Engine bay for a facelift.

[Frijolito1988]

Hey guys, so i finally decided to spruce up my engine bay. I never liked that my truck was so nice and painted outside compared to the engine and engine bay which did not do the outside justice. Taking the engine out was a sinch , after removing the front grill / rad support and grill took a total of about 1 1/2 hour doing the work by myself. Then degreased and powerwashed the engine bay







I had a body shop cancel the AC holes in the fire wall and paint the engine bay and chassis / outter / inner fender wells with epoxy chassis paint it is not glossy at all but per the shop it withstands grease and scratches , so we shall see.









The engine is a GM Crate engine 350/ 700r4 Combo with less than 500 miles on it so its really clean and cleaned up real easy . I always wanted to paint it Chevy orange before we installed it when i first got it but it all happend so fast it felt like the engine went straight from the tractor trailer to my truck

Taping up the engine was actually harder than it seemed, took me a good hour getting all the nook and crannys

[Frijolito1988]

I used VHT 500 degree Primer and VHT 500 Chevy orange enamel with 3 coats of each , 2 light 1 heavy.


Really liked how it came out , thick and glossy.









I like how it looks on the clean / painted engine bay . I dont want to install the old black rusty headers and old 80's GM Serpentine kit so im saving my pesos to buy a March Performance serpentine kit and ceramic coated headers

What do you guys think ?

[Gromit]

Looks great! Nice job and IMO everyone should R&R their motor at least once.

Removing the radiator core makes things lots easier.

Regarding the headers you might be surprised what you can do with an assortment of various wire brush wheels (like say from Harbor Freight) to remove the rust and two cans of VHT paint.. My rusty old header pipes cleaned up nicely and I ended up wrapping them anyway with header wrap.

But the ceramic is better of course..

[mike16]

you had me all excited there when you painted the engine pontiac blue..........but then you went with that hemi orange paint. WTF?

[yuccales]

Looks good!

[72gmguy]

Looks great! Nice spring time project. Well done.

[BossHogg69]

Originally Posted by Frijolito1988

I like how it looks on the clean / painted engine bay . I dont want to install the old black rusty headers and old 80's GM Serpentine kit so im saving my pesos to buy a March Performance serpentine kit and ceramic coated headers

What do you guys think ?

I think you should consider another source for the serpentine setup. I have a March setup on my big block that was over $2200 and the power steering pump lasted about 500 miles and the adjuster setup for the belt is pretty cheesy. I have a thread on it in the Engine & Drivetrain section. If I had to do it over, I would go with another vendor, but at the time, March was the only system that offered the Saginaw P pump that was recommended for the steering box & hydroboost that I'm running.

[Frijolito1988]

Originally Posted by mike16

you had me all excited there when you painted the engine pontiac blue..........but then you went with that hemi orange paint. WTF?

Funny you mention that. When i first bough the cans i just got it by the color did not realize they where Hemi Orange, went back and changed them to Chevy Orange, They also had Chevy Red Orange

[Gromit]

Since today is Pi day (3.14) I think I can ask about your impressions of the lift plate..

Since you got the motor in and out okay yours was a good test to prove it did hold the entire weight of the motor and trans; but I think it may have been close..

I got curious about this after seeing your photos - Here is the calculation for the pull-out strength of those four 5/16-24 manifold bolts as best as I can tell:

pi x Pitch Diameter x % thread x length of engagement x shear strength of material.

So for example:

3.1415926 x .3125 x (((.3125-.2716)/.01299))/100) x .5 x 28,000psi = 440 lbs per bolt x 4 = 1,760 lbs x 50% safety factor = 880 lbs.

I'm guesstimating the weight of your motor and trans at 750 to 800? So if you go over any bumps with that motor hanging from the lift it seems to me it might go over the 880. But maybe that is in the safety factor..

By pull-out meaning by shearing the female threads in the aluminum manifold at the thread roots.

28,000 psi being the yield strength of cast aluminum AA but there are so many alloys it is hard to say.

The .2716 is the size of the letter "I" drill used before tapping the 5/16 bolt holes in the manifold.

But I don't want to hijack the thread so just mean this as food for thought for next time you pull that motor!

[Frijolito1988]

Originally Posted by Gromit

Since today is Pi day (3.14) I think I can ask about your impressions of the lift plate..

Since you got the motor in and out okay yours was a good test to prove it did hold the entire weight of the motor and trans; but I think it may have been close..

I got curious about this after seeing your photos - Here is the calculation for the pull-out strength of those four 5/16-24 manifold bolts as best as I can tell:

pi x Pitch Diameter x % thread x length of engagement x shear strength of material.

So for example:

3.1415926 x .3125 x (((.3125-.2716)/.01299))/100) x .5 x 28,000psi = 440 lbs per bolt x 4 = 1,760 lbs x 50% safety factor = 880 lbs.

I'm guesstimating the weight of your motor and trans at 750 to 800? So if you go over any bumps with that motor hanging from the lift it seems to me it might go over the 880. But maybe that is in the safety factor..

By pull-out meaning by shearing the female threads in the aluminum manifold at the thread roots.

28,000 psi being the yield strength of cast aluminum AA but there are so many alloys it is hard to say.

The .2716 is the size of the letter "I" drill used before tapping the 5/16 bolt holes in the manifold.

But I don't want to hijack the thread so just mean this as food for thought for next time you pull that motor!

Yikes! Something to think about next time lol