I have seen many magazine featured engines and engines at car shows, where the engine has aluminum heads and intake, but the heads and intake are painted.

I know that one major plus of running aluminum heads and intakes is for shaving weight off the nose of a car.

If heads and intakes are painted, wouldn't this prevent the ability to disperse heat? Wouldn't this lower the repeat liability of an engine, especiallty one with lots of horsepower?

Shermanator

 

Do you have a white dog that wears glasses and a bow tie and is named Mr. Peabody?
Has a cool wayback machine and you two go on adventures back in time to correct errors in history?
Ask him if you do.


The repeat what?

I few ounces more weight and maybe a couple of degress difference in temperature?
I don't see how it could effect that much but I'm no expert in thermodynamics, or anything else.

 

I didn't paint my alum. intake. I think it looks good as is and it wont need repainted later.

I would think those who paint are more for show and the ones who don't are more for go.

 

bit of a sleeper look, hide it all under a big old snorkle air cleaner . I ground off my edelbrock intake and painted it the stock blue . I would think the heads would if painted right would hold up fine and if a cast head cools painted why wouldnt a aluminum head cool?

 

One of the great things about Oldsmobile engines is they are water cooled. Not air cooled!!!

 

Its up to you if you want to paint them. People paint them to give the car a more stock look. G.M. has been painting alum. heads and intakes for decades so the myth about cooling is that. As far as the old V8's go.

 

I painted my aluminum heads and intake when I assembled the engine 8yrs ago, most of the paint is still there and still looks good.

 

Thanks for the info guys.

Shermanator

 

You know one thing I hate? I hate the look of a nicely painted engine and raw aluminum heads. It looks ridiculous to me. I will admit that it doesn't look as out of place with intakes, but I'm not a fan of that either.
When my 403 goes together, with iron heads I'll admit, it'll have a performer intake on it and stock stamped steel valve covers and they'll ALL be OLDSMOBILE GOLD. Chrome looks ok in some cases (like on pontiacs where they came that way) and silver intakes are not that bad, but monochrome is what I like. Clean and original looking.
Only chrome I'll probably have is the air cleaner because it'll probably be an aftermarket one.

 

I agree, chrome looks good only when its polished. How has time for that when you could be driving it?