There are several easily available high-temperature coatings available which are widely used by the hot-rod and circle-racing crowd. These ceramic-based thermal barrier coatings are applied to the piston crowns and combustion chamber surfaces, valves, inside exhaust manifolds, etc., and provide vital thermal insulation under extreme conditions such as high-boost supercharged and turbocharged applications. I have had direct and very favorable experience with High Performance Coatings, Inc. and Jet-Hot. Swain Technologies is another. Might suggest Googling on ?automotive thermal coating? -- I found 1.19 million entries! Ray Melton 1957 300C convert _____ From: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John J. Hertog Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 12:59 PM To: 'Richard Osborne'; chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: [Chrysler300] AFB 2903 electric choke conversion Richard, Andy, and all: I do believe that the aluminium manifolds burn through due to the heat and corrosive effect of the exhaust gases passing through them. It's kind of obvious - the damage is always located in the same area: choke pockets, heat tube mating surfaces, and under the carb. Blocking off the heat passages can be accomplished in a variety of different ways. I have seen various solutions over the years, from freezeout plugs inserted in the holes to block the flow, to custom made flat shim plates fitting between elbows and rams. I have spent many, many hours rebuilding the heat riser portions of exhaust manifolds on various cars, to get them to run right; I do believe that those are necessary in order for the chokes to operate properly on the carbs. Rich, was is the purpose of having new chokes, as you state, if there are no heat riser butterflies? Chokes will "come on" when the car is cold but will stay on way too long afterwards, since there won't be any heat supplied to the pulloffs. Andy, now your statement confuses me most of all. The purpose of the chokes are to furnish more fuel / less air when the engine is cold. If one disconnects the chokes, then the car will be cranky when cold. If one removes the heat riser butterflies (or jams them) then the car will run overly rich AFTER it is warmed up and foul plugs. The purpose of electric choke system is to get the chokes to "come off" after the car has run a few minutes, not the other way around. I don't see why having electric chokes would make the car hard to drive when warmed up. It's the other way around! Another Club member has suggested coating the inside of the rams (heat passages) with high-temp exhaust paint. My only comment to that is that, even though it sure won't hurt, it won't help much either as the paint will surely bake off within a couple hundred miles. Yes, if there WAS a way to coat the insides of the rams with some product impervious to heat and exhaust gases, that would be the solution. But, heck, if the red paint bakes off the outside of the rams when the car is driven, can you imagine what would happen to paint inside the rams heat passages? I've put on about 35,000 miles on my 300G convert since purchasing it a few years ago; those rams are getting thin. I just removed the rams off my 52,000 mile 300F and those already have holes in the choke pockets, are thin all over, and need to be replaced. I am running out of manifolds and wish to preserve what I have. Unless someone can come up with a specific product to coat the inside of the ram heat passages, that will stay on there and protect them, I intend to block off the flow of exhaust gases as a way of keeping my manifolds healthy. If you, like most people, don't drive your car much - then don't worry about it. Warren, thanks for the info. I guess I may have to play with the bimetal spring inside the elctric choke housing to make it act slower... However, some choke will be better than no choke, don't you think ? John H. -----Original Message----- From: HYPERLINK "mailto:Chrysler300%40yahoogroups.com"Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:HYPERLINK "mailto:Chrysler300%40yahoogroups.com"Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard Osborne Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:36 AM To: John J. Hertog; HYPERLINK "mailto:chrysler300%40yahoogroups.com"chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [Chrysler300] AFB 2903 electric choke conversion John, This sounds like a great solution, but I want to understand a couple of things: First, do the intake manifolds burn through due to heat riser failure, or simply due to design? Am I understanding that the heat passages into and out of the intake manifolds are completely blocked off? Does this require machining of the parts to accept block off plates? I have not dug into the convertible to see what the intakes look like, but the hardtop showed a little wear, not too bad. I have new chokes, and broke off the heat riser butterflies. No real problem other than when it is really cold out, it can be a pain in the butt to start. Looking forward to hearing more. Richard Osborne >>> "John J. Hertog" <HYPERLINK "mailto:crossram%40optonline.net"crossram@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 03/13/07 3:34 am >>> Hi to all, Motivated by the sight of yet another set of original 50,000 mile ram manifolds burned out in the choke pocket area, I asked Jimmy and Bobby at Allstate Carburetor (www.allcarbs.-com) whether it would be possible to modifiy the 2903 carbs, and add electric choke units to them without any permanent alteration / damage to the ca rbs. The answer was: "I don't see why not". They are now in the process of converting a set I gave them. The idea, of course, is to block off the heat riser system, by inserting solid shim plates between the exhaust elbows & heat tubes, and the bottom of the manifolds; one would also want to jam the heat riser valve in the open position (assuming it still functions) on each side, and disconnect the choke pulloffs. The benefit would be fully automatic choke operation without any heat supplied to the bottom of the carbs. No exhaust damage to the rams, no baked off paint either. I will be glad to report on the progress of this carb conversion and take pictures when I get the carbs back. I can ask Jimmy and Bobby to put together a "conversion kit" and make it available for sale, if someone else wishes to do the same to their 2903's ( I understand that they will have to fabricate one linkage piece) ; or you could just send 'em your carbs for conversion and/or R&R. All removed parts would of course be returned. For whatever it's worth, Allstate Carburetor has rebuilt umpteen sets of 2903 AFB's for various Club members in the past few years. Comments, anyone? John Hertog Sag Harbor NY [Non- text portions of this message have been removed] To send a message to this group, send an email to: HYPERLINK "mailto:Chrysler300%40yahoogroups.com"Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For list server instructions, go to HYPERLINK "http://www.chrysler300club.com/yahoolist/inst.htm"http://www.chrysler-300cl ub.com/-yahoolist/-inst.htm For archives go to HYPERLINK "http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/"http://www.forwardl-ook.net/300--ar chive/ Yahoo! Groups Links -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.10/720 - Release Date: 3/12/2007 7:19 PM -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.10/720 - Release Date: 3/12/2007 7:19 PM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Something is new at Yahoo! Groups. 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