Most of you know all the **** that has happened with my car recently. Well, one of the problems was the engine bay. The body shop didn't want to deal with it, and I really didn't want them to rip it apart either. The whole thing had been covered in dust, dirt, grease, and hard water stains. Here is a couple before pictures:








Now, I decided to take a chance here and do a flat black engine bay. In my opinion, it came out beautiful. After sanding, polishing, painting, rewiring, rewrapping, and rerouting alot of crap, the engine bay is now something I'll be proud to show off. And Kevin can actually see his work now.









And the Racing Beat exhaust:

 

That thing is so sexy. I love the flat black engine bay to. Great job!

 

That looks really good Great job, I love both colors! That car is sexy.

 

Damn, how long did it take to remove everything and paint it? how did you spray the firewall and such without taking the motor out?

 

It took Saturday from noon till about 2:30am, and Sunday from 10am to 7pm. My buddy helped me out who is a Honda mechanic (yeah I know), and to get to the firewall we pulled the heater hoses away, and removed the dynamic chamber. There are a couple of areas that I had to hit up with a small brush, but it was flat paint so it blended and came out great. Almost all of the brackets and plastic were rusted or oxidized, so I hooked a wire wheel up to my bench grinder and got all the crap off of them. Many were polished, some got a coat of black Rustoleum, and some parts were done with that Metalcast paint that someone did their manifolds with before. That stuff actually comes out great, with a cool anodized look. It just so happened to perfectly match the exterior color of the car as well.

Normally it wouldn't have taken so long, but there are a few other things I had to do. Wiring new injector connections was one, and I tried to re-route alot of wiring harnesses and put heat shrink on them. Many connectors were filthy, and it was just a nest of wires in there. That probably took up half of my time, along with totally taping everything off that I didn't want painted.

 

Another thing that took forever was when I forgot to connect the main ground to the engine fuse box. I sat there forever trying to figure out why the hell my headlights were turning on, but I had no power to anything else. It seems like there is always something that gets forgotten.

 

That car looks awsome. the engine bay looks really sweet as well.. specially with the few blue highlights.. just one thing that really blows and i'd change asap b4 you get flamed!!

the power steering

 

I would, but I really hate driving with no PS on a PS rack.

 

A lot of us drive with a the P/S rack converted to non P/S. It's just fine....but so is keeping your P/S.

Excellent job by the way. Its nice to see a really clean engine bay and car. Top notch work.

 

Wow. Nice job. I'm gonna cry when it comes time to do that with mine.

 

Thanks guys

 

I always thought a PS rack with no PS was much more difficult to drive on than a manual rack?

 

******* awesome. Is that ford blue?

 

Nissan Daytona Blue Metallic.

 

You're lying, that isn't the same engine bay. J/K, that looks excellent.

 

i would like to know about the durability of the paint you used... will it hold up to heat well... a long time ago i used rustoleum on a part (mind you i didnt sand or prime it) and not to long after it just started flaking off bad.... i worked at a body shop and learned the proper way to paint but i dont know much about the quality of paint as we were provided with what we used from our main warehouse

 

oh and also what did you used to clean the block and metal parts in the car with?

thanks

christopher

 

nice ride man i love it

u have to sand and prime that was ur problem. rustoleum is some pretty good stuff and it deffinatly helps keep rust from coming back again or atleast slows it down

 

Anything metal that was removed was cleaned with a wire wheel on either a bench grinder or a hand drill. I then went over it with some 320 grit, then steel wool. After that it was either polished up with aluminum polish or primed and painted. I am also curious as to how well it will all hold up, but I have some decent experience with painting and prep work so I am pretty sure it's been done right.