Painting Intake Manifold?

[ajmorell]

I can't decide if this is a good idea or not. I know it will make the manifold retain heat more compared to the bare aluminum but it seems like the effect would be negligible. The 99+ manifold I picked up is dirty as hell. I sprayed it down real good with engine degreaser and scrubbed it down but it still looks like crap. Thoughts?

[IH 392]

Paint it, I've painted lots of them, the incoming air charge will cool it more than any heat that'll soak into it!, the racers actually say to polish them so they reflect the heat!

[SilverXJ]

Sand blast it and leave it bare (it will look like ass again), or sand blast it and paint it. Really, the thing is so close and gets heated so much from the exhaust manifold I doubt that the little bit of heat that the paint will hold in will matter much. Also, I have heard that black paint helps radiate heat. And if you want a real scientific answer: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/e ... g99320.htm. Maybe I shouldn't have painted my engine silver.. lol.

[YJason]

X2 on it looking like crap after only sand blasting it, thats what I did and now looks bad. I was thinking of powder coating mine. Any thoughts on powder coating a intake?

[dwg86]

Powder coating would be the way to go. Money was tight, so I wire wheeled my intake then painted high temp primer and high temp silver paint. It looks great, and is holding up so far.

[ajmorell]

Powder coating would be the way to go. Money was tight, so I wire wheeled my intake then painted high temp primer and high temp silver paint. It looks great, and is holding up so far.

I think this is what I'm going to end up doing. I might have to talk to my neighbor across the street though, he has powder coated stuff for me in the past for free.

[SilverXJ]

I powder coated mine in high temp silver. The powder coater was a bit concerned of its location so close to the exhaust manifold and the powder coat being damaged by the heat especially on cam break in.

If you do paint it don't use Duplicolor's clear.. it yellows. I tried it and at first and it looked good.. but after a week or so it yellowed.

[dwg86]

If you do paint it don't use Duplicolor's clear.. it yellows. I tried it and at first and it looked good.. but after a week or so it yellowed.

X2!
I cleared the RPM airgap intake on my 401. It looks like crap now...ugly yellow! I need to take it off and have it blasted.

[ajmorell]

In the interest of time, and the fact that I am at school 500 miles away from home (and my neighbor whose had stuff coated for me in the past) I think I am just going to paint it. I was just going to go with the Duplicolor Engine Enamel in a semi-gloss black

[SilverXJ]

I've been using Duplicolor high heat on my parts for a while and they hold up pretty good. I had some form of silver on my intake manifold at one time that was very metallic, almost chrome like... just don't use the clear.

[IH 392]

I have about half a can of Krylon "aluminum" that we used to paint the manifolds with at the machine shop, but they changed the mix so now it's that "CHROME" CRAP! so I can't really make a good recommendation on a specific paint, but that stuff looked SWEET!
Both of these manifolds are used, cleaned and then the one on the right is painted, the flash makes it look like the "CHROME" crap, but it's mostly the flash from the camera, if it was the chrome it would be MUCH! shinyer, in fact the guy I sold the one on the right to thought it was NEW!, and they really do look like right out of the box.

[ajmorell]

I think that Duplicolor has an aluminum color for their engine enamel, but I think I would prefer black. When I get around to throwing some paint down I'll post up some pics.

[AIbandit]

Sand blast it and leave it bare (it will look like ass again), or sand blast it and paint it. Really, the thing is so close and gets heated so much from the exhaust manifold I doubt that the little bit of heat that the paint will hold in will matter much. Also, I have heard that black paint helps radiate heat. And if you want a real scientific answer: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/e ... g99320.htm. Maybe I shouldn't have painted my engine silver.. lol.

Cool article, thanks for sharing.

[SilverXJ]

I think that Duplicolor has an aluminum color for their engine enamel

That is what I used. If you want to see what it looks like on a stroker take a look at my build thread.

[ajmorell]

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