Should I keep it like this?

[red vtec 186]

Was mucking about painting some bits up. I have done my plenum as in the picture, what do people think?

[JonSE 109]

I think it looks good.

Was the original all red and the highlights sanded back to metal?

[Fridge 977]

Paint it, as it'll soon discolour.

[TAR 406]

I think that looks a bit tatty, as if it's not quite finished. 🙂

[Bazza 907 1,083]

Prefer the original look.

[stephenwhyte 1,976]

What Bazz said⬆️👍

[canamfan 21]

I would imagine since the surface is rough textured that any oil & grime will adhere to it & be difficult to keep clean more likely than if it was painted/powder coated. Suppose the factory had it smartly due to this alone, just my thoughts

[Mark Blanchard 1,658]

Yep, keep it standard.

[red vtec 186]

Thanks for the feed back. 

 

19 hours ago, JonSE said:

I think it looks good.

Was the original all red and the highlights sanded back to metal?

yes thats how they are from factory. I was looking at  the plenums on Ferraris for inspiration.

[red vtec 186]

18 hours ago, TAR said:

I think that looks a bit tatty, as if it's not quite finished. 🙂

In all fairness the photo is not that great.

[TAR 406]

lol, sorry 🙂

[Chillidoggy 4,403]

If you want to keep the bare alloy looking good, then vapour blasting will help a lot. It seems to leave a finish that dirt and oil slide off, at least on my engine, anyway.

[Buddsy 1,643]

On 21/01/2021 at 14:48, red vtec said:

Thanks for the feed back. 

 

yes thats how they are from factory. I was looking at  the plenums on Ferraris for inspiration.

Do they do they have them un-painted? All I could find on google was painted red ones...just like an esprit 🙂

 

buddsy

[andydclements 790]

I looked and immediately thought "That's 80s style" (thinking grey, white and red colour schemes etc), then a few seconds later my mind kicking in and thought, well that's the styling period of the car, so the grey with red and polished highlights looks really more styled than just the red with polished. I would however call out that bare Ali is going to be a PITA to clean/ keep clean, as any oil and dirt can adhere really well to the surface. Not a problem for me as I don't try and have a tidy /clean engine, but if you care about how tidy the engine looks then perhaps go for clear lacquer on the "bare" sections.

[910Esprit 550]

I prefer mine in raw aluminium.  They have not been blasted, so seem to keep perfectly clean.  Plenum & pipe also the same

[drdoom 421]

There is something to be said for the raw aluminum look. Not so flash but does invite closer inspection of the intricacies of form, thereby illustrating the engineering behind it all. Form follows function.

[red vtec 186]

On 23/01/2021 at 07:20, andydclements said:

I looked and immediately thought "That's 80s style" (thinking grey, white and red colour schemes etc), then a few seconds later my mind kicking in and thought, well that's the styling period of the car, so the grey with red and polished highlights looks really more styled than just the red with polished. I would however call out that bare Ali is going to be a PITA to clean/ keep clean, as any oil and dirt can adhere really well to the surface. Not a problem for me as I don't try and have a tidy /clean engine, but if you care about how tidy the engine looks then perhaps go for clear lacquer on the "bare" sections.

The only bare bit is the lettering, not sure if the photo shows that to well, the rest is a stone effect grey and all of it is clear lacquered.

 

On 22/01/2021 at 21:59, Buddsy said:

Do they do they have them un-painted? All I could find on google was painted red ones...just like an esprit 🙂

 

buddsy

some have a red and grey plenum. 

[andydclements 790]

Ah, I'd thought that it was media-blasted cast metal showing. In that case, the comments on aesthetics stand (as in I think it's different to original but in style with the period), and the concerns over cleaning etc are now non-existent.

 

If you bore with it you can re-paint, if you don't then you can keep it. It's not as if you are re-shaping part of the car that's a one-way operation or difficult to alter.