Supplies needed:
-Painters or masking tape
-Shop towels and q-tips
-Newspaper or something to mask off large sections of the cover
-Windex or rubbing alcohol
-Spray paint (preferably a high resistant or "stronger" paint due to heat)
-Proper ventilation or equipment

Supplies:


So I started out gathering my supplies needed for this project, everything I already had laying around....

You will want to clean the cover with alcohol or Windex works wonders! Shop towels work better than normal paper towels as they don't leave behind fibers...if you are poor go to your local Chevron and take some from the islands with the windshield cleaning things. Haha. Most gas stations use shop towels and regular paper towels...the shop ones are the blue kind usually. Much stronger you will find...but I use them as they don't leave behind fibers. Also then use q-tips to clean the groves.

After that is done start masking the cover with the painters tape...I mask it off in 2 stages...first just tape so I get perfect lines.



Then I mask the cover off with another "layer" of tape this time with news paper attached to cover large section of the cover.



With everything masked and cleaned time to paint...remember...do not over do it! Do several lite coats instead of a few heavy ones. Then do a one nice heavy coat but still don't over do it.



Make sure you give the cover enough time to dry. I used a paint for rims so it super fast drying. However I accidently rushed it and found flaws...so I went back and redid the cover. So here is what you want to watch for:




The first mistake was touching the cover when still wet. And the second was not completely covering the groves with the new paint. So make sure you check all the cracks for complete coverage of paint and let it dry!

After that it should be good to remove the tape and newspaper and install. Should look like this when done:





And here was a before for comparison:

 

Red looked better. Good job painting tho.

 

I like it darker... nice job

 

I like it, what is the paint that you used? I really like that colour! Thanks for the time for doing the DIY!

 

I used old left over wheel coating paint from Dupli-Color. I had some old rims of another car that were heavily scratched and I painted them and used them for track rims. It was a dark gray and I thought it would be a great color to match my Evo....



http://www.duplicolor.com/products/wheel.html

 

Where I can I buy some of that paint

 

Pep-boys, auto zone...almost all car part stores carry these. Also I decided to NOT clear coat it either so it wouldn't look to glossy when compared to the stock black.

 

Looks good man, I might do the same. I think the red looks out of place in there anyway because it stands out too much not having anything else in there to match up with. Plus, I like the stealth look. I'm a big fan of that.

 

i like it too, HATE the X engine cover!

cb

 

looks ALOT better then the red imo

 

not bad, I like the color choice. but the red still looks good to me.

 

looks cooler

 

i like =)

 

Don't like the results. Red was better for me

 

I like it better. More subtle and clean looking. Good Job.