Paint finish advice... intercooler and piping

[Ben]

I've got a spare set of intercooler piping i.e. the hardpipes, they are plain ally silver, so i'm thinking of painting them black BUT, could they be painted with crinkle easily enough and if so, does anyone have any recommendations for doing it. Also want to have the intercooler painted matt black.

Also, when painting would you leave the ends unpainted i.e. the area's that the pipes connect on?

[Daniel]

Textured/Wrinke VHT paint is relatively easy to do and with a decent coat will withstand a fair amount of knocks. As for the flared ports, you're right in not coating those parts. Even though it's textured, the seal won't be as good as if it was left bare. Something worth while before removing the intercooler + pipework would be to score a line in front of the hoses on the metal work so you know where to mask your cut off point for the paintwork so it doesn't encroach.

As for painting the intercooler, no harm in using normal wet rattle can paint (VHT is better though obviously) but don't use a textured finish or in time you'll notice that the cooling effect isn't that effective anymore. Pretty sure Frayz has done this in one of this thread pages.

[russ979]

Err.. exactly like what dan says.

[RX7]

Red wrinkle finish like on the Honda engine covers !!! Will look epic !!

[Ben]

Cool, I've got a can of black VHT ... the pipes in red wouldn't suit the blue connectors .. I'm not buying another colour and i'm doing the spare plenum in crinkle red.

[Daniel]

duplicate post

[Daniel]

Err.. exactly like what dan says.

I have my moments of wisdom.