> how dumb would > it be to sand and paint my manifold??? I don't think it would be dumb at all. If you painted it while it was still on the car that might be dumb. You can do it but it would probably look like crap.
I assume your talking about the exhaust manifold and not the intake one since you really can't see the intake one. If I was going to do this I would remove the exhaust manifold. Clean and sand it real good, probably with some sort of dremel tool. Mask off areas not to be painted like the ports and O2 sensor hole. Then use a high quality high temperature spray paint. Apply three or four coats of paint. Let that dry and wet sand any drips out. Then one or two coats of high temp clear coat. More wet sanding. Then reattach to the car. My valve cover was half-assed done this way. (I didn't sand or use clear coat and it shows.) Probably one of the biggest issues people run into when they do this is bad paint. Your exhaust header gets extremely hot. You have to use a paint that can take this sort of heat otherwise it will flake off very quickly and make all your hard work look like doo doo. The other option is to send it off to get powder coated. This is a process that literally bakes a paint onto the part. This is much more resistant to heat, chips and cracks etc. Runs about $150 to $300 depending on the part and it takes about one to six weeks depending on the company. There is a place in CT called Airborne Coatings that will do this sort of work. - Cris SPOC NE web site: http://www.spocne.org
