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Hi folks, when we sealed the intake manifold the heat cross over passage burnt the clear coat. Any suggestions on what to use to keep it car show clean. My bad I should have said I have the edelbrock performer rpm aluminum manifofd. I will be blocking off the cross over passage with a new set of gaskets once we take it apart. Thanks Rob
FWIW, 20+ years ago I started always painting engines with good quality base coat/catalyzed clearcoat. With blocked crossovers, typically in the head, or no crossovers at all, I have never seen any of the paint burn like aerosols do, not even on the head above center exhaust ports, though that area can discolor to slightly brown.
Not sure if this helps any but I hope it does. For clarity, pic below shows the discoloration on a 15+ year old build that gets driven a fair amount. One other good thing about catalyzed paint is that there is basically no solvent sensitivity/vulnerability. No “normal” auto fluid hurts it, even brake fluid would have to be left on it for a while before it etched in or acted like stripper.
Rob,
If it is an aluminum intake and you are keeping it the aluminum color I have been using Seymour "alumiblast" You would have to get all of your old clear and paint off first. The alumiblast holds up real well and what is nice about it is you can always touch it up if needed.
After my rebuild is done, I was probably going to do the block & valve covers in black and leaving the intake & heads bare aluminum, (which is the way it's been for 20 years) because I don't think painting just the block and valve covers gold is worth it. But your fully painted engine with aluminum heads/intake looks great and has my leaning back toward doing full Olds Gold.
