Hello all.
I'm trying to clean up my engine bay a little, and I would like to paint my stock exhaust manifold. This this has a pant-load of surface rust. Can I just wet sand it a little and paint it with some high temp paint? Or do I need to sandblast it?
Thanks

 

clean it up as best you can and you should be able to just spray it but with it heating up and cooling down so much who knows how long it will last or how it will look.

 

OK. Thanks.
Are there any other better ideas? It's my DD, so I don't really need or want to put an aftermarket header on, but are there any other ways to make the stock manifold look a little better?

 

It's supposed to have surface rust, it's iron
High temp paint will not stay on long due to the constant heating and cooling of the header the paint will flake off.

You could try doing Thermo-wrap on it, give it nicer look instead of rust. I would just personally just put an aftermarket header on it. Take it off around October and put the stock one on for the winter months.

 

you could also put on an aftermarket heat sheild that would cover most of the rust and look pretty.

 

This was my first thought. But I looked around at Advanced Auto, and Auto Zone, and I couldn't find any heat shield specific for my car.....

 

Well look online autozone doesn't have anything more than stock if they have anything at all. You would be better off looking at some fatermarket websites I don't have any off the top of my head but i have seen some pretty nice ones in the past....

 

OK. Thanks. I'll look around, see what I can find. I may just end up going the heat wrap route.

 

I have heard bad things about that thermo wrap, heard it traps moisture and corrodes the iron. Anyways, I would get a header if I were you. You could get a nice used one for like $50 bucks, just dont get that cheap ebay stuff.

 

I wrapped my A'PEXi header but I did it according to a bunch of racers. Mine never cracked. Had it on for 3 years til I sold the car.