Cleaning up my intake
Cudachick, do you soda blast them then clear powder coat them? Also what dose something like that cost?
I don't use soda blasting for anything I'm going to powder coat since it doesn't give the metal enough "tooth" for the powder to adhere to. I use Black Beauty slag media for almost everything.
My shop has literally thousands of powder colors available -- over 6,500 of them -- so just blasting and clearing an intake isn't something I do often. Most customers with aluminum intake manifolds choose a color called "Alien Silver," a bright finish with lots of fine metallic flake in it. It sparkles like diamonds in the sun and looks very close to brand new out-of-the-box aluminum. Once the clear coat is on that Alien Silver, it lasts for many, many years with just quick wash rag cleanings. No more scrubbing old fuel and grime out of the pits with a wire brush!
I quote every job individually to be fair to everyone and currently bill at $25 an hour. As a FABO member you're entitled to a 5% labor discount, or 10% off the labor if you're a Gold Member. If you can email me a few pictures of your intake, including close ups of any dings / dents / damage I'll need to address (even helicoils can be installed here), I'll get back to you with a quote. The email address is
[email protected].
Keep in mind most every aluminum intake needs at least some deburring to clean up the sand casting and make it look as good as it can, and I take care of all that here too. Basically, I do whatever needs to be done to make your metal as close to perfect as I can before putting any powder on it at all.
If you can at least clean the grunge and old gaskets off before shipping it, that's appreciated on this end and saves you money on your bill too.
Feel free to give me a call or shoot me a PM if you want to go over more details or have other questions. Thanks for asking!! :D
How do you think mine looks? I thought it came out good for an amature. lol
You did fine Rob. You know me well enough by now to realize if it looked like azz ... I'd have told you. :D
