Finished painting my valve covers, intake manifold plenums & intake over the weekend. I'm also going to paint my NeedsWings oil catch can (not pictured) but I ran a little low on paint so I'm going to do it later this week after I re-up on supplies. My valve covers were starting to seep a little bit so I took this as an opportunity to clean my engine bay up a little bit while performing some maintenance. I had considered having these pieces powdercoated, but given the fact that I'm spending a great deal of money on my car elsewhere (new paint, new wheels, new exterior additions, etc.) I decided that paying for powdercoat services wasn't really in the budget. I decided to go the DIY route and paint everything myself using VHT high-temp engine enamels. I used their products to paint my brake calipers earlier this year so I figured I'd stick with their products to tackle these engine components. I sanded everything down a bit, hit everything with some brake cleaner and soapy water and then painted everything using a three stage process. I started with a few VHT primer engine enamel then did a few coats of VHT silver engine enamel and topped it off with a few coats of VHT gloss clear engine enamel. All in all I'm happy with how everything turned out. My valve covers & intake manifold plenums were pretty grimy/stained so the silver paint basically just made everything look new again. Basically just gave it that "factory fresh" look - nothing too flashy. I am also planning to sand & re-clear the raised "SRT-6" and "NeedsWings" letters on the manifolds/intake so that the letters will have a raw brushed finish for a little bit of contrast before I put everything back together. Now before anyone points it out, yes, I essentially sanded down a powdercoated intake and proceeded to spray paint it.....lol. The reasoning for this was a) the intake had it's fair share imperfections and b) I didn't want the intake the be a different shade of silver than everything else. I just wanted everything to match and I knew that if I didn't paint the intake it would be a different shade of silver.
I am reinstalling everything with new gaskets (I actually upgraded to the NeedsWings cork gaskets for the intake manifolds since they seal better and have better pressure ratings than the OEM ones) this week at which point the car will be heading to the bodyshop for it's exterior makeover.
Oh and I also installed my new R1 Concepts slotted rotors and ceramic pads as well (not pictured).
That's it for now folks!
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Even with 57k miles on the clock, everything looked squeaky clean underneath the valve covers. I actually drive/put miles on my SRT-6.....lol.
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