The cleanest engine bay? Probably not.

But here are some pictures I took five minutes ago (for this thread) of a 113k-mile engine that has never been rebuilt nor had any significant cleaning done to it other than painting the lettering and the occasional bracket. Come to think of it, it hasn't even been washed since April!

Not too shabby for that, if I may toot my own proverbial horn.

BB.

 

Most of the regulars know this was coming...

Both of these were with about 6500 on it after the rebuild, and only 1 detail, just before the show.









With 12k on it now it's still just as clean. I do, however, detail the car every
other time I wash it.

 

But I'll bit 2001 carrera, custom SC by me.

 

New Engine Pictures

 

Just started on mine. The hard part was finding a place to get the intake polished. How do I switch as many hoses as possible to SS braided? Not for bling, for durability. Not too bad for 237,000 miles!

 

Ruddell, you can go to a hose shop (ususally racing shop fabricator) and they can make you up some. I used rubber coated steal braded oil supply for the SC on mine to keep with a stock look but they are very strong. Take you're old ones down so they can measure them up. They are pricey though but well worth the piece of mind over a blown engine.

 

This weekend I plan on wash/wax/interior detail as well as retensioning the belts - now I guess I will detail the engine bay........

 

Perry, I have liked that that bay scheme for the longest time! Prints are in the cover sleeves of my car's reference and upcoming projects notebooks.

BTW: the time is 9:51

 

What do you do with aged /rusted looking exhaust manifolds?

Is painting them the only solution?

I'm talking concours level here.....do the guys who show their cars replace the exhaust completely with OEM?

 

Can I join in?

 

we guys that have the engines out of our cars have the cleanest engines!

 

PanzerGrey, in response to your question on rusty headers: Unless you are looking for the true, purist concours solution,then you may want to try this:



These are my ceramic coated headers done by HPC . There are other companies that do similar work as well. Although I have not put my own engine back together, I have seen similarly treated headers in other cars and they hold up very well. HPC did a great job, the headers are coated both inside and out. Besides the added bling, the other nice benefit of these is that the reflective surfaces will keep underhood temps down a bit. Another, more high perfomance option you may want to consider is Swain

If you have factory tubular headers (instead of the cast headers used in the early cars) then they are actually stainless steel, despite that dark brown patina.

 

Under the bonnet I like mine shiny

 

68,500 miles on mine! This is actually from last year, I realized the only updated pics I had from recent shows had shadows running across half the engine bay!!!!

I will take some new ones when I bring the car back out next month. I've cleaned up even more and polished up some metal parts. (not bling, just cleaner looking)

 

Blue:
I think you should replace the brake fluid resevoir to match the new coolant tank, that would really complete the clean engine bay look.