[s-cars] valve cover

[Kirby Smith]

A _thin_ coating of black or dark paint will lower or raise the
temperature of the part depending on what the local (radiative) ambient
is.  An oil pan, for example, is generally hotter than its surroundings
(e.g., the ground), so black can lower temperature, although the effect
may be modest as primary cooling of the surface is likely to be air flow
at speed.  On the other hand, an intake manifold that was in a hot
engine compartment would want to be polished so its emissivity was as
low as possible.

kirby

Frank Amoroso wrote:
>
> Ah valve covers.
>
> Your options are varied. They can be split between procedures that
> require the unit to come off and those that don't, and then
> implementation / turnaround times vary dramatically between the
> different options and implementations.
>
> First off, the aluminum under hood pieces look pretty beat up on UrSs
> these days (valve covers, intake manifold, etc). Some of them are beyond
> simple polishing with the units still in the car (although it may work
> at first, they tend to dull pretty quickly again).
>
> Second off, there is a school of thought that feels that coating
> underhood components in any dark colors  is detrimental to underhood
> temps. One Benz tuner (I forget the name) stated in European Car that
> they measured a 30 degree temperature difference in one case (I don't
> remember the Ds, so disclaimers apply).
>
> You can simply attempt to buff / polish the unit in place with a variety
> of polishing compunds / pastes / tools. etc. (in fact, this is what I
> did with my intake manifold, I used varying grit sanding sponges, etc.,
> then moved on to polishing compounds, etc.).
>
> You can paint the unit in place with a handful of different finishes.
>
> You can pull the unit off and polish it / have it polished or paint it.
> You can also remove the unit and have it coated / plated with many
> different coatings (chrome (?!), powdercoating, specialty coatings
> (Jet-Hot, Swain-tech, and others)).
>
> I have done it two different ways. Red powdercoating, this was fun and
> looked good. The finish was very durable, and was very easy to clean
> (all it took was wiping down with a moist rag and the unit looked as
> good as it did when it came out of the oven). The downside? This
> particular powdercoater took 30 days to turn it around (they had the
> parts for 29 days and then finally did the work on the 30th day!).
>
> My current unit is Silver (sterling) Jet-Hot coated. I really like this
> setup. It appears as a quasi-polished finish, is easy to clean, was
> reasonably priced, and their turn around time was less than a week.
>
> There is less upkeep with a coated / plated finish as opposed to
> polished which will require ongoing maintenance.
>
> Frank at s-cars.org
>
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