I'd love to have gone stainless, but my only option on these headers was mild steel. But I did get a stainless-steel price, lol.

The coated headers I've had in the past seem to run as hot as non-coated headers. On my last set of headers, I painted them, then wrapped them. Didn't get any rust (but I do live in southern CA). I might just do that again and just deal with the ugliness