Poll: What colors to paint my M42??

[iamsam]

red is hard to make it look clean. It often times looks funky, esp if you buy the generic red spray paint from like duplicolor rattle cans. It simply jsut looks off in the engine bay. It will look cheap.

Black is easy, and it hides alot of the blemishes from paint etc. I say go black. From all the valve covers I painted, I say wrinkle wins my vote, because it is the easiest to paint, and looks the best.

wrinkle finish does really look good. I just have to find a high temp wrinkle finish paint, i am not sure they have that at the local Autozone.

[iamsam]

Here is some wicked high temp wrinkle finish i intend to use: http://www.tcpglobal.com/spraypaintd...nkle-plus.aspx

it comes in both black and red. I am definitely buying a can of black, but if i decide to make something red, it seems that red wrinkle finish would look weird. Or would it look good?

here is the red i plan to use if i use red. Its not wrinkle finish: http://www.tcpglobal.com/spraypaintd...emno=VHT+SP121

[3bvert]

first, wtih the throttle body heater hose, I hope you are deleteing it, and if you do DONT use the block off caps as some suggest. they are crap. I was going to , but heard of problems , so I went with a loop of heater hose. then for grins, put a block off cap on a old ac line to cap it off ( no longer have a/c. that was in december, adn now, july, that thing is cracked to crap. wold hate to see how it did under pressure of hot water
also you will need to shorten the studs to mount your throttel body. in the DIY they mention buying new short ones, I just pulled mine out, shortened them , and put them back
while your at it, you might want to service your icv for preventative measures, easy to do

so here is my engine bay. since the picture I have found the black palstic to cover the wires on firewall. that helped clean things up. the center cap I need to repaint, I did not at the time as I was gonna go with a cop kit, then $$ prioritys ( and laid off) sidelined that.

blasted the valve cover, washed it, painted with engine black, then sanded down the ridges, when I do it again, Ill then hit it with clear, then the ridges would be easier to keep clean. ILl do it next time, as I have two v/c attaching bolts that are stripped, so when I fix those, Ill repaint the v/c and the plug cover
Ive alsways liked the way black looked , and in my black bay it , for me , ws the best choice
left teh maniflods "silver" or the engine bay would be too "black". adm with the v/c bolts. painted a few black , but liked the contrast, so I left them silver and wiped off the black ones
( note wrinkle finish needs curing in a oven at 200 degrees, wife killed me when I did that the last time on a car, stunk th ehouse and oven up for days)

its a vert, thats why the batt is up front, the fan is a volvo 2 speed puller fan, wired directly to the bmw system so it keeps the 2 speed function, have it on a cooler set radiator switch

[iamsam]

found this over on M42club.com. It looks pretty good, making me sway more towards the black/black look. Of course it will be in an alpine white engine bay.

[E30FreaK89]

Heres my M42,

[iamsam]

^^dude that looks pretty freakin good. From this i have definitely decided that i am going to paint the intake manifold black, but i still have not settled whether the valve cover should be red or black.

How did you do it? did you sandblast and then paint? did you use primer? what kind of paint did you use?

Thanks

[E30FreaK89]

i just cleaned it really well and then used some scotch bright pad, masked what i didnt want painted. I then spayed self etch primer and then i sprayed high heat black paint.

[iamsam]

But check this out... red looks so good too....

[stevofthahill]

But check this out... red looks so good too....

I really like the red/black combo. Especially after seeing BenM's turbo m42 build thread. I currently have a black/red combo I bought prepainted from a forum member, it looks okay but not perfect. Eventually I will get my spare VC and intake mani powder coated for a better look.

[Todd Black 88]

Although not for an m42, Red looks good if powdercoated. If its just painted it gets grimey after a while.
Going on my s14 when I get time.


Engine bay now in black.

[iamsam]

all red M42 courtesy of Vlad.

[Simon S]

For some reason, I think red is the ticket in an alpine/white car – otherwise, black/black all the way.
I am in LOVE with how mine turned out.
link to engine bay thread contribution

[iamsam]

super old thread.

At this point I am very tired of my M42. I am ready for an S50.

[ck_taft325is]

I got a hair up my butt to paint my Intake Manifold BMW blue while I had it off. While the idea still appeals to me, it's very blue... and on the Alpine I base/Alpine II top coat (sort of a really nice creamy white) it works. But again, it's very, very blue. I'm looking at a few different options at this point, as I have 2 more intakes sitting in the garage. Flame on!




All in all I wasn't disappointed... but the VC and TB need to be done in black I imagine.

[iamsam]

hey, that looks good!