Ceramic Coated DeLorean Exhaust

"Should we pull over the DeLorean?" an officer asked his coworkers as I passed the group of them, shielding themselves from the rain. And after a harrowing drive through that nasty storm, I arrived home safely - just in time for my cousin's wedding.

Unfortunately for me, the previous owner did not know how to take care of the DeLorean and fibbed extensively about its condition.

Sadly, mechanics with working knowledge of the Bosch K-Jetronic fuel system are either retired or, in most cases, dead. My voodoo skills aren't up to par yet, so raising them wasn't an option. Zombie mechanics are unreliable anyway, with limbs falling off mid-accumulator job, or eyes oozing out of their sockets into the gas tank. Forget it.

And so Josh was the chosen priest to exorcise the DeLorean's demons. The first gremlin to be eliminated was the fuel distributor, followed by a warm up regulator, a full throttle microswitch and 8,172 gaskets, o-rings and washers. The previous owner bypassed the idle speed ECU when it failed, along with the Lambda system, both of which were restored to original condition.

Josh also replaced the clutch, leaking master and slave cylinders, reservoir, and upgraded the plastic clutch line with the braided stainless steel line. Not everything went as planned and Josh didn't finish some of the work. But he's in demand. I'll take what I can get.

Finally, the ass end of the car received a sweet upgrade. Something I've been planning a long time.

Over the years I've driven a number of DeLoreans with various exhausts. I found anything with headers to be far too sexy for me. Plus it has a bad horsepower to volume ratio: I don't think the extra 7 to 10 hp is worth the extra decibels. I prefer the sweet Euro exhaust note and decided on a completely stock system, but with one bonus. I had it ceramic coated in polished silver.

Ceramic coating the exhaust has a number of benefits. It traps the heat in the system, keeping the engine bay cooler. A cooler bay means cooler intake temperatures with higher oxygen content. And hotter air flows faster out of the exhaust, leading to lower backpressure and better scavenging inside the cylinders. The result is a documented 2% to 3% more power. In my case that conservatively translates to about 2 more hp. Not to mention it's effing gorgeous!

------
See what the exhaust looks like from behind.
The driver's side cast iron exhaust manifold with ceramic coating.

Photos open in a new window.