Had the manifold bead blasted, they said not to clear coat it. Would you paint it or not? Everything is being painted with East Way paint.

 

Intake manifold?

 

Yes.

 

If ya like it, why not!!?

 

The clear coat will yellow from the heat. You COULD spend the bucks and have it anodized, if you really care.

 

An old hot rodder trick is to paint the intake manifold white. It's supposed to reflect the ambient heat for a cooler and more dense charge.

 

That makes no sense at all (the white paint reducing temps at all) but yeah I have seen people do that. Monkey see, monkey do.

OP, Look into clear powder coat, it looks decent on intake manifolds, just make sure the coater has done it before.

 

The white paint doesn't reduce the engine temperature, it's supposed to reflect the heat away from the intake. I doubt it works very well, if at all, it's just and old hot rodder theory. I guess if it did work you would see a bunch of white manifolds from the factory, but we don't.

 

Ah, do you see how your "clear powder coat" has yellowed? I think Busted's right. I've seen intakes painted with high temp header paint that look pretty good. I remember the old Plymouth slant 6 had it's manifold painted with engine paint the same as the block.

 

The clear powdercoat won't yellow if applied correctly. But it is also not like typical clear coat either. I mean you could always powdercoat it any shade of grey, all the way to white.

This is my RX-8, nothing get hotter than a turbo rotary engine bay. The lower intake manofold is aluminum and many have powedercoated them without issue and it sits right above the exhaust manifold somewhat like the XJ. However a rotary see typical EGT's of 1700F+.

This looks white in many pics but it is a very light grey.

 

This is interesting to me because in all my years messing around with internal combustion engines, a rotary is something I've never gotten my hands on. I know the design, I know the theory, I'm aware of the power they produce, but I've never ACTUALLY worked on one. Radial aircraft engines, jet engines, turboprop engines, diesels, yes, but not a Wankel design. I think Mazda was the only manufacturer who got one to stay together and be reliable. I WATCHED my friend change the spark plugs in his RX-7, but that's as close as I ever got. Interesting.

 

I had one once. Worse gas mileage than my ZJ.

 

Yeah you have to love them to own one. Compared to most other modern engines they get terrible mileage (especially when boosted) and are unreliable. I am not one of those rotary owners that denies the facts

But the power band and rev range make it all worth it

 

Mine was an 82 RX-7, fun little car to drive the **** out of. It wouldn't pass the California smog inspection so I got rid of it.