How do you go about painting the alum intake manifold?. and when the intake is off what things too look out for as far as fixing/replacing that are beter inspected!
Take your time and take it apart slowly it you have never done it before so you can see where all the vacume lines go. inspect all the vacume lines for cracks or breaks, if you take the intake off it is a good idea unless the gaskets are brand new to replace them, they are cheap. When you get the electrical connections take them apart the right way, dont just break the clips off and pull them apart. Clean the intake well with engine cleaner, purple power (my favorite, doesn't smell like **** when you are done) and let it dry COMPLETLY. Put tape over the gasket mating surface, so as to cover the surface and intake runner holes, on the upper and lower intake, it will save a lot of time later when you have to clean it. Use engine paint like the other guy did, what ever color you want, I painted my lower intake black and my upper silver. Now would be a good time to paint the valve covers if you are so inclined. Again new gaskets would be great if you can swing it, same cleaning procedures. When you put it back together make sure you look at a torque sequence for the lower intake, if you dont tighten it down correctly you will end up warping it. Take the time to do it right so you dont mess up the pretty paint job you just accomplished. Make sure all vacume and electrical connections are made. If you take time and do it right now you wont have to pull your hair out trying to figure why it wont idle right later .It is an easy job it is just very time consuming.
I like the black intake. When my 90 still had the stock intake on it, we had painted it black, also using Duplicolor High Heat engine paint. It definitely looks different.
If I can say something about gaskets, use the good Fel-Pro Permadry Plus valve cover gaskets. They are expensive (30-35$ if I remember right), but they are awesome. They last forever, and seal very good. They are great if you have to pull the covers alot too because they are reusable. I use these and the Permadry Plus oil pan gasket too on the 90 and my 68.
ok great i plan on painting my valve covers because the whole reason im doing this is valve covers are leaking on to the headers making a smoke show.I amm not taking off the lower intake. its just gonna be the upper...i plan on painting it dupri aluminum(maybe black). with the valve covers to match! so thus far i know i need some good valve cover gasket and the plenum gasket. but i don't know what to do about the tb and egr, should i just tape it off wrapped in newspaper or something???? or take it apart?
i wold like to paint the egr spacer to match cause it worn out, the tb is actually in pretty good shape and i dont want paint touching that!
but other then that i got my work cut out for me, im gonna be completing my aod to t-5 swap! painting the intake and valve covers and doing a tune up all in 2 days!!!!!! thank god for the light bulb or i would be painting in the dark. i would take some before and afters but im too busy, im just gonna take after pics to show off the manual shifter and better than before looking engine bay!
well the pics help.
ryan* your engine looks like mine, not the worse in the world but sure needs it attention!!!and you 5.0 cover plate looks good! doubt i'll put that much detail into it!
as for silver, it looks like it would be a waste of time for me. Although it is in improvement it doesn't flare out. i think aluminum looks better IMO. but black does work also! Maybe a aluminum intake with aluminum valve covers, detail the lines black, and paint the 5.0 cover plate black and the tb and egr black! so i guess i should just take the egr apart from the intake and paint the tb,egr and other stuff all as one piece?
thus far i should just need valve cover gasket! plenum gasket, and egr to plenum gasket??
Take everything apart, theres nothing worse than ugly overspray on a nice new paintjob. I bought a headgasket kit from autozone when I did mine( had to do the HG's anyway) and it came with every gasket I needed for the top end. (except the tb spacer gasket I believe) Take pictures or draw some diagrams of vacuume lines because they can be confusing if youve never done it before. Other than that I think it makes for an awesome and easy engine back cleanup.
hm black does look nice... and i'll inspect the condition of the lower if it looks dusty(which it probbaly will) i'll pull it apart and replace the gaskets for that! but black is looking better to me by the minute,but i also think it hides the manifold to much!
What color is your car? That'll make a difference. Mine is going in a black car and I love the blacked out look Oh yeah you may wanna change the bottom intake gaskets too if you're trying to get rid of oil leaks. The end gaskets are bad to dry out and leak oil.