Powdercoating the manifold?

I'm having what I hope is my last oil leak fixed in the next day or so and they are removing the intake manifold to replace the gasket. I was wondering if anyone ever powdercoats those or just cleans them? I have an Edlebrock and it looks like silver painted metal, which I believe is factory. What's a good way to make this nice since it's already going to be off? If it was bare aluminum, I'd have it buffed out hard like chrome.

And, the van gods are finally looking out for me. The guy helping me out is a customer who runs a national auto parts/garage and he is going to swap me out a brand new carb for free and warranty the other one out. It was still leaking out a little gas after all the work I had done. New is good and no additional labor since the intake is getting yanked anyhow.

you want to high temp ceramic coat them like headers

Post a pic of what it looks like now.

If you coat it while it's off your turn around time will be pretty long unless you can find a place locally and hand deliver it. If you have to send it out it'll be weeks.

Yea, guy told me powdercoat would trap heat. It's stock original right now. I thought it has been painted but they obviously don't smooth them out as far as a finish is concerned.

Yeah that's plain raw cast finish, and the best finish in my opinion.

You definitely don't want to powder coat it unless you're doing some color matching car show piece that you don't intend to drive much.

You can ceramic coat it like G-Man suggested, which dissipates heat, but it's not going to make a noticeable difference. You'd just be wasting money and over time it will look worse than the cast finish. Those two options are expensive and mainly for aesthetics.

If anything, while you have it off you can hot tank it or have it jet washed at a machine shop. You can also bead blast it, but it doesn't look that bad.

Cast finish lasts forever and with some Gunk spray and water you'll be looking good!

Laz, you're not in bad shape to start with. If anything I would suggest a nice intake bolt kit and repaint your thermostat housing. That'll clean up the appearance quite a bit.

I agree with Roman that the intake looks nice. Besides the intake bolts and thermostat housing paint you could get some braided lines either silver or colored and those items will pop out and you wont notice if the intake is a bit "drab" in luster.

I've never tried it , but what about cleaning it up and hitting it with some Hi Temp clear ?

In past years - i would color anodize my alunimum intakes & parts- never had any problems with them- only some extruded alu. parts did have some oils imbedded in them so that wouldnt work -never had any problems with intakes or valvecovers or oil plan in alu.

Can you anodize over a cast finish? I always thought it had to be polished.

We anodize some casting material here at work. Never done it for anything I personally use but know it works on casting aluminum. They usually laser engrave the part numbers and such then paint over it after anodize.

I should add that I am not familiar with that part of the plant so not sure all the pre and post operations to get it ready however.

Kinda pricey huh? I like clear zinc or gold cad, but they don't hold up with heat and chemicals over time.

i never could keep an aluminum intake clean, and really dont care for the looks either. i have always just painted them to match block.

I just use hi temp.clear in a spray bomb it changes the color a bit but it's a lot easier to keep clean