Thinking of painting my manifold.

[ill advised]

Since I'll have the manifold off for a while I've been thinking about painting it black (glossy). I was planning on using your basic hi-temp engine paint but I'm wondering what kind of prep work needs to be done. Other than cleaning it real good I'm not sure what else needs to be done. I'm not looking for "show" quality but I don't want it cracking or peeling 3 weeks later either. Just want a new look. I'm also ordering a new set of valve covers (FMS "Powered by Ford" in black crinkle).

In case anyone's wondering, this should give some idea of what I want to do:

I believe I've seen an edelbrock intake painted in that scheme but I don't have a picture of it. I've also thought about painting the center section and plenum area black and leave the runners silver. Then paint the tbody/egr, and C&L inlet elbow black.

 

[fordman54935]

As far as prep work is concerned, clean it thoroughly to get rid of any grease, give it a light sanding, and then clean with mineral spirits. That worked for me when I painted my stock intake (its polished now ) with hight temperature paint. The paint held up flawlessly for over a year, and still looked good when i started to sand it off to begin polishing. Good Luck.

 

[ill advised]

Cool, guess there's not much to it then. Thanks.

 

[K.C.90gt]

I like the paint scheme you have in that picture with leaving the middle unpainted. But I thought I would add a suggestion, you should paint the edelbrock lettering black after your done to make it look even better. I did the lettering on my trickflow intake with some touchup paint and it turned out nice. Just a thought Oh and heres a pic incase you want to see what it looks like.