Engine bay - an alternative to using a plate to eat off!

Engine Bay Time

A friend of mine did recently accuse me of not including a gratuitous shot of the engine bay. A bit of a hobby of mine as you can probably see. When Ms Skyline arrived she was covered in a film of light brown dirt, where she had obviously sat immobile for months on end, enduring all mother nature could do to age her good looks.. I always like to think that my approach to the engine bay is one as of a child opening the bonnet on a toy car to reveal the highly plated plastic lump within! To open the bonnet of the average Skyline is to experience a great sense of disappointment, with a wealth of dirty rotten old pipes and dull grey, weathered aluminium.



Displaying one of my GT badge collection!



So with this in mind, anything Aluminium has been polished, anything that can be stainless steel replaced. Being un-tempted to go for silicone pipework in one of the many fetching shades, I have stuck with the original piping. Anyone buying into the silicone scene are fooling themselves!



Dedicated to polishing!

 Am not quite there yet, as you can make out, the lower inlet manifold badly lets the engine bay down. Serious Performance Autos have lent me one to start work on, although Andy suggested I just paint it... After a few hours of relentless sanding, I am thinking that he may be onto something. So I will take down the cast lines as much as possible and resort to a black spray coat. One idea is to 'dust' with something like Plasticoat glitter spray, although Gold spray is also tempting..

Tune in again soon when I have some charge in my camera battery.. The true horror of metal polishing will be revealed!