Okay well I've searched endlessly and I can't find anyone who has painted their throttle body. I've just finished polishing my plenum and runners from 87 305 trans am. They came out great but I can't help noticing how crappy the throttle body looks infront of them. It looks like a pain to try to polish so I thought I'd throw a coat of primer and gloss black on it and mabye blue paint the tpi logo or something. Any thoughts on that? Tips or suggestions or why it won't work? Did a coolant bypass so I don't think heat will be an issue but I could be wrong. Help please.......if you know a link for similar pictures it would be helpful too........

 

Polished throttle bodies look nice. Might be a pain but it can be done with a dremel tool, or drill and a few felt bobs and some polishing compounds. Your call. I've seen the results of painted TPI intakes, including the throttle body and it looked nice for a while. Later it looked like a blistered mess. But, might have been shoddy prep work? Again, your call. If you do paint, might consider high temp paint..just a suggestion.

Good luck

 

Can anyone give me tips on painting an intake component? Like I said I did a coolant bypass so I don't think heat will be too much of an issue. Thanks.

 

epoxy paint, comes in a can, they sell it at hardware stores, it wont crack with heat or cold. its super smooth, might even consider painting the inside with it since i wont crack.

 

I cleaned up mine, then used the silver duplicolor engine enamel. it's held up great so far. it matches the color of the powdercoating i had done to the rest of the TPI perfectly. Someday, I'd like to pull the nameplate off and paint it black with silver letters.

 

You can get black anondized throttle plates on ebay with Camaro, Z28, etc for about $16.

 

I know this thread is a bit old but I have painted mine with Duplicolor Primer and paint and have had no problems. Prior to painting I tested the paint's resistance to heat and took heat measurements on the surfaces I planned to paint. The highst reading I got was 175 degrees on the surface of the Valve covers and I heat tested the paint to 250 degrees with no problems. Anyway, here's a pic of my throttle body off the car.
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Nice job on the TB DieselTB. I painted mine as well. I don't have pictures at the moment but in case anyone does a search and wants answers it seems that painting your TB is a great idea and you shouldn't have paint peeling issues or any other issues. I've been running mine for over a year with no paint problems. If you want to have a snazy looking TB and you can't afford a new polished aluminum one get out the spraypaint The only tip I have is its a big waste of time to do all this unless you've done a lot of other cosmetic work under the hood. If not don't bother cause you'll barely notice difference in a typical F-body engine bay

 

how do you guys get the Tuned Port Injection part different colors then the lettering, always wondered that.

 

Pretty easy really. First I cleaned the old paint off everything I could. Then I buffed and polished the raised aluminum lettering. Next I put a few drops of oil on a rag and applied a very thin coat of oil on the raised lettering only. This keeps the paint from sticking to what I had polished. Then I just sprayed the whole things, letters and all, in black paint and allowed it time to dry. Once it is dry you can very easily peel the black paint off the lettering and expose the polished surface with your fingernail. Simple and it looks really nice.