as i'm getting ready to paint. paint colors and their options have been two fold. how many of you prefer flat black engine bays over body colored engine bays?

i love the clean look of a painted engine bay but the fact is it's hard to keep up... almost impossible to keep scratch free and sometimes outshines the motor itself and other components.

throw out some thoughts..

for what color car? on light colored car i think the black engine bay would set it off a lil bit....but on darker colors, it prolly wont stand out as much..

:werd: i agree tom

show car=body color

daily driver=black

personal opinion?




look at the newer show cars and they are all flat black... i suppose it depends how you do it too. if you just use straight angle sheet metal it would flow better.

hmm..

flat black will be easier to keep clean looking.

i don't think it's the maintenance i'm asking so much as the overall appearance of a motor. i know with my 91 the candy paint outsparkled the polished pieces and otherwise. had the engine bay been a flat black or something similar the little touches would have been more noticeable.

cheaper too... anyhow just a poll. pick what you like.

3rd option

Satin black

i dont know if you made it over to the fastfoward fastback display at cobo last year but that had the nicest engine bay i think ive ever saw

i was only a lane over from it...

just one example of what i'm talking about... satin/flat... same idea. anything that isn't gloss basically.

in that case

DO IT!:rockon:

I voted body color, anything else just doesnt match up properly, looks like someone was too lazy / cheap to do it right.

Only body color for me. I think it just flows better to have the body color behind everything. Then again, I'm also the kinda guy that likes to see flames and whatnot carried into the engine bay, and I know you're not a fan of that Jeff, so take this for what its worth. Come to think of it, my 84 track car is gonna be flat black in the engine bay, but the body is flat black too, go figgure hahaha.

I'm somewhat torn on this one... Both look great depending on the set-up of the rest of the car. But I do believe that the black would go with almost everything. So I voted black.

lol you told me that 2 years when my car got painted:lala:

Flat black is easy to keep clean, but I think some people are just lazy. I daily drive my body colored one and it looks mint because I keep it clean. I just touch up the paint every once in awhile if I chip it/etc.

My vote is body color

There are some good points about the 2 choices. One thing that would be good...is that since your probably going to be having alot of polished pieces in the engine bay....the black would really make those polished parts stand out. If you paint it body color (which is cool too) that could take away from the polished parts under the hood. This is a hard decision....:shrug:

what about gloss black ,i think ive seen a pic on here somewhere with someone with a gloss black engine bay and it looked really excelent.

this is the exact delema... nice touch of color and some polished aluminum looks good no matter what but really stands out with a less noticeable background.

either way it looks nice, just an opinion poll for fun.

I believe ppg has matching colors that are designed for engine bays which do not require clearcoating, but arent quite glossy like a regular paint, if your going to use a production color anyway...

i would deffinatly have to say black satin, not straight flat black

going off of what your last car was there will be so much detail on the engine you'll want something to make it stand out

like you said, your last car the paint overtook the details of the engine

*not sure if ppg (or is ppg a style, not brand?hehe) makes Kandy coats but...* i dunno if Kandied will want normal paint that is somewhat like the color of the body and then the body be Kandy coated... hehe, i really dont know, but i think it may look a bit odd... like u ran out of it and said screw it and grabbed a rattle can (which, in IMO, when a regular paint job is compared to a kandy.. u might as well have rattle canned it, cause that kandy is soo beautiful)

Meh, just my thoughts on it.. I say go with the flat black.. but thats what im going with (normal ol' red paintjob is gonna be on the outside) and im lazy and i want an easier mantinace inside the engine bay.. And i do have a polished 750 Holly, alum intake and im gonna have ceramic coated valve covers, billet pullies, etc.. So i think that the black will set off my engine bay much nicer than red would.

I say go flat black adds contrast IMO. Having the engine bay body color makes the car look like one peice(IMO )........black kinda helps the engine stand out more and splits the outside of the car up from under the hood. I have my car painted red and chose not to paint the engine bay body color and I def wouldn't have had it any other way.

Body color! Flat black would look like you had a bad fire in there.

