dime1622

so while i have my cam tower and stuff off the car this weekend, i might as well go ahead and paint it, make the engine not look as crappy. but i want the "porsche" and lines above and below to be natural looking (like how most others do it). anyway, i was going to get a high-temp deep blue color (go along with the blue theme that started with the vacuum lines), paint the cam tower, then use a sanding block to sand on one plane and sand off the top of the letters with like 200 sandpaper. would that work?

Ski

You can simply use brake cleaner on a rag, on your finger tip and wipe of the letters and such when the paint is just getting tacky. The plugs for the cam tower, if lay down a pc of sandpaper, 800 then again with 1500, these sand out pretty quick and polish easily by hand. That's how I've done the ones I've done, but you can block sand on the letters to see if you can bring them out more before painting - make em a bit smoother too.

dime1622

sweet thx

David Floyd

Not deep blue, but will give you some idea.

Click on my p-car link in signature.

dime1622

yeah, similar to that, but instead just a bit darker blue than the IC hardpipe connections you and ski have - just a hair darker than skis fuel rail. ill post pics when i can.

testarossa_td

What happened to the bottom of that engine!
You have so many cool shots that cry for sig.

David Floyd

Wow !!! thanks

I kinda scattered engine parts all over the front straight at Road Atlanta

testarossa_td

No problem...you can use them in your avatar as well.
I guess people use larger ones for the sig...

gcb951

You should have it powder coated. It will last a lot longer and looks better then regular paint. I did mine in guards red and had the "PORSCHE" and the line above and below it polished. Looks great. And then they also used a clear coat so it always looks shinny. Good luck with yours.

z3bra

Another route that I did that worked pretty well is the "liquid mask" stuff they sell at hobby stores for painting models. It's basically goop that you brush on and then it turns into a rubbery film when it dries (water based). Takes a little time to put it on but it worked really well and if you use a small brush you can mask off very small details really easily.

Also depending on the finish on your casting, you can use progressively finer grit sandpaper on the raised lettering with a block to smooth it out nicely as Ski suggested. It's not quite polished looking but more like a very close tolerance machined finish. I would suggest starting with 320 Grit and wet sanding. Make sure that you silicon carbide media not aluminum oxide media when sanding aluminum for better results (Gray vs the reddish-brown media). I went 320, 400, 600, 800, 1200, 1500, 2000 on mine. If you progressively increase the grit in smaller steps it seems to give a more consistent finish but it takes longer.

I don't know I'd consider this ricing out your car, There's some old muscle cars that came from the factory with wrinkle finish valve covers. The way mine looked before it had what appeared to be salt deposits on the casting and just looked bad. The paint really cleans it up I think.

Also make sure you clean your cover off very well first if you want the paint to adhere well. It might be worth the extra $10 to go have a machine shop hot tank it and then do final cleanup with some acetone.