Ok, First of all let me make this perfectly clear - THIS IS NOT A PROPOSED RULE CHANGE YET! I was simply gathering some info on peoples experiences with a header coating. We currently allow header wrap which, to my knowledge, does the EXACT same thing as the coating but has some major disadvantages: 1. hard to put on and remove, 2. can trap oil/water/fuel which leads to corrosion that is hidden by the wrap, 3. makes removing the header very difficult. Obviously #2 is the big concern here. Plus you would need to check periodically to see they level of corrosion on your header this will cause you to buy more wrap which is more $$
COST - Rasta is right on the money saying that the $200 (my google search revealed this to be at the highest end for a coating) for a coating is not much compared to the whole project. The coating, from what I know, is supposed to decrease engine bay temps by keeping the heat contained and forcing it out of the exhaust system. No one is making you coat your header. Just like no one is making you find an 88' motor or an LSD trans or a 924S chassis (lighter/aero) or do a myriad of other ALLOWED modifications to your car. Lets be honest - we have moved away from being true to factory build a while ago. Now we are still true to the mantra of low cost and equal racing. However we have allowed for modifications to be made to increase reliability.
RELIABILITY - If the testing reveals that the coating decreases engine bay temps this will help in reliability. which will keep you running the same motor longer and decrease your cost to run. Think of this vbur928 - how much was it to run brake ducting? external oil cooler? weld-in vs. bolt-in cage? light weight battery? These all increased reliability but were a minimum of $200 to upgrade to?
Its not like I am saying we should allow A/M headers and chips and all that crap. They made a change to allow us to cut out the spare tire well for weight savings..not spec there. We can run Lexan now too. The decision making process of what to allow and not to allow seems faulty at best. I built my car myself for about $7000 TOTAL and I have ran the same 90,000 mile motor for 5 years without anything but regular PM (belts, hoses, plugs, etc) So don't tell me I am trying to run the guys on a budget out of the class. I was able to qualify 5th out of 30 cars at NASA nationals last year on that car, right next to a guy who had a brand new motor built specifically for that ONE SINGLE WEEKEND. It checked out at exactly 10.5 to 1 compression afterwards too. I'll end my grandstanding there.
I was just trying to figure out why - If we allow header wrap why do we specifically ban header coating? I may have lead some astray on my original post and if so i apologize.
For the record its not a PCA thing - PCA rules follow NASA rules so its NASA with the issue.