Copilot

So sometime in the next few months I'll be pulling all sorts of stuff apart for routine maintenance, and figured since I'll be in there, it would be a good time to pull the cam tower cover, the intake and the hard pipes and have them painted.

My question though - is there any potential engine risk to coating the hard pipes, intake, etc? I don't want to be inadvertently causing something to overheat.

On a side note - I'm pretty sure this is my first thread on rennlist. I'm pretty excited.

ramius665

Go with powdercoating. It will last a LOT longer than paint. I powdercoated my entire engine and have had zero negative effects in 8k miles and over 2 years. Go for it.

ChrisJ951

I have my intake and cam cover powdercoated and will get my IC pipes done shortly. No effects at all. Just make sure they tape off all opening before coating and make sure you clean all parts before reinstallation.

gruhsy

I ceramic coated my LR hard pipes. Looks good and has a lifetime warranty on the coatings.
Intake is polished and cam tower is clear coated from Lindsey with the stuff they use.
Jason

nics951

I painted my cam tower with high temp engine enamel from auto zone. No problems and it's been little over a year. Definitely not as nice as a powder coat. That's for sure but still looks good

toddk911

Any parts not sensitive to heat or you want to dissipate heat like the intake, headers and IC pipes you want to ceramic coat. Non heat affected parts can be high temp painted or powder coated. Powder coating holds in heat so you don't want to powder coat intake or IC pipes.

Copilot

Cool - that's what I was potentially worried about. It seemed like something that could interfere, but I didn't have any solid "scientific" explanation other than gut feeling.

reno808

It's all about the bling bling

TRACKIN951

It will hold the heat in but to what degree is it negatively effecting your performance is the question. For street cars you see it all day long. Many, many people have their cam covers. IM powder coated including myself. The ceramic coatings do look good and would be the "best" coating to apply. I would NOT paint them myself with a duplicolor kit or something alike. Been there done that...you'll be removing them again in 2 years because they look like crap. Hit it once with socket and it chips. Powder coat is very durable.

Copilot

A few months later.....

About to install all my sweet powdercoated parts. There's a local guy in Lakeside, OR, only about 15 minutes away that does powdercoating for DIRT cheap, and does a great job.

The only downside is that on the intake manifold, he powdercoated over the whole thing, included the gasket mating portion of the intake. So my next question - since he did it in high temp powder (it melts at some ridiculous temperature that the engine will not even come close to approaching), can I leave it as is and install it with the gaskets, or do I have to strip off the finish with sandpaper before installing it back onto the engine/installing the throttle?

968 GUY

If it were mine, I would remove the coating.