I know a few of you guys paint your engine pieces etc..

What paints do you use?

I notice the typical 500 degree engine enamel has more color options as opposed to 2000 degree high heat engine paint that only comes in a select few.

 

http://www.duplicolor.com/products/enginePaint/

 

the more and more engine bays the more I am convinced that irons should be black, and rotor housings alum

goes with everything, blends in, and you hardly see it when everything is back in anyhow

 

duplicolor engine enamel, cheap and widely available. For the irons, i go flat/matte black, for the housings and large alum pieces, I use the ford blue

 

That metalcast paint that Aaron uses holds up well and is very good looking, comes in 5-6 colors.

 

i just looked up on google about metalcast, didnt know people had success using it on engines.. looks pretty sick.

I bought a can of rustoleum high heat flat aluminum today and have yet to use it, thinking about it now I might not like flat aluminum.. would perfer a semi gloss silver on some stuff, wonder if i can exchange it.

 

+1

 

Metal cast is sexy on an engine.

 

i have used just about every kind of spray paint on engines, with that being said they all have held up and they all have failed. even cheap $.99 paint works. its all in the prep weather or not the paint is going to adhere.

 

+1 for metalcast. I have used it in a variety of applications and it holds up surprisingly well....even in a powder coating oven.

 

Ricers

 

Haha, so all the painted engine blocks on muscle cars makes them.... ricers?

Nothing wrong with a nicely painted engine. I do love the look on a rotary of black/dark gray/gunmetal irons and silver/aluminum housings.

 

I like that keg that was shown here a while ago. it was black/and gold rotor housing where gold.

to lazy to look, but the thread title said something with the word keg in it

 

As mentioned, DupliColor MetalCast is what I used on my Project Tina RX-7. It has held up well. A little chipping here and there from mishandling but I have not seen any negative effects from heat.

MetalCast is designed to be sprayed over polished metal. If you are using it to paint plastic or something else then there is also a high metal flake silver base coat that gives you a similar, though different, effect. MetalCast is a candy, so it is simply coloured toner with no solids. Generally all it takes is a quick wire brushing to polish up a part.



Then add coats of MetalCast until you have the colour as deep as you like.



My irons were just painted with VHT Caliper Enamel. I have found the caliper enamel to kind of weak unless the parts are baked afterwards. On a caliper the heat of braking does this but on engine bay parts, they need to go in the oven.



For my latest engine that is going into my '76 Cosmo (can you believe I have only ever built two engines for myself? The RX-7 and the Cosmo...), I used POR-15 engine enamel. While I have never used it before, if it is anything like the other POR-15 products I have used, it will be good stuff. Prep is either to blast, or to thoroughly clean, etch with MetalReady and then undercoat with POR-15 prior to painting with the engine enamel. If your surface is rust free then you can skip the POR-15 base coat. This is a "premium" enamel with a high solid count and low solvent count, so it is 24 hours between recoats and needs 6 days to cure. But the result is a coating that looks like powder coat. Here's that paint process on video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-0Yl_Jlx1w

 

^Nice Vid.

 

How does powdercoating affect the housings? Is there any adverse consequenses to curing them in an oven at 400 degrees for 20+ minutes?

By the way, this is how well the DEI paint holds up. This is only after a few hundred miles.




Then I mixed some powders to make it resemble aluminum, and powdercoated it. Holds up much better.



Turbo compressor too:



Can't stop there, I had to make a shifter, but bare steel is hot on your hands:



Hell, why not do the whole damn thing? Charge pipes, pulleys, whatever I can:

 

I used metal cast. It seems to hold up pretty well. I rushed them on before they were 100% dry. You can see some paint missing. I will redo them using media blast which will hopefully allow better adhesion of paint.





These are yet to be installed

 

^metalcast on the pulleys looks awesome i like it.

I picked up some rustoleum engine enamel cast coat aluminum and semi gloss black.
Im up for a rebuild so will be attacking it. I like the typical black and silver keg.

 

Before painting any cast alloy part I'd recommend a thorough solvent clean followed by time in an oven (150°) to draw out any oil/contaminants that are deep in the pores.
Then clean/wash again.
I've seen lots of seemingly clean/well prepped parts suffer paint failure as the part heats up in service and trapped dirt bubbles up under the paint surface.

 

Real ballers polish to a mirror shine, Aaron Cake excluded (Kraftwerk ftw!)

 

this is mine.

Just super prepped then with a 2 pak. Ive only done about 50km on the block + a couple of dyno runs but has held up so far.

I know it will fall apart some time, but looks great now


By antman01 at 2008-12-28


By antman01 at 2008-12-23

 

too much purple imo. with the irons polished would look cool.

 

powdercoated 2 coates, 1 chrome base coat, 1 candy blue coat on the housings, 1 single mirror black on the housings.
as far as baking the housings and irons, i didnt see any adverse effects.


all powdercoated 1 single stage red. again, no problems found. the runners were 1/2 black, 1/2 red.

really, the best way to color engine parts is powdercoat. it wont start flaking, it wont fade, its super easy to clean off, but a bitch to get done, and usually kinda expensive, which is why alot of people prefer paint.
i mean really, its 100% up to you, but if i ever color any engine parts, its all powdercoat.

Lloyd

 

Ouch, all that red hurt my eyes

 

I know right!