[jh_f30]

Got a little bored so I decided to give painting my engine cover a shot. Picked up some engine enamel, cleaned the sucker off, and hit it with some coats of gloss black. Following it up with several coats of clear. Once it fully dries, I'll do some accents and the lettering. Wanted to dress up the engine bay a little, but felt like going full red to match my body color was a little much for me. I think the gloss black with some red accents will dress it up nicely without being too over-the-top. I'll update as the project progresses.

[jh_f30]

I think I've taken it about as far as I wanna take it for now. It looks ok, definitely not dead perfect, but I wasn't really expecting it to be. I don't have a spray room/booth. An issue I ran into was for this particular engine paint, they say to finish all coats within an hour. Not really possible as I was doing different layers and couldn't mask off properly on wet paint. That said, the silver that I sprayed over the black must have reacted to create sort of a wrinkled/cracked appearance. Not what I was going for, but I guess I don't hate it. Same thing happened to the BMW lettering, which is slightly more annoying. Also, I masked off sections before the black/clear base was fully cured, so you can see some marks where the tape was.

All in all, it was a fun project. Maybe I'll strip it all off and try again, but honestly, probably not. For what it's worth, the inspiration came from the AC Schnitzer engine cover. Google it and look at the price. I'm fine with my rattle can job for less than 10% of how much that one is.

[MSCD]

Looks good, different. I thought of doing this in White to match my exterior. Honestly I've never looked at where the screws/ bolts are to remove the cover. If it did it I would just do the one colour.
Did you use a degreaser to clean it?

The silver almost looks like a textured metal...

[jh_f30]

Originally Posted by MSCD

Looks good, different. I thought of doing this in White to match my exterior. Honestly I've never looked at where the screws/ bolts are to remove the cover. If it did it I would just do the one colour.
Did you use a degreaser to clean it?

The silver almost looks like a textured metal...

No screws, just some rubber grommets that fit onto pegs. All you have to do is pull up firmly and it'll come off.

Plain ol' soap and water and then isopropyl alcohol. There is a foam sound insulator on the underside that I took off before washing.

Yeah. I'd read that the paint could do that if you respray after the base coat has dried. Weird thing is that it didn't happen with the red sections that I did about 12 hours after the black base coat/clear coat, 12 hours before the silver. So the window might be more like 12 hours.

[GenXer]

Looks cool. I like the silver in the middle. Too bad the silver paint is fighting with the base coat. I think the spray paint you used may have incompatible solvents. (lacquer and enamel etc)

[Billfitz]

Spraying lacquer over enamel will do that, but I rather like the look.

[jh_f30]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

Spraying lacquer over enamel will do that, but I rather like the look.

Interesting thing is that all the paints and the clear coat I used were the same line, all from DupliColor's engine enamel lineup. The reviews I read indicated that this is a common occurrence.

[Snow_335]

Looks awesome good job.

[Billfitz]

I've used some spray paints that crinkle if they're not applied quickly enough over the previous coat, or if the previous coat hasn't cured long enough. While on the subject I wouldn't use engine paint on the cover. The cover doesn't get hot enough to need it, and engine paint might not adhere well to plastic. I'd use a paint made for plastic.

[awmenard]

I did the same thing to mine a while back.