Engine Appearance Change #2

[ronmanfredi]

While the painted valve covers were cool, I still was looking for more and found it in a intake manifold cover made by California Pony Cars.  Once installed, I figured out that the hood wouldn't close since the hood latch arm was hitting the cover.  So I cut a notch out of the back side and lowered the hood again only to find out that the entire cover sat too tall for the hood to close.  My computations and stubborness led me to believe that I could make it work, so I began cutting out the center section, notching the front mounting bolt holes, etc, etc.  (I won't bore you with the story line of the modification since it went on for a few days LOL) 

Eventually, I got the cover lowered enough that I did acheive about 1/2" clearance between the front of the cover and the hood when all the way shut.  Now the center of the cover was really cut down and didn't look good at all, and the notched section at the back side for the latch arm went completely through the back, eliminating all structural support.  As I looked at it, it occured to me that I needed to make a top cover section to attach all the way around the top, which would make the cover solid and strong and cover up the cut out center section.  I remembered that I had some 1/4" thick clear plexiglass, so I made a template and then made the top plate.  Next I got some small brackets that I had laying around and used 5 of them to screw the top plate in place.  ( I notched the plate for the hood latch arm before installing it) 

I decided to paint the cover to match the engine valve covers in red and semi gloss black.  During the process, I went to a local sign shop and had a couple of decals made for the cover in Silver and installed them. Then I added some pin stripe in silver where the red and black met.  Now at this stage, the cover was looking pretty good except you could see the cut out center section underneath the plexiglass top plate.  So I painted a 1" border around the top plate which covered that up, plus the mounting brackets.  NOW THIS IS GETTING PRETTY COOL!   

As I looked at the flat black intake manifold runners, it struck me that I could take some of the carbon fiber wrap that I had left over from the dash project and place 8 strips of it on the top surface of the intake manifold runners. And then I decided to add a couple of 1" tall strips along the bottom sides of the new intake cover.  (It's important to know that the angles of the carbon fiber pattern are a perfect match over all of the strips and side panels).  Now it was time to install the cover and MAN THIS LOOKS AWESOME to me and the wife!!  Here are some photos of the journey plus if you ever want to have the decals made locally, I have the VECTOR file that I can send you!

[mfg]

You certainly have the ‘touch’ !!!