I will start off by saying this was a bad idea and wish I had never got into it as far as I did. That said, this project was to clean up a HORRIBLE powder coating job on this intake I bought used off here by a guy who said he owned a powder coating business (hard to beleive). Unfortunatly I don't have any pictures of how I got it. But it was a unit that came originally in the as cast finish, the guy had powder coated it black with the logo on top green. Which would have been fine with me, except for the fact he got powder coat in every opening. He didn't tape a single thing off. The injector bores, the threading fittings, the TB opening, NOTHING.

So being where I am and wanting to be cheap, I decied not to take it to a blaster and to strip it my self. Well, this was bad idea number 1. Ya, paint stripper can take powder coating off, but not as effectively. But it was easier than trying to sand it all off.

Then after getting about 99% of it off I have bad idea number two. Hey, how about just sanding it down any way and getting rid of the sand cast look. Did I mention this was a horrible idea!! So after 30+ hours of sanding this is what I finally ended up with.



I did as best I could on all the outer faces, especially the plenum body and runners. Other than that it has a bit of a rough sanding texture on the more hidden faces (still better than the cast look). The whole goal was to smooth it, paint it, and polish the logo. So here it is after the paint.



Then, using 240 grit on a block, I took the paint off the logo. Working down after that to a wet sanding with 1000 grit. Then a work over with a brown tripoli compund on a buff to get a good shine. Finally a good rubbing with some Mothers aluminum polish. Here is the end result.



What do ya think?

 

Looks good man. Definitely worth your time.

 

For future reference... Acetone will kill powdercoating in a very short time, it'll swell then fall off like a snake shedding skin.

 

Looks sick bro !

 

Yeah man, it looks great. I have never heard of the acetone trick. I will have to remember that.

 

Thanks guys!

 

Looks awesome

 

looks good!

 

Looks great. It was not a bad idea.

 

Ya, I know. I only say it was a bad idea because I had no clue how involved it was going to be. But, in the end, it does look great and am happy I took the time to do it.

Here it is mounted on the engine, might actually be droppin it in here in the next couple weeks, after a 2.5 year wait!