Panda Painting

[EZSpeed]

After a few days of work, I've got a couple things done that I'm happy with. I wanted to take some things out of the engine bay to clean them up and paint them. First up was the throttle body, which I showed off in my last post. Here's a lousy shot of it painted.

Flat black, I guess I forgot to take some more. Oh well I'll add them tomorrow. Next up and a huge achievement for me, I took off the intake manifold! I used ratcheting wrenches to get it off, a little trick I learned on here, and ohmygoodness they saved my life. No way would I have gotten it off without those.

NASTY!

After a lot of washing:

Next up was the valve cover.

A shot of the cams, HKS 272/272. I don't know much about cams, you guys got any info on these for me?

Adjustable cam gears too, again, not too sure what the dealio is with these so I'd appreciate any info!

I washed the intake manifold and valve cover, but I was still unsure of how to get some paint to stick on it. Flat black always looks so good, but I didn't want to leave them black, so I used it as sort of a primer.

I wanted to continue the panda look in the engine bay too, so I decided to do gloss white and flat black. After taping off the parts I wanted to keep black:

And then the white paint begins:

The throttle body elbow came out pretty good

But I need to do some touching up on the valve cover and intake manifold.

My tape job wasn't too good, so instead of sharp lines between black and white everything looks kinda fuzzy. Oh well. Tomorrow my plan is to finish putting it back together, touch it up a little, then try to start it! I still haven't gotten it registered so I've still got a lot of time to get it exactly how I want it before I start driving it around. Stay tuned!

-Ed

 

[Kalub]

I would have left it black myself, or started over. Don't be lazy

 

[goodbuds]

Caca

 

[SrKegler]

Here's a little trick for doing the letters. Since the letters (high spots) are going to be in white, paint the entire piece in white. Since the low spots are going to be black, paint the entire piece again in black.

Then use a sanding block with 800-1000 grit paper and sand the black off the high spots. Once you get most of the black off, switch to 2000 grit paper for a nice shine.

The lines on the intake are a little more difficult. Before sanding those, put masking tape where you want the white to stop, then sand away. The tape gives you a nice straight line.

 

[tmaxx411]

I've also used vaseline to control what gets painted and what doesnt. spread it on thin before you paint, do your painting, and when its dry, just wipe up the areas where you had vaseline, the paint should come right off.

 

[Silver99OZ]

You did everything backwards, it would be much easier to first paint everything white. Then cover everything with tape and take an exacto knife and neatly cut out all of the letter and lines. Lastly spray the black paint.

 

[9!'clipseDOHC]

i second the exacto knife. Use that to cut your tape and it will give you crisp lines. Start over, please don't leave it like that.

 

[Awdspyderman]

ill give you an A+ for effort but that thing needs redone=) sorry man.

 

[nicknorth11]

I agree with the others. Kudos for the effort, but I see a few problems with your bay.
1) Spray paint isn't going to hold up too well in your engine bay. (powder coat is what you want for longevity)
2) The fuzzy lines look like poo.
3) The white is going to get dirty/oily pretty quickly.

Good luck with the build though!

Btw, flat black engine bays kick ass!

 

[1gdsmftw]

that looks like poop. i declare a redo

 

[4g63fast]

i think it looks good

 

[99eclipse420]

Best way I have found to paint these sorts of things is by hand painting it.

 

[Chris_92TSi]

polished letters but kinda like the one above ^

 

[3kgt2nv]

A for the idea fail for the effort. redo it while you can. dont leave it a disaster like that.

 

[born2tune]

theres no way you would want to leave it like that, also i would of not even posted the pics if it wasnt a success.

 

[EZSpeed]

Dang guys I said I'd touch it up. Thanks for the concern that I would leave it looking awful like that but no way. Here it is after some hand painting, which came out nicely. Good call 99eclipse420.

 

[empie1]

Sloppy. Pay someone else to do it.

 

[nrwtrn6492]

I agree that it should be taken off and redone. But just go with flat black. You have too much going on here it doesn't look good even if it was done with the straitest lines possible, it still look bad.....

 

[AUTOMODSGST]

it came out good man it takes time an patience

 

[Jon91TSi]

Little Debby Zebra Cakes anyone????

 

[1gdsmftw]

It still looks horrible =/ I can see all the blotches and crap around the lines and letters........

 

[goodbuds]

it looks better, but still CaCa.. maybe you should have pressure washed your engine bay before you tried to tackle this venture..
Your engine Bay Looks like it has had the Diarrhea's sense the Easter's.

 

[compression]

I'm sure he will get to the rest, you had me concerned at the original attempt. but the touch up looks much better, could still use a little more attention. but i can honestly say i have never seen this scheme before and i think your initiative is great. just needs a little more.

 

[jackblack65]

I like it!

 

[DSMer541]

deffinetly think you should have just left all those parts flat black.... would have looked ten times better and will last longer... I give that white a day or two before it turns yellow and gets oily fingerprints and dirt on it....