What is the weirdest color that you've seen on an engine?

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My buddy had a pink 71 Demon and painted his engine pink also, I know I have pictures around here somewhere...
 
Lot of custom cars paint their engines the body color.
I'm thinking about painting my car two tone, top and engine bay black, sides and engine factory color sunfire yellow.
 
496 polara said:
I painted my 383 small block chevy engine bright yellow.Was a dark green car.Was back in the 90's.
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i did the ford 302 yellow in my street freak (uk) 63 ford zephyr back in 84, lol.
neil.
edit.... i have a 38 nash coupe gasser in for a few jobs just now. the motor (454 bbc with tunnel ram) is mirraflake over black base with bright green metalflake valve covers :realcrazy:
 
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middleagecrisis said:
For some reason that color is big down in this part of the country. I absolutely freaking hate it! I don’t think I could pick a tackier color if I tried, IMO. I use the factory color: blue, orange, gray, black, etc. nicely done factory colors never go out of style whether on a car or an engine.
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I am a factory blue kind of guy, as I am not a fan of orange paint. Reminds me of SBC to much. :p

Tom
 
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I painted mine to match my car, complete with the gold pearl added. My engine now has different valve covers than the ones in this photo, also painted to match the car. It's hard to even see the color-fade now that it's in the car and fully dressed though.

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I’ve seen several metallic colors including red, blue and green.

We did an engine for a show car one time.

The engine parts, transmission case and rear axle housing were prepped just like the body. Every surface smoothed, primed and painted.

IIRC in 2000 the paint job for the engine, transmission and rear end was 10k.

And it was metallic purple. It was horrible until it was in the car. It didn’t look nearly as bad as it did in pieces.

But it was a LOT of purple!
 
Many years ago, I was throwing a 273 together. I didn't have any engine paint. It was 25 miles to get some. I found some Rustoleum brownish tan. It was a suede flat paint. It actually looked pretty good I thought. Then I got quite a few compliments on it, so I left it.
 
White ! I painted it light Ford blue my favorite color, the only color in my mind.
 
Last year I took my valve covers to get powder coated. Asked the guy if he has Mopar colors as I was thinking Plum Crazy, since my car's that color. He climbs on a stool and is rooting around on a high shelf. "here they are" and throws the big ring of colors on the counter. Panther Pink landed face up, right at my finger tips. We looked at each other and both had the same idea.

Pink is pretty odd, but with a purple car it kinda goes together. He actually had some of the powder from an old project. $75 bucks. It's definitely different and gets a lot of looks.

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MobileCustoms said:
I painted mine to match my car, complete with the gold pearl added. My engine now has different valve covers than the ones in this photo, also painted to match the car.
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I like that. Especially on the car. The colors give the suggestion of flames, only without the flames. Very nice.
 
In 1978 I bought a 340 from Richardson Automotive Machine in Lynchburg VA and he painted all of his engines with Cadillac Gold engine paint - It looked great!
 
Kern Dog said:
Many of us are traditionalists, myself included. I love the Mopar orange, I loved the Chevy orange when I owned them.
I do understand the desire to stick with a factory type of color. Last week a buddy and I painted three LA type blocks in Go Man Go...

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I first used the GoManGo on a 440 block in 2022:

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This was my first time painting an engine with catalyzed enamel through a gun rather than using spray cans.

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I went bonkers for the tangy shade of orange!
Guys like Andy Finkbeiner seem to like the factory Turquois hue...
Late last year I bought a 1990 roller cam 360 that was painted silver....

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It looked horrible.
The factory went to basic black with the LA series sometime in the 80s, right? I have a 2007 5.7 Hemi junkyard mill on an engine stand to replace the engine in my truck when the time is right...it is black.

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I once knew an old hippie that rebuilt a 350 for his Camaro and painted the block red, the heads blue and the intake white....

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What colors have you seen that are a bit unusual ?
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Diggin' the Go ManGo
 
No pictures, but I had a co-worker who painted a Nissan engine metallic purple, then dipped a brush in several colors and splashed paint on it a la Jackson Pollock.
 
PROSTOCKTOM said:
Here's a 425 Cadillac block I used for a mockup block since it has the same outside dimensions as a 500 Cadillac block except about 60 pounds lighter.

You can see it's painted AMC blue. I put a 526" Cadillac in a 69 Rambler and since the distributor's are both in the same place very few ever caught that is wasn't an AMC engine.

Tom



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That looks SO GOOD! What brand paint did you use?
 
ha i'll have to find a pick
painted my sis jeep grand chreokee
purple with a green spackle it looked kind of cool
don't think anyone but me ever even seen it
 
Didn’t @j-par paint an engine pink for his wife? I thought it looked sweet!
 
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Sigh...I miss Leanna. This thread is just kinda empty without her valve covers and stuff.
 
I also miss Leanna. She was a true powdercoat artist.
Here are a couple of items she coated for the 360 destined for my '69 Dart...

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75slant6 said:
That looks SO GOOD! What brand paint did you use?
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It's been 20-years since I painted that block, but I used Seymour paint. Today they call it Seymour EN-66 Hi-Tech Engine Spray Paint, AMC Blue

https://www.amazon.com/Seymour-EN-66-Hi-Tech-Engine-Paint/dp/B0088LVC1Y?tag=fabo03-20

I even had that block baked/ tumbled, and then waved a propane torch all over it to burn any residual left out of the cast iron pores. Wiped it all down with acetone.

Probably a little overkill for a mockup block, but I was into the moment.

Tom
 
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