Ceramic coatings

I'm very interested in some of the discussion about using ceramic coatings in order to keep her engine running cooler. There is a ceramic coating company in Vancouver not too far from me and my question would be what is the best kind of ceramic coatings to use? Also what surfaces to apply the coating?
Top of piston
underside of aluminum head
top of the barre
exhaust port area in the barrel
inside of exhaust pipes
these are all areas but I'm considering but it would be great to hear some feedback from other riders on what works and what doesn't work.

Hi. I would believe that coating of the cylinder head would reduce the cooling effect of the head.

I read an article in a Mopar magazine a while back, there seemed to be quite a few high tech coatings out there. As I recall coating the inside of the piston helped keep temps in the combustion chamber and out the pipes, and less heat transfer to the crankcase/oil. But perhaps the whole piston was coated.

I'm not sure how it would work, coating the head and keeping more heat in, in hopes of blowing it out the pipes. Does seem like you would want the head to transfer heat away...? But I don't know. Exhaust ports and pipes make sense. Wrapping the pipes to keep heat in and out the exit has been used for some time now...so coating the pipes, inside or out makes sense.

Not sure if you would want the barrels to do anything but radiate the heat away...but again not sure. To my mind the piston, exhaust port and pipes would give the greatest gains. Wonder what exhaust temps coming out the end of the pipe/muffler would be?

Yeah I would have to agree with you knucklebolt. Top of piston, exhaust ports and exhaust pipes make the most sense. I am still interested in hearing some feedback from someone that's actually done this.

I had it done about 4 years ago on my 1942 U model. Tops of pistons, underside of heads, inside exhaust ports and pipes. I only have about 2000 miles since building the engine so I can’t comment on longevity effects. I can comment that the pipes look like the day they were installed and the paint hasn’t burned off the cylinders next to the pipes. Here is the web site for the people that did the coatings. They used several different kinds of coatings depending where it was applied. They also did an excellent job on the frame.

There was a very interesting post a couple of years ago with temperature readings taken with a digital pyrometer. Mine didn’t seem that much different than anyone else that posted. There was also some thermal images that were very interesting.
F
www.millerpowdercoating.com/

All
Here is the post I spoke about earlier.


Re: http://www.vt-cycle.fi

old man
Here are some temp readings. They were taken with a digital pyrometer. They were taken after about 15 miles of country roads at 50 - 60 MPH on a 95+ degree Georgia day. Both front and rear cylinders were almost exactly the same. I still don't know what if anything they mean but it only took a few minutes to read. It would be interesting to know what other engines read such as ones with cast iron heads, stroker engines, engines with piston squirters and so forth. I suspect they are very similar.
F

Ex. port portion of cylinder= 420
Ex. pipe about 2" from cylinder= 130
Spark plug base= 300
Heads 280-320
Oil pump= 120
Oil tank= 105
Gear-case cover= 130
Cylinders at bottom= 300
Cylinders at top= 350

Just got off the phone with the company that does ceramic coating in Vancouver. They have several different kinds of ceramic coating for different purposes. One kind of coating reflects heat that he recommended for top up Pistons, exhaust ports and the whole combustion chamber. I talked to him about doing the underside of the aluminum heads and whether it would impede the dissipation of heat, and his comment was it was better to get the heat out of the barrel the best you can and thats less heat that has to be dissipated by the heads.
He has another coating that he recommended for the outside of the barrels that increases the fins capability to dissipate heat. He also recommended coating the outside of the aluminum heads if I didn't mind them being the same color as the barrels (which is at black with a touch of gray)
the cost seemed fairly reasonable , around $200 for the works. So I think I'm going to go ahead and have these coatings applied. A cool running UL is a happy UL!