well....soon....im going to get a new paint job on my crx, but not in the engine bay. i was wondering when i do my b16 swap, with the stock dx engine out, can i use some spray paint to cover up that nasty teal green color in the bay?? or would it be too complicating, like wires will be all around and stuff. Has anyone tried painting their engine bay?? because when i paint my car silver, and when i open the hood its gonna look ugly because its gona be green....not a good sight dude...anyone tried??

 

yeah i paintd my 91 hatch all around and itr wasnt a big deal once the motor was out u just have to take some time to do it thats all but trust me its very worth it

 

almost every car(including mine) that i swap a motor into, we paint at least some part of the engine bay, and its always worth it. we're doing a swap into a 96 hatch right now thats getting painted silver, and we painted the entire engine bay flat black, it looks amazing. on that car, which will be a race/street machine, we had the entire car gutted, and we took everything out of the engine bay, but i painted my car's bay with everything in(minus motor/trans obviously) and it turned out great. i get a LOT of compliments on it. just tape off stuff you dont want painted. spend a few hours taping and sanding the crap out of it, then go nuts with the rattle can.......i would recomend painting the bay black, trust me, it will look totally amazing. look at many new imports like BMW's and stuff, many have black engine bays, such as i z8 i think.....good looking stuff. really easy to maintain and keep clean too.

 

Here is a couple of before and after shots of mine.

 

yeah its gonna be a lot of work, we're doing this kids chevy nova in my autos class at school and its gonna look so clean but I don't even think the engine was the hardest part, and if you're doing a swap anyways you may as well, I promise you will be a lot happier w/ it

 

here's my suggestion.. if you're going to do it, do bother masking all the stuff off, just remove it. like the master cylinder, firewall mat, brake lines, etc. Mask the steering rack though.

 

Masking tape is your best friend,

get some primer too, don't just spray the paint around like a dick, sand, prime, sand a bit, shoot, clear.

thant's pretty much it,

hope this help,
Kranked

 

exactly......sorry, i forgot to say to primer it..... i meant to say that.

 

Its not necessary to do the whole sand, prime, paint, and clear unless this is a show car. When I put my 2nd motor in I painted my engine bay black with spray paint. The most important step if you use spray paint like I did is to clean the bay out really, really, really good. Get all the grime out of there. When painting put a fan in front of the bay to blow the excess paint away from the bay if its in a garage. The paint has held up very well. I clean it fairly often and shoot it with my pressure washer and it still looks good. Heres a berofe and after shot.

Before:

After:

 

I'm doing mine right now, if you're doing a B16 remember to do all the hammering before painting. I basiclly stripped the entire front clip of everything except the master cylinder which I'm going to do today, and the brake lines which I pulled away from the frame. I got some plastic sleeves for cables, and put the wiring harnesses in big bags and taped them shut.

I pressure washed the bay after it was stripped, it helped get some of the dirt off but I'm going to go back over by hand and use a cleaner like Fantastik. I dont plan on sanding, clean very well, prime the entire front clip, paint, clear.

EDIT, just snapped a pic:



[Modified by beta13, 2:33 PM 3/11/2003]

 

do the engine bay you wont regret it.here is mine after the paint shop sorry for the size guys

 

I agree...do the engine bay while the engine is out!! it looks better if you open the hood and have matching color engine bay.Paint it the same color or paint it at least black. Removing the items around it better than trying to mask everything...
heres mines:




[Modified by TKL, 7:59 PM 3/12/2003]


[Modified by TKL, 8:01 PM 3/12/2003]

 

there you go civbeater... not like you didnt know how to do that tho


[Modified by Sleeping4drLS, 8:02 PM 3/12/2003]

 

what brand paint did everyone used? I'm planning to paint my engine bay black when I take my engine out to do a rebuilt.

 

yea, id primer the bay black, this way its not stuicking out lieka sore thumb......but blends into the background instead...it will make new motor stand out more imho.