here is what it looks like now. What all can I do to make it look better?

 

A few ideas that immediately come to mind are a mylar underhood mat, colored or braided plug wires, braided hoses, strut tower brace (Edelbrock), and the following items in chrome: hood strut covers, strut tower cover, radiator cover, core support cover (available on eBay).

 

IMO, painting or powdercoating things like brackets,pulleys and other little items makes an engine bay look much nicer. You could also paint some of the engine parts the same color as your car. When I swap intakes on my car, I gonna paint things like the aircleaner, TB, and valvecovers red to match my car. If your intake is aluminum, polishing it looks very cool.

 

Is where the red arrow is pointing, the strut tower? Where does the strut tower brace go?

 

This is Roshambos car. He has the Edelbrock Strut Tower Brace.

 

Here's a pic of my motor. After tomorrow I will have a polished intake and enough plug wire sleeving to cover them all.

 

cropping is your friend bro, might want to think about it

 

Maybe when I'm done feeling lazy I'll fix the signature.
Oh, and here's the intake I got.

 

Something simple that always gets overlooked......replacing those nasty old coolant resevoir and washer resevoir!! Talk about 110% improvement by just adding bright new white ones. Also, I've got my AC lines and AC condensor polished up by using some mild steel wool followed by some Mothers polish. Pay attention to everything under the hood....not just the motor.

This is an older pic with the stock TPI. I don't have anygood pics of my current setup.

 

I'll tell you what I'd do, doesn't mean its right and many people wouldn't agree with me, but...
Clean is always more important than flashy.
Chrome is fine, but to me its completely out of place on a thirdgen. If you're happy with your aircleaner and valve covers, so be it, but I wouldn't push it much further or it'll start to look tacky.

I'm assuming you're going for carshow appearance. If so you'll need to decide whether to show it as stock, or modified. Generally for stock classes you can only have 5 or less non original parts that are visible and obvious. If you're going for modified it doesn't matter.

Obviously for stock classes you want to hide anything thats not original unless it adds to the appearance. In my case my entire ignition is not OEM but the basic physical appearance is the same and they're painted black to look OEM. Also you can pull any black trim under the hood that has overspray or rust present and spray it at the same time. you may also want to spray your alternator pulley since it doens't match the rest of the accessories. Semi-gloss black or flat black are the closest to right I've found. Make sure everything is organized and secure, route hoses and wiring harnesses so they're clear and sit in a manner that looks natural, etc. Polish any bare metal pieces (a/c lines, radiator cap, etc). Mothers aluminum magwheel polish or nevrdull work well for this, rubbing compound will work too. I'd replace the radiator cap with a GM piece, but thats just my opinion. The red pressure release tab looks out of place and clashes with the car. Same goes for the R134A conversion taps. If they required removing the cores in the original schrader valves, there isnt anything you can do without evacuating the A/C so you'll want ot leave them alone. If they just use an extension that presses the stock schrader valve, take them off and keep em with the car and use the stock caps for appearance. If your hood liner is dirty armorall will blacken it, if its ripped, get a new one, GM for about $20. While you're there you can do the overflow bottle and washer fluid bottle too ($20-25 each). And if you want pick up new emissions hose routing decals, and belt routing decals, etc Use windex and paper towels or a rag to clean all the sheet metal under the hood. If you have a lot of grease, get a engine bay cleaner and take it to a coin-op carwash and spray it all off. Then either use armorall or silicone spray to treat all the rubber and black parts to restore the luster. Have a look around after the above and see what stands out. Look at the car from every angle, if you see anything dirty, clean it. Have an unbiased person look it over for dirt and clean anythign they find. Replace anything missing or broken, etc...

When thats done it should look pretty good. If you need to jazz it up a bit you can go into the eye catching changes.

 

...Or just remove 'em!

Says who? Chome intakes, pullies, alt. fans, STB's, and other eninge items all look great in Thirdgens. In fact most Thirdgens in Magazines and car shows (that win at least) have chome eninge compartments. Now when you chome plalte the firewall and inner fenders we need to have a talk...

I agree with Drew on cleaning your engine. His process should leave you with a very clean, new looking engine bay. I do it everytime I go to the carwash.

Here's a look at mine:

 

Here are a couple of shots from my engine compartment. It is not totally clean here, and a couple of things aren't freshly polished - but anyways:










Ken

 

NEVER use silicone to freshen up the looks of things under your hood if you are fuel injected. The fi sensors are sensitive to silicone and will burn out. I know not many people know that, so EVERYONE please pass on the word and save you fellow 3rd gen owners a fortune in expensive parts

 

My engine bay looks like hell. It's a combination of little things. The flat black engine bay doesn't look as good as I'd hoped, and some of the stuff is dirty or stained, and it really destroys the whole look. My TPI intake base is stained, the fuel rails aren't real nice, my coolant & Pisser reservoirs are dirty, the throttle body is pitted, etc. The worst is my rusty headers.

Little things that I'm doing include repainting my airbox & radiator cover, replaced the upper radiator hose, etc. When I get coated headers & a new baseplate & throttle body, and paint my new valve covers & plenum grooves, it should make it about as good as it can get until I paint the engine bay.

Hmm. I had a point to writing this but it seems like it got burried. Anyway, my point was that your stuff has to look new to look nice. If cleaning it doesn't help, restore or replace parts!

 

Here's an idea.....

 

Lets try this again............

 

side view...How do I post more than one pic at a time???

 

I appreciate all the great advice, guys. You all have some nice looking engines.

 

WRONG!!! Silicone will damage O2 sensors. Don't spray it inside your throttle body. Anywhere else is fine. Every car detailer in the country uses a silicone based detailing spray to dress up a car before selling it. Its the fastest way to get a nongreasy gloss on the black parts of the engine. I've used silicone for the last three years without a problem and my cars used to get driven a lot. Even if it does cause problems with an O2 sensor, a new one is only $20.