I had some plans for this manifold that changed last minute, for the better. I originally imagined this manifold painted in a wrinkle black color. But after doing a mockup photoshop is just wasn’t looking good as I anticipated.  However I figured maybe the photoshop just doesn’t accurately predict how it could look.
I decided against doing and deburring or porting. This is a lot of extra work that I couldn’t justify doing. I don’t believe there is any significant improvement by doing this that cant easily be surpassed by just increasing boost 1psi.
Sure every detail matters, but I choose to go a conservative route with my mx6 and prioritize drivability , convivence and durability over maximum power.
Manifold Cleaning Process:
First in the process was to get this grimy manifold cleaned. It was clogged full of the usually oily carbon build up. I setup a dunk tank tha is basically a large plastic bin filled with a chemical and water. I first tried a simple green mix of 1 gallon to the 11 gallons water in the plastic tub.
This was removing debris extremely slow. A few hours had gone by and it was looking like this was going to be more work than expected.
So I dumped this mixture and tried something I know is much stronger, A degreaser my works uses to clean grease from heavy equipment and shop floors. I mixed one gallon of Lube-Tech Aqua Kleen Cyclone Red Wash & Degreaser
I did the same mix ratio with this degreaser. Within minutes I was seeing it turn from red to black. I gave it about 45minutes and decided to remove the manifold. The manifold was starting to get warm and visibly was etch burning in some places. Unsure how long was too long or if there is such thing as too long I figured id see how well it cleaned up.Â
I used a pressure washer to blast the manifold inside and out. The carbon washed right out with very little effort, no scrubbing or digging was required.Â
Afterwards the manifold had some discoloration in places so I choose to spray it inside and out with an aluminum acid cleaner called Aluma-Bright. This would be absolutely sure it was clean inside and out and give a consistent white color to the manifold, while giving it an etch for paint. Â
Below is the finished results of the cleaning process.
Paint Prep:
Paint prep included the standard taping off mating surfaces and cleaning with a paint prep cleaner.
I then sprayed the manifold with SEM Acid etch primer in Black to get the strongest adhesion.
Paint:
After the primer I was prepared to spray the wrinkle black paint but at the last moment decided to take a chance with something completely random. Â
I have several ounces of left over Imron Elite fleet paint from painting heavy equipment. None of these left over cans are enough to paint a project alone, but together all of them combined could get me 1/2 qt of paint. The can with the most qty was a silver metallic that looks more like unpolished stainless steel. I mixed this trying to retain the silver color but make it darker to fit the monotone color of my engine bay.
This paint takes 72hrs to fully dry. The finished results are extremely durable, and the appearance is very pleasing. It has a grainy cast look in some light, and a glossy powered look in other light.
I also had some left over galaxy black urethane paint and used this on the throttle body and bolts for this manifold. I think this is a nice accent to the manifold color.
