Painting Engine Bay

This Ya Boy · Post by **This Ya Boy** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:12 am

Roughly how much should it cost to paint an engine bay? I have no idea how to gauge it.

-Devil- · Post by **-Devil-** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:10 am

well taking into consideration that the motor and such needs to be dropped out and a lot of lines removed and taped up ...

i would say a min of 1,000

This Ya Boy · Post by **This Ya Boy** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:09 pm

that's insane!!!!

-Devil- · Post by **-Devil-** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:28 pm

yeah, its a lot of work involved to paint it to ... not like older cars and trucks that you can just tape stuff off ...

most of the engine bay in a neon you can't get to without removing a lot of stuff

gilly02le · Post by **gilly02le** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:41 pm

You'd have to strip it down, and pull the motor/tape all the lines yourself, to minimize the cost, and even then, i bet your still looking at a few hundred, and a lotta elbow grease on your own part.

OverDrive418 · Post by **OverDrive418** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:51 pm

And any decent shop will degrease and sand it all out beforehand also...it's a very labor intensive process which is why when a lot of people do an engine swap they get the shell painted while the engine bay is stripped out to save a bit of $$$$.
And really, $1,000 seems cheap to me!
Krack or Lexeon would probably be the expert$ on thi$.

What color is it now and what are you going with?
*edit, just saw in garage it's blue*
I've seen some people do a two-tone paintjob and make it work so the door jambs and engine bay didn't have to get painted.
Yeah it's cheating but some color combos are more forgivable than others (red and yellow not being one of them).

Dimas · Post by **Dimas** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:51 pm

why you wanna do that, dirty or something or you talking about painting the valve head cover?

jetas · Post by **jetas** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:34 pm

My car used to be brown i painted it blue. There isnt much of the engine ba thats going to be seen. mostly the rad support thing and the strut towers other than that u cant see much.

KrackstaR · Post by **KrackstaR** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:55 pm

when i did my color change i just rattle canned everything purple to flat black and when i finally did the swap i pulled everything out and painted the engine bay my self, it was a whole lot cheaper.

Pizza Boy · Post by **Pizza Boy** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:24 pm

nice^^

OverDrive418 · Post by **OverDrive418** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:13 pm

Very nice!

gilly02le · Post by **gilly02le** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:51 am

Its one of those places where you don't need to be a paint expert to get it to look good.. And if you get the odd run, or bumpy spot, you probably won't see it once the motors back in anyways! Of course you'd still want to use a proper gun to spray it, but you could save a stack, if you DIY.

Krack you did a great job by the looks of it man. Just outta curiousity did you have to scuff the paint up in there before spraying it? And did you use primer before your paint at all?