Well, I was thinking of painting my valve cover, and just wanted to make sure i'd be doing everything right before I do it. I read the "Painting your valve cover" DIY. But, since I have http://www.attarco.com/images/D17A.JPG and its a type of hard plastic. Will it be the same as any other valve cover? As in.. Should I still use high temp paint? Or should I do a different approach, since the D17 cover is a hard plastic? Also, I was thinking of painting the valve cover black, and painting the "Honda" lettering orange, but don't exactly know a good method to do that, since i'm worried about painting onto the black, y'know? It would be hard to tape it off accurately, and to be very precise. Well, either Black with orange lettering, or orange with black lettering, i'm still contemplating which. But, if I can't do black with orange lettering, i'll just go orange and sand the lettering down (If I CAN sand plastic without making it look like crap).

But, I just wanted everyones opinion before I go off and do this. I'll probably go get the high temp paint and acrylic after work Sunday. I saw that Supermex has a gold D17 valve cover, and I figured "Well, if its possible.. And it doesn't look like bad, really. I see no reason why I can't pull it off ."

Well, let me know what everyone thinks. And if so, i'll do it somewhere around sunday and hopefully post some pictures .

 

it should work, i painted mine with regular spray paint, and it looks fine.

 

Ithink your talking about the wire cover. The valve cover is metal, and covers the valves. As in the inside is filled with oil. But the wire cover, you can paint. Its not too hard. Just follow rattle can instructions. Do a quality job, sand, primer, etc. If you want to sand the lettering, you will have to put clear over it after you sand it, or it will look like sanded plastic.. aka crap. And if you do happen to screw it up, just sand and do it again till you like it. I did mine like 3 times beforeI got it how I liked it. If all else fails, you can replace that thing for like ten bucks.

 

Um that plastic thing over it is not the actualy valve cover. The valve cover is the white thing below that. Yes you can use high paint on non high temp things such as plastic (my green interior I used high temp paint). For the plastic piece just use primer and then the high temp paint and for the actual valve cover just use the paint. You don't need primer for the actual metal valve cover.

 

Tip:
If you want to paint the "honda" and the cover different colors, my suggestion is paint the letters first, it was easier for me when I did two colors.

 

Yeah.. Sorry, I meant just the plastic covering :P. But, I just got 500f degree orange spray paint, and some acrylic duplicolor clear coat, and some 800 wet grit sand paper. I might do it tommorow, or wait until I got to school Monday, because we have wooden blocks that is for sanding stuff down.

Also.. Well, thing is. Painting the letters precise is what i'm concerned about, you know? How am I suppose to cover the thing down so I dont get orange or black on the other paint? I was thinking.. Doing it all black, then sanding the letters down, then putting the orange on, but then I came across the thought "Well, ****.. How am I going to prevent getting orange on the black paint.. x_x." Because its hard to mask it off completely so I won't get any paint on it.

Well, regardless.. I'll probably clean the plastic cover, because when I unscrewed the plastic covering, it was REALLY dirty on the inside, so i'll give it a nice clean tommorow, when I clean my car, then probably just go ahead and paint it orange, put a few coats on until i'm pleased, then about maybe 2~4 clear coats, depending on my liking. Then monday, i'll get the sanding block and just sand down the letters and see how they look.

Does anyone think I should sand down the plastic a little, THEN spray paint it..? Or just paint and use clear coat? Would it make it look better, or does it matter?

 

im actually curious as well, post a tut when you do it! free bump

 

If you dont want to paint the letters black...I hear you can use chapstick or vaseline on them and just wipe it off when done....but thats for a metal one so if you try it and its messed up, im not liable

 

Well my tip would be.. to start.. paint the actual thing orange and the lettering black.
Paint it orange as you would have done with the black paint, but instead of painting the lettering, use a black perminant marker..
might sound stupid but my mate did it on his mazda (red cover, black text) and it looked friggin sweet!!!

Alternatively get a touch up pen set and do the lettering in that..

 

you can do it!!! nice