I have my entire engine apart now and I'm debating on either having the water pump, accessory bracket, alternator, valve covers, and accessory bracket polished/chromed/powder coated/painted.

I believe having the items polished to a mirror finished would be the most visually appealing however it would be a major pain in the *** to keep them polished especially the hard to reach areas like the accessory bracket.


The pic below has the accessory bracket polished.



In these pics it looks like its been chromed.







Or I thought about having all of the pieces powder coated black and only having the valve covers and alternator polished/chromed.

Kind of like this VRE engine:



What do you guys think?

-B

 

I just came back from the plating shop and to chrome plate my water pump, water pump neck, alternator shells, and the alternator bracket and misc. bolts...the bill came out to $300!!!! Holy crap this stuff is expensive!
I was thinking about doing my Canton valve covers but that looks like its going to be pricey!

-B

 

Powder coat all the way man, but doing what i have done will be in the neighborhood of $600 + because you have to rebuild your wp and alternator as well, then the cost of the coating, intake is around $125 by itself

 

Chrome it all or powder coat chrome, black. I'm maintaining alot of polished stuff and it is a pain. Paint still chip or burn off.

 

another vote for chrome, way easier to clean and unlike wheels, you don't have to worry about chipping. And it is the most visually appealing.

 

chroming is much more maintenance free than polishing-so go that route if you want all the bling. It is unbelieveably expensive as you have just found out-I have about 20k in chrome on my car, and it can and will chip if you do enough of it over time. Powdercoating is nice in the sense of industructability vs. paint, I guess it is just a matter of preference-you can always do a little of both to mix it up.

 

I went to check up on my parts and the guy took me through the entire process and its well worth the money. There is tons of labor involved with chroming a metal part!

1) They have to grind down the part to a smooth surface and polish it to a mirror finish..... thats where most of the labor is
2) They dip it in copper and rinse
3) Dip it in nickel and rinse
4) Dip in chrome and do a final polish on the chrome.


-B

 

I actually watched them go through the whole process on my roll bar in my car. You should have seen those two guys fighting this gigantic roll bar against the machine to polish the chrome, it was insane. Pretty cool to see though, just like you say.

 

i powdercoated my intake manifold and my strut bar the orange color of my stripes... i like how it came out. it cost me like 200 bucks because my strutbar was already powdercoated so he had to blast the red powdercoat off and put the orange on...

 

I need to get my 3 point strut tower brace recoated because the old powder coat is flaking off around the bolt holes and I think the guy said $50.00 to strip it and coat it. =( Is that a fair price? I bought the thing used for $70 a few years ago!

-B

 

You could polish it up real nice and then get it powder coated clear. That way the actual metal is always polished and u should just have to clean it.

 

Finally got my parts back and this is the result.... now Im trying to figure out what bolts are visible and have those chromed also along with a custom intake for my blower. Stupid thing is that once you have a few parts chromed.... you end up having everything chromed to match! Grrr....






I wish would have taken pictures before the plating process so I could compare. I'll take more shots during the day time because those crappy pictures do not do the plating job justice!

-B

 

That engine bay is gonna look sick man. I polished parts by hand and it was a bitch, and things aren't all that perfect with my finish...

 

mmm,m CHROME looks nice..

Looks like they did a good job from the pic's.

(Im own a shop and do chrome/powder and thermal coatings) So I can't say which I like better.

Im about to do everything on a LT1 myself. Black and chrome look awesome.!!

 

very very nice