Personally I like body color... but a satin black done right, not some backyard rattle-can job that you see floating around here might be nice as well. I think it could look very clean if all the welds and seams were smoothed out as I know you WILL do

why dont you just tell us the color its gonna be

.....I'd say black would be nice....I know that I wish I had more black on my car as it breaks up candy paint really well. But since we're talking engine bay I'd still say black. When I picture alot of polished pieces, black just comes to mind as it would really show the engine off. People pop the hood to look at the goods under it, try not to take away from it by having 'stand-outish' paint (or for the love of *** graphics ).

jus to add to the black side of the battel i feel it nessacary to post a pic of my dads engine bay on his chevelle one on the cleanest bays ive ever seen hesa stickler for detials

if only he got cermaic coated headers




If i find a better pic ill pst it this one isint the best

just my opinion but that chevelles engine bay just dont look right
what line if any was he trying to follow along the inner fender wells, it looks like he just randomly tapped a line

i do agree that the rest of the bay looks good

the black in it is just throwing me off though, i would think most people would use the seem between the inner and outer fender, and up the back to the cowl/top of the firewall

That chevelle looks very sharp.

At first i didnt think it would look good. But after seeing that sweet chevelle it could look really good. Geuss it would depend on what color the outside was going to be?

My car is Black, and the polished pieces on the motor. Do really pop out, when you open the hood.

I say go w/ the body color. I think the black bays can be pulled off w/ the 60/70's muscle cars. But if I see a black bay on any other car it looks halfa**ed, like they didn't take the time to do it right! Just my two cents tho!

Alot depends on what you do to the bay, say you opt to trim the motor out with body color. Say body color block & heads, maybe looms...then you have TOO much body color. It looks over done

In that case, I would opt for black...though instead of flat black, I got satin black..and where it covers some slight errors...it can't compare to a gloss finish!

So i'm going to go against the poll and post a third option...

GLOSS BLACK!

One could go with a gloss black....but then again..I think it would clash with the polished pieces under the hood. I think that the gloss black would cheapen the look of the over all engine bay. Here is just an idea...not sure if anyone has done it...but..how about body color....with a satin clear over it??? Again..just an idea

Thats the way the fender wraps the fender well the fender is yellow and everything inside is black. the fender just wraps around it more than on our cars

if thats where the fender wraps to then ok, it just looks a little funky to me

if it were me this is where i would have gone to (crappy paint edit, just to get the idea)
on the pass fender

this is just what i think though, probably to about where ill go when i do an engine swap in mine down the road

you just have to know those cars... that's how the fender sits and while in a picture to someone use to straight lines might think otherwise the way it was done is the right way.

looks good.

kandied, and by the way :yourock: at biulding cars, cant wait till i see the next one:werd: :werd:

ya i guess knowing those cars would help, im only 19 so there a little before my time

Body color.

thx kandied and btw my dad apperciates (sp) all the compliments on the engine bay i hope my car turns out half as good as his did

I'd go with a semi-gloss black. Its prolly the least maintenance, and it would look kick-*** too!! A semi-gloss black like what Chrysler used on the AAR Cuda and Challenger TA hoods would be what I'm talking about.

The problem that I've always had with flat black, is that its just very hard to clean because its usually really uhh.... not rough... unsmooth? and it picks up dirt and stuff really fast and its a pain to clean. Semi-gloss is smooth like outter body paint, but looks basically the same as flat black, so thats what I'd use.

good point and you basically stressed why one wouldn't want "flat" black.

at least you guys understand what i was getting at. it would definately have a non gloss finish but not flat like your thinking... anyhow all just an idea.

I debated over the body color or black style for quite a while when having my engine bay repainted. I even considered going body color but doing the firewall in black to hide the wiring/heater box area/wiper motor. I ended up going all body color, but I still think the black firewall might've been a good idea to make the engine stand out more and hide some of the firewall mounted necessities. Darn, shoulda done that! haha. I think it could look good on your car since i think you were going to smooth the inner fenders like mine. You don't want to do that custom work and hide it under black paint!

Come on Kandied ! What color is your car going to be? We know its going to be a candy color but what shade? Orange? Red? Blue? Cherry? Vanilla?

he's not making ice cream here j/k

either tangerine or strawberry.

maybe both.

I'm hungry now

I ahve the satin black in mine. It looks good, and yes its pretty easy to maintain, but compared to a car with gloss black under the hood, I think mine would look cheap next to it!






Here is the page if links don't work

Well that is what the factory paint job looks like under the hood. not flat, but not clear either...more of a satin...

....the sad face did it all

I say flat black, thats what mine is and will stay as so maybe im one sided but I like to see the motor not everything around it plus as was stated is easy to up keep the back.

Our '84 bird we are restoring is no way going to be a show winner like you make but we are trying to do it the best we can. We went with black becasue we feel it would make the chrome stand out more under the hood as well as being easier to maintain. We are going with the red/silver 2 tone outside but we felt the black would look better under the hood.

Either way you go I can't wait to see the result.

Bob