I'm going to make this into like a pic worklog. As always comments are welcome.

I am still working on my UIM (Upper Intake Manifold) it is looking really messed up right now. So hard to get all those dimples out even with a dremel lol.

Decided to polish the strut bar since I had it off of the car to get at the UIM, and will post more pics once the manifold is done and everything is put back together.

For tonight I will post a pic of my STILLEN FSTB. It took much longer than I thought to sand out the brushed aluminum and get down to smooth metal. Even using 120 grit 5 hours of sanding + polishing to get it just right!

I don't plan on polishing the sides of the strut bar, just the top.

But the hard work paid off and I'm left with a very nice and shiny fstb. Also removed the red lettering and painted it with some touch up paint so that the letters are color matched lol. I am weird with little details for some reason haha.






Intake Manifold...Progress

Still working on it, taking forever to get all the small dimples out. Finished with the dremel and next will be using sand paper to get rid of the roughness and move up to higher grit to polish out.

I may or may not polish out the elbow since the strut bar sits over it.

3 hours with the dremel left it super rough...so this weekend I worked on smoothing it out further. Still not done though there's a LOOONNGGG way to go. I think already I've spent about 5 hours total.


Progress AS OF - 3/9/08






Progress as of yesterday! 3/16/08
YAYYYY!!!


New pic 3/21/08

 

nice work

 

looks sweet

 

Looking shinny!!! Good work man.

 

Definitely worth the time, nice job jess.

 

shiny. have you looked into clear coating the aluminum? i'm not 100% but i think thats the way to go to keep it shining.

 

Good work, can't wait to see how the manifold comes out! Car is looking great too!

 

Mothers Mag and Aluminum polish does great work!

 

Thanks for all the nice comments!

BLACKonBLACK - I thought of clear coating, but wasn't sure if the paint could hold up to the heat in the engine bay. Since it's polished there isn't much for the paint to stick to.

 

i recently used some vht flameproof paint on bare metal. stuff sticks incredible and is good up to 1200* (fire lol). its also available in clear, so that might be an option. if you decide to give it a try just be sure to do a test panel. don't want to ruin all that hard work.

 

Awesome, I will definately check the VHT stuff out. Thanks for the tip!

 

Why not do the sides as well? It looks great though.

 

looks great jess def will make a difference.

 

LoL other than the fact that I have tennis elbow from all the sanding and polishing...I think it's a nice contrast from the sides and top

 

too much effort for me.

 

great job.....come polish mine now.

 

Haha yes it is a lot of effort, but the end result is worth it

 

Bump up for added pic of the manifold...working on it slowly lol

Will update whenever I get finished.

 

looking good, keep up the work

 

that strut bar looks clean enough to eat off of.

dont forget to polish these lines too:

 

More pics added today. STILL not finished lol it's taking a long time to sand all those pits out and then fine sanding.

At 80 and 120 grit but once I finish all the way to 2000 and mother mag the manifold it will be just as shiny as the stillen

I may polish the lines you circled Mr****s (lol) just depends when I'm done if I'm tired of polishing things aha

 

Keep at it Jess! i wanna see this engine bay of yours reflect like no other!

 

For those lines you don't need to go to a harsh grit Jess, have them nice and clean and roll in there with a 6-800 then gradually move to 2000. The coolant tubes in the front could probably use something fairly harsh though. Looks good so far, can't wait for the warmer weather to see it out.

 

for the lines, i just used mother mag/alum polish and it shined up real nicely but my fingers and arms hurt a lot. that coolant tube is a butt to clean.

 

luv the 3.5, its so tempting.....

 

Pretty much done! There's still a few parts where I couldn't sand out the dremel marks. But over all I'm pretty happy with the way it looks

Excuse the dirty engine bay...the girl really needs a bath haha.



It was dark when I finished so will update with better pics later

 

looks good jess def keep up the good work

 

Looks hot, nice work.

 

i would give up because it took too long

 

aw you didnt do the lines i highlighted lol. or is that on the to-do list? dont forget to shine up those rubber hoses too!

looks great Jess! i havnt opened my hood since my last oil change and am wondering about the half polished valve cover and lines.

 

LoL I was close to giving up a few times but kept on because I wanted to see how it looked when it was finished.

Thanks for all the kind comments will have more pics for tomorrow.

 

There we go! A slightly better picture posted above...didn't have the engine cover on there, but I polished only the main parts you would see when the cover is on. Looks awesome so far so all that hard work and sore arms paid off.

Now I just need to clean up the engine bay and give her a good bath and wax.


That pic was before I polished out the lines. LoL don't worry I did your method of just applying polish without sanding. Looks good, but not as shiny as I'd like. Will leave it for now

By the way how do you polish out this area? I'm thinking maybe bring out the dremel again?

Also those lines behind the IM elbow I couldn't reach!!! LoL You are right the coolant line is um not easy at all to get to.

 

the dremel does wonders.

 

looking good Jess

 

Manifold looks hot.

 

shhhwweeet!

 

Nice job.. I need to clean mines out in a couple of weeks

 

Added one last pic today. Have the engine cover back on and it looks great. Last thing to put on is the polished FSTB, but will leave it off until I install new suspension.

Thanks for all the comments everyone!

 

schwing!

 

thats a mean a$$ sig you got, i envy you lol