Progress Thread Under Hood, Aluminum Part Restoration

New [old] guy here.
I have a '93 Cobra I bought new. Six years as a daily driver in the northeast, then a Sunday car, then sat for far too long while other projects intervened. Under the hood is pretty funky looking.

I have all the accessories off as well as the upper and lower intakes.

I'm wondering if anyone has found a paint match for the upper intake on a Cobra. I've searched a number of forums and it appears no one agrees on the paint for the upper.
What I'm looking for might be Cobra specific.

From what I've been able to determine, early model upper intakes were grey that matched the painted valve covers, [Ford Grey], others were natural aluminum.

Cobra's were a grey powder coat, but with almost no metallic, and came in 2 different shades. But, I'm not yet sure if the shade difference was between original Cobra manifolds or aftermarket, [China] manifolds.

I'm also doing a test to identify paint that comes closest to matching what was the bare aluminum on the various brackets, water pump etc.. I have a NOS/ OEM Ford water pump that has a great, natural finish.

I'm going to try and match to that. I tried bead blasting and media blasting and that left everything too white looking and with too much "sparkle".
I'm spraying about 7-8 different paints, including Eastwood's "under hood paints" along with VHT and Por-15 onto cards that were painted first with grey self-etch paint.
I will post the results.
robj

OK, testing is finished and the winner is, Por 15 Detail Paint in Stainless Steel.

I posted this in the "93Cobra.com Forum.

I've been doing a under hood restoration and all of the aluminum parts looked pretty bad.

I tried glass bead blasting and they looked way too white. Definitely did not look original and every touch left a mark. I tried media blast but that didn't clean them enough. I tried bead blasting, followed up by media blast, still no go. I tried bead blast followed by Eastwood Bare Metal Clear and they looked gray. [almost like Ford under hood grey used on older model valve covers].

I was attempting to match to a OEM/NOS Ford water pump I had bought.
I then figured I was going to need to find a paint. I've used Eastwood products in the past, especially "AlumaBlast". Tried that first and it almost looked like a green tint compared to the water pump.

So, I made some test cards, first spraying a coat of Eastwood Gray Self-Etching Primer, then 2 coats of each paint on each strip.

I tested;
Eastwood Silver Argent
Eastwood Detail Silver
VHT Cast Aluminum
VHT Universal Aluminum
Eastwood AlumiBlast
Rust-oleum Silver Metalic
and
Por15 Detail Paint/Stainless Steel.





By far, the closest match was the Por15 Detail Paint/Stainless Steel. Most of the other samples had far too much metal flake to look natural. Or they were too bright and "silvery" looking.

I'm not sure if it will show in the photos, but in person it was a very close match.










I hope this helps someone else.

I guess I should add, "your results may vary…"

robj

Note: The pump has not been painted.

I had posted this to 93cobra.com then copied and posted here. Thought I was just copying the text but the photos showed as well.
robj