BLOWERS” I finally had what I needed. Now for the bad news, they can only do 24”X24” parts so I can’t get the strut tower brace done but at least the valve covers, blower inlet tube and alternator brackets will now match the blower.
Now to the strut tower brace, ceramics have a few advantages for tubes/exhaust work like on Harleys, you can 1500-2500 wet sand and polish the stuff to an almost perfect chrome finish, so one can maybe match the strut tower brace close enough to the blower where you may not notice the different coatings.
Ok prices:
Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD)
Valve covers $75.00-$85.00 ea
Blower tube $50.00
Ceramic
Strut tower brace $75.00 $100.00
Plus shipping
Links:
Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) http://www.americanpvd.com/
Ceramic coater I chose http://www.moorepower.com/
My parts are going out by FedEx tomorrow, I’ll post photos when I get the parts back.
Sorry for the book.
LeeU