Having different ext/engine bay colors... your thoughts?
 

I got a good deal on a red FD, but really wanted (& still do) a black one.

It'd be too much $$ to get the engine bay & have a body shop paint it... so my options are (unless you think of a better option...) to

1. Paint the exterior black, & have a red engine bay
2. Keep the exterior red

I'm not happy with either option...

What would you do (or do you have any other ideas) ?

IMO, having the exterior color different from the engine bay color looks tacky and ugly

Spray paint the engine bay. Or save your money until you can do the job right and enjoy the car the way it is till than. K.I.S.S.

^^ Have you ever spray painted the engine bay? It seems awful full to spray paint much...

& to do it right would mean having a shop pull every single peice out of the engine bay... & then take it to paint... & then back to shop to reinstall everything... seems like more $$ than it's worth...

The body guy had told me that they would paint "what the could" inside the engine bay... so spray painting probably wouldn't get much (if any) more than the paint guy could...

^ there's plenty of people here who think it's cool to paint a whole car with spray paint!

Personally, I think having the engine bay a different color just doesn't look right. If you're on a budget check with local paint shops on giving you a discount for removing everything that needs to be taken off/ doing some of the prep work yourself etc. Most paint guys I know HATE doing whole cars because of all the little things that need to get done before they can actually start painting the car. When somebody brings them a car and says "paint it", they charge accordingly!

Think long term when dealing with something like this. If.... and when (because we all probably won't own them forever :) ) you go to sell that car someday, and you post pics up with a beautiful black paint job with stock red paint in the engine bay, how many people do you think are going to be seriously turned off by this or lower the value of the car by enough that it would of just made more sense to paint it all and do it right to begin with.


Just because you can't see it all the time, doesn't mean it isn't there. IMO, having a mismatched engine bay/exterior paint is the same as these ass hats that buy their ebay body kits, install them, and then never paint them or take 2 years to get it done.

Leave it alone until you can afford to do it right.....red isn't all that bad now is it. :)

I am changing the color of my car. I decided I will change the color of the engine bay when the engine comes out. I am going from red to tgm, and nothing about what I have done is cheap. I don't like red personally so when the time is right it will get painted.

Has anyone (who is posting in this thread) ever paid a shop to gut the engine bay, so a paint shop CAN paint it?

I am looking at around $4k to paint the car... I figured I would have a shop paint the engine bay whenever my engine gets pulled (which I feel is inevitable). I asked Banzai Racing about how much stuff is left in the engine bay when an engine gets pulled & Elaine made it sound like there is still a crap-load of stuff in the engine bay, which makes painting it very difficult...

These pics should give you an idea of what is still in the engine bay after engine removal. Honestly I wanted a black car and ended up with a red one, I have repainted the car twice, and the reason I didn't change the color was because I would never want to ever see any portion of the red again. With the amount of work that goes into stripping a car completely down to truly change the color, you are almost better off just buying a black car.

ewww... well at least red has always been a nice contrasting color

My car has been in a body shop and getting painted for 4 months and I finally get to pick it up today ...

So if I'm dead-set on having a black car, I should just get my car re-painted red (because the paint job is really bad right now) & sell my red one & buy a black one?

Which I guess is okay, because I ultimately want to get a 20B FD (might as well dream big) in 5-10 years, so I'll just drive my red car until I'm able to purchase a built 20B (that is black)

& just to clarify... I KNEW that it was tacky to have mis-matched engine bay/exterior paint... I was just looking for was to chage the engine bay without completely gutting it.

heres an option
 

I restore ferraris and lambos for a living for bobileff motor cars in san diego. I just thought id tell you that so have an idea that im not clueless. Go buy 2 big rolls of aluminum foil and 2 rolls of masking tape. stop and pressure wash your engine bay. the aluminum foil is used to wrap all the wires and hoses. that will take you like 2 hours. Go to your local auto paint supplier and buy 4 cans of quality satin black and a couple red scotchbrites to prep the surface and have at it. if you get a little black over sparay on anything , it will wipe off with acetone or you just wont see it