ok my engine bay looks like this:
FDS"SF
FSC"SFL
SLDFSD:FL":SLDF
KSE
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DSsSHIsd
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and i want it to look like this:

POWER

How do you clean up the looks of the engine bay?

 

Make it a point to clean up your engine bay with rags every oil change. Nice thing to do while the oil is draining in the pan. Alot of road salt,dirt, bugs, leaves, ect. likes to cake up in there. If you want to go further like I am in the process of doing right now, you can remove the various rusted bolts and brackets, media blast them, and repaint them to their original color. Also, an over-the valve-cover wire kit looks cool if you have headers and those Goodyear blue radiator hoses also brighten up the engine bay as well.

 

i'm taking out everything i don't need a/c,egr,window washer. i'm also making a custom wiring harness.

 

All of the plastics under the hood of your Formula (as well as the plastic windshield wiper area) can be easily polished with foaming tire spray (I like the STP brand because I can get it at the dollar store). Just wipe the dust off your air intake thing, the thing it connects to, the fuse box, and etc. and spray it down with the stuff and then give it a little light polishing with a rag until it dries off. It may stink, but it gets the stuff looking NICE.

I don't have the slightest idea what the optispark (distributor) looks like or where it is, but make sure not to get it wet.

I don't know how safe my other method is for painted surfaces or anything else, but I clean greasy areas with WD-40. I do this in the afternoon several hours after the car has been off, and wait until the morning to start the car. Don't want some accidental WD-40 fire under the hood...

 

I clean my engine from time to time.

Just DO NOT get the opti wet !!!

I stuff a towel on either side of the elbow (right beside the throttle body) and keep the water in that area to a minimal. If you don't know, the opti is located on the front of the engine just below the water pump ( this makes no sence, becouse water is the killer of an optispark ).

Anyway, you can wash the engine bay, just use very little water around the elbow leading to the throttle body/ intake.

 

Maybe it was a conspiracy plan by GM, once the water pump seal fails, it shoots a precise stream of coolant out of the weephole and onto the Opti. The coolant seeps into the so-called weather resistant Opti and damages it forcing the bewildered owner to replace both. And while they have all of that off, might as well go a little further and put in a new timing chain, right? So just a water pump repair has already escalated into the thousand dollar range. Good thinking GM.