Post pictures of your DIY style valve covers
 

Looking for some ideas, lets see what you guys have.

Lets put:
What brand of paint, rattle can, powdercoated ect..
Time between coats
Temp of day during drying process
Time between final coat and install

Post up!

http://i38.tinypic.com/kdubrk.jpg
http://i37.tinypic.com/f39btj.jpg
http://i33.tinypic.com/14ilz61.jpg
http://i33.tinypic.com/2lnbamq.jpg
http://i36.tinypic.com/28i53jq.jpg

krylon black wrinkle
3-coats, 5 minutes between
100* summer heat, let it set for a month or so I think.

I'll play.

What brand of paint, rattle can, powdercoated ect: Dupli COlor Engine Enamel, rattle can
Time between coats: 2 days
Temp of day during drying process: 80*F
Time between final coat and install: Sold it after painting.
Also, I bead blasted and primed it before painting it. I think I put 3 coats of yellow on it, sanding between coats of course.
Attachment 210624



I used some crinkle pant from autozone on this one. VC was bead blasted and primed. 15 minutes between 3 light coats. 90*F Sold a month later.

Attachment 210625


This one got the works. Used black Dupli Color on this one. All casting marks removed, generally smoothed out for a cleaner look, bead blasted, polished raised lettering, then primed and 3-4 coats sanding between coats with 2 days between coats. Took a while but it came out nice.


Bead blasted, casting marks removed, and polished raised lettering.
Attachment 210626

After priming:

Attachment 210627

Finished
Attachment 210628

damn, i been wanting to do this, but have so much other shit....nice job to all so far...

that last one looks familiar pat...

That looks damn good. How much do you charge?
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I think I paid $60 or $70 for that valve cover.

I have the cover. How much to get it to look like that?
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99 intake manifold with a 1.6 valve cover?

VHT Wrinkle Plus (Black) - Cheapest that I found was to buy 2+ on Ebay, came out to be less than $10 a can.

I sand blasted the valve cover, then set it up under spot lights until it was hot to the touch. I layed on a heavy coat, as heavy as I could without running, then after a few minutes went back and touched up whatever I missed before the paint started curing. I let it sit under the lights for a few hours, then sanded off the paint on the raised lettering the next day. It has lasted a season so far, only thing that sucks is trying to clean oil off it.

I would have preferred to use an oven since thats what the directions recommended, but I sure as hell wasn't baking it in my house. This paint STINKS when warmed up. Letting it dry with no heat makes the wrinkles really deep, but letting it dry at the max temp makes them very tight and more consistent, which I prefer.

http://elesjuan.googlepages.com/CRW_...ze:628,920.jpg

Crappy white balance in that photo, but its a really pretty color. Red Rum Wrinkle powder coating. Don't have the balls to hit the Embossed lettering with the sander... :bang:

I think it looks good with the lettering red instead of silver.

;) Thanks!

For the record, that blue "Mazdaspeed" oil cap (5$ on ebay...:jerkit:) isn't blue anymore.. it faded to purple. :bowrofl:

I sold it to Paul for 90 shipped, so 70 for the cover. After that I got several PM's wanting it. If I did it again, it would be more. I spent waaayy too much time on that VC.

that is a 99 valve cover. they went back to sunken letters. note the coil pack and CAS locations.

yes. It has better throttle response than ITB's.

Rattle can Red High heat paint with several hours between coats.....did not finish sand except for the lettering due to time restraints and haven't bothered going back to finish it. Painted in the summer during low humidity with around 85-90* abmbient in the garage.

Mine was <$100 for powder coating two colors and three pieces. To many others things to do on the car for me to spend time on that. :giggle:
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../camcover2.jpg
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t.../camcover1.jpg

Is that the FE cover? Its hot. I tried getting mine powder coated, but my local shop was making a ton of excuses of why they "couldn't do it" so I just did it myself.

Don't mean to threadjack.. Did you get your FE from a sportage or was it imported? It came as the Non-Turbo FE 16 valve and you turbo'd it?

Damn, Machismo it looks to me like your engine bay is fireproof..;)

How did you go about "polishing" the letters?

Wire brushed after it being fully dry? Sanded by hand? Looks very precise with not mistakes, looks good!

Trade secret, sorry. My tuner would be offended if I released this information...

J/K. It's a technique you can use to surface ANYTHING dead flat within .002" or better depending on how you do it. Enough that you can surface your own turbo flanges and things like that.

You wrap a piece of sand paper around something really REALLY flat. Like a 1" thick chunk of glass. Then keep it square to the work and make passes to surface it. For valve covers, I used a piece of 1" thick MDF and wrap 100 grit sand paper around it. And make "light" passes as the wood will bend if you put much pressure. For sanding a head for a small engine, I use a flat piece of granite. Again, very little pressure or you will distort the granite or whatever you're using.

I will say doing the lines is very difficult. The polished lettering is cake compared to the lines. To get the lines you have to polish them, then cut strips of tape and cover up the lines, then prime, paint, and remove the tape after ~2 days of letting the final layer of paint cure.

EDIT: like this:

Attachment 210578

Hummm, the lines look real nice, i may have to try that

it takes a lot of time and a lot of wet sanding. I still have to finish up my protege cover. Gave up half way through a month ago. Should be done in a couple days though, slightly different color than others here.

