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