engine painting

[elevatorman71]

i am painting my new 1100 engine to replace my 850 any suggestions where and what kind of paint to use do i use a self etching primer???

[YoungGunRodder]

Paint

I would make sure your clean it REALLY well. Two or three times with acitone or a prep all. Get ALL grease and grime off.

Then I like to use Duplicolor Hi temp engine paint 500'. Use the primer first and then your finish. a good coat of primer. Three coats of finish, one that is just a mist, second to fill in the gaps, third.... lay it on. I don't like their clearcoat though....

I painted my 1953 Chevy engine this way and the paint has lasted me four years already without chips or nicks.

YoungGun.

[Hammered]

Prep work is key. Degrease and dry it the best you can and then some. Id use a good high temp self etching primer on any and all parts being painted. It creates a much better bond for the color coat. Im using Duplacolor's line of paints since Im doing all mine from a rattle can. Their High Temp and Engine line of paints are very good for this. Good coverage, good bond and a really desent range of colors to choose from. Some do not prefer to clear coat any unpainted parts, but if you prep it right, it makes it easier, for me atleast, to keep it looking good for longer. Their caliper paint is pretty tough and fuel resistent as well. Go to Duplicolor's site and have a read around about the different lines and watch a couple of the "How To's"

[almarconi]

I just got done painting some forks and a headlight bucket with the duplicolor engine enamel. Results look pretty good for rattlecan paint. I used the engine primer, 3 coats of color and 3 coats of clear. For the engine, I would not use the clear coat. From what I've heard it will yellow when it gets hot.

[Rudeman]

I browsed the Duplicolor site and noticed that the Graphite Wheel Coating looks very close the stock Suzuki wheel color fo rthe 77-81 GS Series bikes. Great for doing some resto work!

http://www.duplicolor.com/products/wheel.html

[drhach]

VHT makes a line of paints called "Nu-Kast" there is an aluminum and a cast iron version. It looks really good. I used on my engine and it has held up quite well. It really does look like new aluminum. In this picture, the head is freshly sandblasted and the cases are painted. very similar.

[Agemax]

as stated a good preperation is the key to success. bead blasting or vapour blasting is the best method i have found, although thorough cleaning and washing out after is required.

something that might surprise you is that an old acquaintance of mine used to build lotus twin cam engines for race cars. he would have the block and head bead blasted then brush paint it with DULUX gloss paint.
these were high revving powerful car engines and produced a lot of power and consequently heat.

he never had 1 single complaint from any customer who had an engine built by him.

years back he did a head job for me on my old cb550f and rebuilt the whole engine from scratch. he hand painted the crankcases with DULUX black. it looked immaculate, no brush marks, and lasted flawlessly for the 3 years i kept the bike after the engine rebuild

[almarconi]

To drhach:

I really like the engine/case covers..what did you paint them with? I'm painting my KZ 750 now and really like the flat black color.

[drhach]

It's wrinkle coat. You can get it from summit racing in a rattle can. You spray it on and then heat the part while the paint is wet. If you look at the picture you can see that it it wrinkled a little unevenly. Not too bad. certainly not bad enough for me to redo it it the time. That was because I used a heat gun to get the paint to wrinkle. The amount of wrinkling that you get is in part due the amount of heat that you apply. Since I used a heat gun instead of putting the wet part in an oven, it came out a little uneven. If you know someone who does powdercoating you can get that in wrinkle as well. That was what I got on my centerstand.