Engine compartment improvements.

I am going to be swapping my engine later this year and I was looking for some ideas on how to improve the engine compartment a little more. I originally went with a generic GM blue for the engine to give it a little more of a pop, I did the intake in aluminum, the accessory mounts in flat black and the air cleaner, thermostat housing, and valve covers in black wrinkle coat. I am not a fan of chrome so adding a dress up kit is not going to happen. I was wondering what else to paint under the hood to bring more focus on the actual engine. Here is what my engine compartment looks like for the most part.
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I am going to be painting the alternator flat black for one, as it is a major eye sore and draws your eye to it. I was thinking about painting the A/C drier, A/C compressor, master cylinder, wiper motor, and the overflow and washer tanks flat black. I was thinking about painting the A/C lines, the fuel lines, and the throttle cable bracket gloss black. I will be replacing the wiring harness covers with black tubing, as the original tubing is falling apart.
Does anyone know of a paint on manifold treatment that will not burn off in a couple of days? I think the manifolds are ugly and I would love to change that too.
Any suggestions on anything else would be great too, thanks in advance.
Ray.

Im not sure if I have any helpful ideas, but I will tell you that it looks great as it is. Mine is FILTHY! I just picked mine up Friday and I feel the need to get under there and clean and detail. I like the blue, looks excellent, I was thinking about Orange, but the GM Blue will go with my cars Saphire Blue alot better.

What about a "Caddy" intake? Fairly easy mod if you can find the parts and cleans up the engine a bit.

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OOO I like the looks of that!

While I like the functionality of the caddy intake, I think it leaves the engine looking a little naked. I will be making a dual snorkel stock air cleaner for the added performance and to fill out the engine bay a little more.

UberWagon wrote:

While I like the functionality of the caddy intake, I think it leaves the engine looking a little naked. I will be making a dual snorkel stock air cleaner for the added performance and to fill out the engine bay a little more.

I like popping the hood on my girl and seeing her naked underneath.....ooops wrong thread

A set of electric fans on the rad and you can lose the fan shroud which in turn will show alot more blue

Sprocket wrote:

UberWagon wrote:

While I like the functionality of the caddy intake, I think it leaves the engine looking a little naked. I will be making a dual snorkel stock air cleaner for the added performance and to fill out the engine bay a little more.

I like popping the hood on my girl and seeing her naked underneath.....ooops wrong thread

A set of electric fans on the rad and you can lose the fan shroud which in turn will show alot more blue

I just happen to have an extra set too that I piccked up at the boneyard as someone was nice enough to remove them when they took the radiator.

only thing that drives me nuts on mine other then the stock air intake is the fan shroud, the electric fans idea is good and get either custom shroud or customize the one you have. im not a fan of chrome either so im going to keep up with this thread and your ideas to point me in a direction. i got to find me a caddy air intake. i like that look and function.

matt

I love Chrome, as long as its tastfully done and kept simple. I do like the extra power you get due to a electric fan setup, but I do not like to trust my motor to the electric fan setup. Electronics fail and motors are not cheap to rebuild. Ill keep my belt driven setup and know I can trust it to always work and not poop out when Im in city traffic 300 miles from home.

I love the look of the blue, but I think Im gonna just freshen my bay up with a fresh coat of black and aluminum. It also hides the oil leaks a lil better

autozone sells (i work there p/t) this little windsheild fluid tank, i was thinking about putting it down behind the bumper somewhere out of sight but still b able to fill with out it being a pia, u can always paint the covers on the wiper mtr,cruise control, m/b cover etc, replace the black wire plastic conduit stuff with blue, plug wires to blue,good year hi-miler rad hoses there blue? always like the flex lite fan #295 expensive but all enclosed and clean looking,u could try painting the over flow tank but ive heard most of the time it doesnt hold up well.. and best of all when u start all this you'll end up with blue balls cause your old lady will be pissed and not give you any because all the time and money you spent working on the ride and not her ..lol
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Well thanks for the input guys. I like the look of the black wire conduit and the black ignition wires, I think it contrasts better that way. I recently replaced the crappy parts store wire set with some Taylor spiral pros that are black and I added a black brass terminal cap to get rid of the tan one since those pictures were taken, now to find some wire looms that will look better and hold the ignition wires the same way the factory ones did. The blue zip ties were temporary and have since been replaced with wire looms.

I just realized that those pics were taken 4 years ago after the first time I pulled the engine to freshen everything up prior to shipping the car to Germany. The engine compartment still looks that fresh and clean with the exception of the wrinkle coat on the air cleaner hose. It has started to flake off a little, but the paint is designed for metal parts and if I remember right you are not supposed to use any primer with it. If you noticed, the wiper arms and cowl vent covers are not on the car, I was waiting to re-install those parts until after the windshield was replaced. There was a slight mishap putting the hood back on, wouldn't you know it happened on the wife's side as my father in law was holding it on the other side. I still give her a hard time about that one, even though the windshield had a chip in it and was getting replaced anyway.

I do want to add electric fans but I want to tie them into the ECM and A/C the same way the factory did it on the LT1 cars and I don't have the money for the TBI ECM upgrade that will let me do it that way yet. I will also be moving the charcoal canister to the LT1 cars location of under the battery, behind the bumper eventually too. Maybe I will find a LT1 car in the junkyard before the swap takes place and I get the canister, brackets, and hoses and do that swap at the same time. The cherry picker I have is a little too short and the bumper will have to come off again to get the reach I need. That will give me the opportunity to relocate the canister easier too. Now you have me thinking about looking for a washer bottle that has a long neck on it that I can put under the inner fender on the drivers side. I had a Hyundai that had a bottle like that, just the neck was visible but the bottle was just as big the one in the wagon now. It was like magic, you just kept pouring in washer fluid and it disappeared, that car would easily take a whole gallon if the light in the dash was on.

I will be painting everything that isn't already black in color, I will just arm myself with some flat and semi gloss spray paint and see what looks best, and to properly contrast everything so it doesn't look like everything is the same color. I will give it to Dupilcolor, if you follow the directions on their paint it will stick and last a long time, now I just wonder if the high temp exhaust paint they sell will stay on the exhaust manifolds.

Keep the ideas coming guys!