Does anybody have any pictures of polished intake runners and plentum? I am thinking about polishing mine but not sure.

Id search, there is soooooo many gorgeous setups on here.

Polished intake bases are pretty rare, but ive seen them before.
Most of it is covered up, Alot of work for something not very visible!
Plenum & runners are the best bet, mine arent the best in the world,
and she has a quite a few miles on it now..

Cheap pictures in my Vbgarage, not worth flossing in the thread.

DANG! TPI i love the look of your polished plentum and runners! If you remember what materials did you use (what polishing compounds etc.)? Also can you explain to me how you started and and ended up with your finished project?

Heres a couple pics of mine. The plenum is fully polished to a satin type finnish and so are the runners. The dist. cover is a cast aluminum piece off an 88 vette.

Highhorse how did you polish your plentum and runners? I am looking for a shine like TPI's (in his Vgarage)

There are numerous ways to do it, I used some high grade aluminum compound
polishing rouge, They come in varying colors for the various stages of the buff
process. A bench rotary grinder is what I used for the quickest effect. By hand
or electric/pneumatic tools are possible as well.

This topic has come up a ton in the past, TGO has taken care of us:
http://www.thirdgen.org/plenumpolish

Cheapest weekend job.

Gorgeous work guys...Pssst its 'plenum'

you are going to crap your self when you see my intake ill post a pic when i install it. if your intake is in fairly good shape just start with like 500grit wet sandpaper and move up to like 1500 grit and when your all done use some kind of aluminum polish with a cotton rag my favorite was only soldd a national wholesale liquidators it was a small white bottle with a 7 on it.

Mine did look pristine at one point, pretty hard to keep that way
unless ur obsessive in my opinion.. but hey, I wont discourage that.

It is pretty easy if your motivated!

alright thanks guys. This thread really helped, but i was wondering how much money will be involved in the steps that TGO has written up? I mean how much did everyone spend for sandpaper polishing compound etc.?

Lets see...

Sanding block- $5
Different grades of sandpaper 100-1500 grit- ~$20
Bucket of water for wetsanding- Free
Jar of Mothers aluminum polishing compound- $6
Used underware for polishing- Free

So a grand total of right around $31. I highly recommend that Mothers polish.... Really good stuff.

i have seen your picture before so i have to ask - if that one of the 2 seat camaros or is it just the way the picture is deformed?

Your a madman, in this economic climate!?

go to pepboys they have a kit and if you dont want that theres a wet sand kit for like 10$ with all the needed grits i think 1 sheet of each. that will prob be enough

ok it took me a bit of time but the results were awesome. I used 300 grit wetsandpaper and worked my way up to 2000 grit wetsand paper. I used my drill and Mothers wheel polish. results were awesome like i said. . i also sprayed a can of clearcoat on them from a rattle can so they wont discolor. although the heat has not messed up the clearcoat yet. make sure you use engine 500 degree clearcoat. ill try to post pics. good luck

looks like dog shiyt use 2000 again keep going and the use a buffing wheel with motors it will be like a mirror

With a post like that you need to grow up. ill be reporting you to the moderator

that post the is when you type plenum polish works great i did it only the aluminum restorer is pretty expensive but worth doing it this is how it finished off

nope.
there is this stuff simply called METAL POLISH, i will find out who makes it tonight later, but it comes in a big bottle and is blue.
anyway, my buddy saw my intake after i polished it and said, lemme try something.
got a pea sized drop of this stuff on a sock and basically wiped it on and off and it shone like a mirror.

edit:
like that one




all right guys grow up...
take it easy

^^^^? Alum restore? where do u get that at? and how much? you still had to sand and buff rite? looks good

Here is a good link:http://gmtips.com/3rd-degree/dox/tip...m/pol-plen.htm

basically, no matter what you do, you still have to start with 100 grit or so to knock down the sand casting pattern.
once you have the metal smooth, you can jump to 440.
get it smoother, and go to 600.
i stayed on 600 for a while, but then moved on to 1200 or so.
after 1200 i used that polish stuff i was talking about and got a mirror shine

ok stop crying its a joke and if you cant take it idk what to say. also i tried something new today if you are near one of the 2 sk speeds they have this polishing compound its a grey liquid a little expensive but probaly the best stuff out. i also used a sock with that beofre sanding an aluminum frame today and it was ridiculouse has fast maybe like 30seconds of rubbing to be like a mirror but without wetsanding that let me really notice all the little imperfections.

Instead of using 100 grit sand paper to remove the cast look, can't I just use a wizzy wheel (the thing you can put 2 or 3 inch sanding disks on it)(it also looks like an L if you hold it upside down).

So use that to knock of the cast then use 400 grit then 600 grit then 1200 grit. If i go in that order do i have to wet sand? If I do have to wet sand how would i go about doing that? I never anything like this before so please be explanitory. Thanks. And sorry it doesn't seem like i understand, its just because im alittle leery about doing this to my car.

a wiz wheel will work but heres the prob it may look wavy and very unapealing. it will sand so fast and enevenly it wont look right youll see dips in the metal. also do not use 100grit that will turn your job in to a complete mess i would say go no lower then 300-400

Do as mentioned above, but when you get it "close" to perfect, stop. Then send it off to H&H Polishing in Charlotte, NC (or another polishing place of your choice) and get it finished. They do a perfect, professional job ... and since you've already done most of the work, it's fairly cheap. They finished my plenum, runners, distributor cover, throttle body and belt tensioner for less than $100. Well worth it to get the shine I got.

Im jealous, you kept your smog gear and it looks sexy.

A+ ..but, I got my shine from my own hands! then, I assembled the motor
and ended up muff'n the perfection up.. THAT IS HARD NOT TO DO MAN!

I wanna add, when BigWhiteGTP came over to my house, there was a
cat paw track streaked across my polished plenum!!! (darn you gilligan!)

Hahaha!! We laughed at that pretty good. Anyway, Beautiful car gcgarner!

all i can say is wow you did an amazing job. you even polished the tensioner andac lines. good job man i am really jealouse. also how did you get your coolant tank looking like that mine wont come clean it has a yelow tint to it.

I think that coolant tank might be brand new!

i should mention that i did the WHOLE THING BY HAND.
thats why i started with 100 grit and a block.
after that, i started wet sanding with finer and finer paper.
i got bored after 4 days and wanted to drive the f-ing thing so i put it back together

i been thinking isnt it better powder coating it or it wont shine as much as you polish it because mine is loosing the shine and i have to keep on polishing it about every month or so

I wanted the car to be as close to original as possible, but my plenum and runners looked like crap, so I decided that polished was the way to go. And once I got them done by hand and put them back on, everything else looked dull and nasty. So, when I did my motor swap, I took it all off and did it by hand, then sent it to H&H Polishing for a re-buff. Except for the AC and AC lines ... I did them on the car by hand. Oh, and my runners were dented all to hell, but a 10-minute trip to brass instrument repair shop at my local music store fixed that for $5 :-) And of course I bought the valve covers already polished. Word to the wise ... if you want to "practice" your polishing, the water neck is a great piece to practice on. It's not that noticeable, and if you screw it up, it's a cheap replacement.

Ding Ding Ding!! Best $20 I spent under my hood. Brand new from GM. The old one looked like someone had diarrhea in it. The washer fluid tank is still original, though.

If you really want it to shine, you just have to keep it shiny with some elbow grease. Don't powder coat unless you're going for a color. It will never be as shiny as polished aluminum.

I typed it in google and thats were i found it also if you use it how the instruction tells you works much better