Eaton/Char-Lynn 2000: Cross pilot with shuttle

Reasons to anodize:

• To increase corrosion resistance. Sun uses 6061-T651 aluminum. It is one of the most corrosion resistant aluminum alloys there is. Whether or not anodizing improves the corrosion resistance of 6061 aluminum is debatable. We have yet to have a manifold returned because of corrosion.
• Appearance (color). The 2 colors that would appeal to Sun would be blue or black. Unfortunately these are the colors that are hardest to do consistently.
• To provide a hard wear surface. Sun does not make parts-in-body valves. The manifold is just plumbing. We don't need a wear surface.
• Because everyone else does it. Bad reason. 

Reasons to not anodize:

• Cost. It's another process.
• Logistics. When you make tens of thousands of manifolds a month and you anodize hundreds, it's a problem. Consistency. See above.
• Stamping. After a body is anodized you cannot do any more stamping without making a mess.
  Inspection. Have you ever tried to look for burrs in a black anodized body? It's the old blackboard factory at night scenario.
• Torque. You will experience an increase in breakaway torque when removing items from an anodized manifold.
• Fatigue life. This is the best reason to not anodize. Fatigue failure is a very complex phenomenon. What it takes to initiate a crack is difficult to predict. What it takes to propagate a crack is readily defined. Anodizing produces a very thin, very hard, and very brittle surface on aluminum. The first time you pressurize an anodized aluminum manifold you have initiated fatigue cracks. Whether or not the stress is enough to propagate the cracks is a matter of pressure and manifold geometry. Anodizing an aluminum manifold grossly reduces the fatigue life by anywhere from 20% to 50%.

There are exactly 250 Sun drops in a cubic inch or 15 in a cc.