This is in no way a bash of the OBX Longtube product, I absolutely love the headers and the extra power they have given me! And I would buy them all over again if I had to. I just wanted to post these up and show what happened to mine after one visit to the saltwater at the beach and only having them on my truck for one month! I drove through some mud/saltwater in the marsh area, rinsed them off the next day, and they look like this! No more pretty colors on them Just seems odd they would rust that fast since again they were bought and installed in december. I know saltwater is bad but i THOROUGHLY rinse/wash my truck after the beach. Has this happened to anyone else?

 

Saltwater and intense heat have that effect on stainless steel I presume.

 

Nope, I've got 3 years on mine, They are a pretty yellow/blue/purple combo.

I'll have to agree with salt + heat. I wonder if its a 409 stainless, 409 will look like that but not rust through.

 

dang that upsets me, id always make everyone crawl under there just to look at my sweet colors too, but no more....

 

That looks like black paint up towards the top. They weren't painted were they?

 

No paint at all. Went from straight out the box to my truck.

 

Its not rusting deep pits through or anything, appears to be surface only. Just boggles my mind about how it happened after one saltwater experience but oh well. I want to see if anyone else who has these exposed theirs to saltwater and how they held up.

 

Try taking some stainless cleaner at a section with an old cloth. Maybe they are just surface stained

 

im going to give that a try. just sucks since during the summer i am down there every weekend.

 

I'm still amazed how the salt water did that to you...

 

yep one day in the saltwater, rinsed the next, and now crap brown color SS headers! now i cant show them off anymore unless that polish idea works, we will see

 

Do you have the real high flow cats or the resonators? And, a real seat of the pants power increase? How about mileage?

 

I have resonators. Real seat of the pant eghh maybe a hair, topend made a big difference because before the headers my truck had trouble hitting 105-110 mph in 3rd, now in 3rd i see 125mph and I do travel faster through the higher speeds(60-90, ect.) than before. After electric fans, banks ram air, headers, new exhaust setup, doing 65mph I get 18-19mpg not running the a/c(since its still cool here id freeze) with a leveling kit, 33" m/t tires, edge on the performance running 93 octane with my timing slightly advanced for the octane.

 

I always painted my Street Rod headers with paint from Eastwood and and got good service from them without the rusting.

 

id like to stay away from the painting though, im not too worried about them rusting through because when i go built and crank up the boost on the vortech im getting ill need headers with a 3" collector for better flow