Pics of my purty blue engin'

[FastWoman]

At least one of you asked for them, so here they are:

The engine paint is Duplicolor's MetalCast blue, with base coat. The black is.. er... black. Everything silver is stainless. Most of the bolts on the intake are allen-head. In hind-sight, I would have ordered in the right size $2 allen-head screws for the injectors, as they would have been much easier to install. You'll notice I've replaced the valve-cover-to-throttle-body hose with a pipe. I think it looks better that way.

In the middle of the following pic, you can see my MSD disconnect for the injector harness. The harness is integral with the fuel rail, which is wrapped with rubber hose and then silicone rubber tape for insulation.

I did the valve cover by spraying the lettered area black, filing off the tops of the letters, masking, spraying the rest blue, and then clear coating the whole thing.

My infamous AFM, the MSD Blaster II coil, and my HEI ignition retrofit (lower part of frame, with heat sink).

The air cleaner came out nicely, I think.

Cozye, here's the whole car. This is the last pic of my perfect hood before I slammed the hood on a tool. Now there's a little ding about where the white speck of debris is in this pic.

I also had a request for a pic of the rubber stripping on the leading edge of my quarter window. It's deteriorated, but this is what it looks like:

[Walter Moore]

Very clean.

[Oiluj]

Nice Job!

[503Alex]

Very nice, lots of work into this. I especially like how the air cleaner turned out, really clean.

[FastWoman]

Thanks, guys! I think "clean" comes as a major compliment especially from the 240Z camp. The stock '78 engine is a difficult thing to make look clean. My general approach was to organize it in parallel and perpendicular lines. When I have time, I think I'll try to clean up the vacuum lines a bit, perhaps fabricating metal tubes.

I really liked the Duplicolor paint. I decided not to fair out the intake manifold for now, leaving that for later if/when I get to the point of a rebuild. I just decided to see how the paint looked on the rough aluminum. The second photo shows the effect pretty well. It's sort of a cool, dimply effect. Even the ridges from the seam lines in the casting look fine. I wouldn't hesitate to paint any rough metal with this stuff!

BTW, I used Ztrain's method of putting the thermostat housing back together -- with stainless studs and nuts securing the top. When I removed the thing, I had a siezed bolt I had to drill out. I couldn't believe just how cemented that thing was. That will of course never be a problem again. The unit is still attached to the head with bolts. The original long bolt that went to the timing chain area was fine, being oiled from the backside. The other was frozen and had rung off. I replaced it with stainless and lots of nickel antisieze.

[IdahoKidd]

Good looking car! You should go stand by it for a picture so we have a face to put with he project.

[FastWoman]

Oh, man, my car is a lot better looking than I am, with middle age bloat and everything. I'll try to get a shot, though. You too, Leonard!

[dankfrye@charter.net]

Very nice!!!

[cozye]

Definitely one of the nicest I've seen. Very good job. I'm a bit envious as I haven't had any time to do the cosmetic stuff yet. I'll start with cosmetic stuff on mine in a week when my suspension parts arrive, i"m going to clean and refresh the undercoat while I go through the suspension.

I wish my engine bay looked as good as yours!

[ktm]

It is rather clean. If I may make a suggestion. Ditch the red and yellow vacuum lines. Stick with blue or use black. I personally would use black. It helps the valve cover, AFM, air intake and spark plug wires "pop". You could always play with shades of black as well.

Regardless, very nicely done. I enjoy clean engine bays.

Edited November 17, 2010 by ktm

[FastWoman]

Good point, Bo. The vacuum lines actually pre-date all of my recent work. As I mentioned somewhere, I'd like to fabricate some mandrel-bent metal tubing pieces for the much of the vacuum lines. I'm not yet sure how to do that. I'm thinking stainless, with black silicone rubber connections. Anyway, I think that will be a small project for the spring/summer. I have a boat to get put back together for the winter and a poor, black Saturn (next to my 280Z) whose side was shattered by a deer. (I almost drove the Z on that trip! Thank goodness for engine trouble!)

[olzed]

Hey thats a NICE job. I tend to agree with Bo. The red and yellow lines would look REALLY COOL in black.

Great job.