No pics, but it turned out AWESOME....I washed down the cover using paint thinner and a brown 3M brillo type pad...then let dry...I then sprayed 3 coats of Krylon Wrinkle black paint waiting about 5 minutes between coats...it's good to build up the coats of paint so it can "wrinkle"...THEN put it out in the hot sun which really helped with the "wrinkling". The final result looked like it came from the factory-the wrinkle coating turned out WAY better than I anticipated considering it came out of a $6 can. Only problem is now my intake manifold looks like crap next to the newly painted valve cover.

ok, so i did the wrinkly paint job on my 90 original motor and after about a year or so the heat began to chip off.

What are you guys doing for longevity? Any layers of high temp clear coat? Special "high temp" wrinkle paint? On my old valve cover i used high temp primer but no clear coat, im thinking that might be my problem.

Edit:
Here is a picture for reference
Attachment 210575
Notice the bottom right side of the valve cover beginning to chip. This is about 1.5 years old of a paint job. Used basically the same method as everyone else.

If it's chipping off then it's an adhesion issue with the cam cover. Whether that's because of the primer or the heat I don't know. I can say that I used primer with high temp paint and it wouldn't stick. Without and it worked far better.

Yes- a genuine Mazda FE :D

Another way to make it easier to mask the lines is just put the tape down and let it over hang what you are trying to mask. Then take a small hammer or just anything metal or solid and tap along the edge lightly enough so that it cuts through the tape. You can also try running something metal up along the edge. This will also cut through the tape. I find this much faster then cutting strips of tape and gives you cleaner paint lines.

i just painted my valve cover then took a line sander with some 80 grit to get most of it off, then carefully used my DA with 180 i believe, then hand sanded with some higher grit..

the line sander worked great!
sorry no pics.

btw.. stock 1.8 valve cover

mine looked good the first day I painted it:

http://www.boostedmiata.com/random/p...valvecover.jpg

:giggle: It is overkill, and some of it has been deleted. Did save my butt a while back when I lost two o-rings on the injectors.

Shitty pic but you get the idea.

Attachment 210544
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My contribution:
Black "crinkle" powder coating
Attachment 210197
Attachment 210198

yeah, because if your valve cover is getting over 220*, you have other problems much more severe with the stuff inside.

Much easier to sand the letters with finishing with fine grit sandpaper prior to paint. Then apply chapstick or some other substance to keep the paint from sticking to that part, then paint and wipe away the area with the substance. Then just let dry and polish.

here is mine currently powder coated black with gold flake
Attachment 210174
Along with my upper portion Intake manifold
Attachment 210175

Doing the stripes is SUPER easy. Just paint the valve cover how you want, let paint dry, put some masking tape over the whole stripe area, and sand away. I've done a dozen of them this way with no problems. The tape comes right off where you put pressure on it, and protects the other areas from small rubs and bumps. I'd post a picture because I have one sitting right next to me half sanded and you can see what I mean... but you fuckers can figure it out on your own.

Attachment 210173

This one is still in a box in my garage. :)

C

OK, so I finally took a picture of my custom creation. I mixed Metalcast smoke and blue and got this disco color-changing grey to blue flipflip effect. I used just the smoke on the VVT solenoid and polished the oil feed line.

Attachment 210171

Attachment 210172

and here is the Protoge one I just did... (for sale)

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l2...G/IMG_4627.jpg

Did it at the same time as my COP's conversion, and painted the hold-down bar to match.

Paint: whatever the standard black crinkle stuff is from Autozone... Duplicolor? I rough sanded and then wet-sanded... 1 coat, perfect.
https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/att...118-small-.jpg

That protege valve cover is sick. I plan to do the same one day.

Attachment 210169

-Duplicolor Wrinkle Finish
-Used cans directions to apply
-Applied in 2 light coats and 2 heavy coated, then fast dried in oven at lowest temp for an hour.

Has been doing well now for about a year, though it got a bit scratched up while I have been taking it off and putting it back on probably 10 times in the last month or two.

I like that. It looks great, especially for a Duplicolor rattlecan job.

eastwood black epoxy powder coat.

put some wrankle on that shit, arkmage.

what are the actuall valve covers that will fit the 1.6L engine???

how easy is it to just cut or grind the stock one to espose the can gears?????

Lol, it's for my Escort GT
http://memimage.cardomain.com/ride_i...0089_large.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.com/ride_i...0093_large.jpg

Attachment 207910
I sold that fucker for wagz to xracer today, lol.

I'm running this custom one-off valve cover. Has some custom oil stains carefully placed to appear natural. Also garnished with some old wiring, vac hose, and a MBC to help it blend in to its surroundings. Even has a bit of RTV around its perimeter to finish the look.
Attachment 207909

AHahah.. ^ looks great. Now put some more oil stains on all that shiney silver that looks way to clean to make it blend in even more.. Aahahah. J/k

I'm with Pat, painted mine unobtanium silver, it'll never chip! It does however eventually fade to an oily-stain color.
Attachment 207908

Attachment 207907

came blue. dunno how it t'was painted. lol

OMG!!!! That is almost the excact same color im doing mines.

VHT wrinkle paint.

Attachment 207722

I love the black wrinkle (did it myself a while ago). Looks clean, but totally OEM.

Black wrinkle is very tough to beat for a clean OEM look. I prefer it over a glossy paint job.

I agree.
Mine is black wrinkle coat with red lettering, but I don't have any pictures on this machine. I will try to post one later.

Here's a shitty pic of mine:
Took lots of tape
High temp ceramic paint from autozone, about 5-10 minutes between coats

Why?