today i shed a tear :(

[rayray086]

I've used Mother's and it works great, though for a super high quality finish you might want to look into using a rotary... Are you gonna seal it?

[Tim]

yeah ill need to find some sort of high temp clear coat i guess. Ill cross that bridge when i come to it though.

If i get bored with the whole thing the finish on it at the minute already looks 10000000x better than standard.

[The_Hawk]

Get a stencil and airbrush a pattern on it or something, I've never seen anyone put art on their intake manifold you could be the first! I suggest a nice bio-hazard or DANGER logo.

bah, VWWatercooled logo

[Tim]

nah no logos. No offense to vww but i think it would just make it look a bit tachy. Id prefer a nice clean look.

[bboyskidz]

yeh you could use a super fine sandpaper (like 3000?) and then finish is off with "brasso" i've used that and it is really good.

looking at it again, black in the middle bits would definitely look awesome. i too also like the plain look, no logos.

[rayray086]

Colour code the parts that aren't getting polished

[DubSteve]

Looking better and better there Tim, nice looking manifold

[Tim]

ive come across a slight hitch in that if i polish it up really nice. It accentuates a couple of really small pits in the surface of the material.

Do any of you guys know if its possible to fill those instead of taking back the rest of the surface to that height? Would be a lot easier!

The alternative is to polish it up. But not all the way to a mirror finish. As then they dont really stand out at all.

[rayray086]

Do any of you guys know if its possible to fill those instead of taking back the rest of the surface to that height? Would be a lot easier!

Best (and AFAIK the only) thing to do here is to weld in more material and sand it back down. No fillers can be brought to a polish like that

[Golf Houso]

You could put tiny amounts of body filler in and then prime and paint. Most fantastic looking manifolds are purchased from new and done professionally, and keep in mind those are show cars. And it would be impossible to get that effect with a several year old manifold.

I know this sounds cheesy, but you could always paint it in some grade of chrome or gloss paint, it would honestly look the same and the only people that would know the difference would be you and anyone else you told

That way you won't have any small pits and the manifold would look showroom quality, but again keep in mind its not a new manifold nor is your car garage gnome that comes out only during events

[DubSteve]

I agree with raymond actually small amounts of weld may do the trick, may have to rough up the surface to get contact and make it stick I guess, keep us updated Tim I want to do this when I take my old manifold off!

[Tim]

nah i dont wanna go for a coated finish. And to be honest the finish i have on it already is pretty nice compared to what you start with I may just settle with that.

[rayray086]

To be honest, a bit of wear and tear looks a whole lot better than a flawless piece sometimes And we're talking about engine bits that gets used! It'd be a pity if it looks like it doesn't gets the abuse it needs haha.

[Tim]

true!
I really only started doing this cos i could. I wont be keeping this manifold on the car forever.

[DubSteve]

I'd like to see what you do with it Tim as I have mine which will be coming off shortly so I will be doing something like yours