Just a couple quick questions so I combined them in one post:

I am trying to get my tpi setup looking real respectable-like. I the plenum taken down to a 400 grit "polish" and haven't yet started on the runners. I am going to paint it so I'm not going any further than 400.

Is there any reason to sand the base? It looks like it would require a lot of sanding by hand and I don't really want to do that. Maybe I could get the rough cast finish off and leave it at that?

Thanks

Edit: Forget about the wheels part. I really like the look of mine, but I want something wider.

 

It sucks sanding the base. I attempted to polish one.. there are so many small tight spots and grooves that it becomes very very tough to reach them. I was using sanding rolls from a dremel, it would eat them up too quickly. So I have a half sanded down intake sitting in my garage.

 

Anyone else?

 

If you want to polish the intake, dremel sanding drums are not the place to start. Eastwood sells a kit for polishing cast aluminum that would work for this purpose, but its not exactly cheap.

 

Drew, in that polishing kit is nothing but sanding drums and rolls. That's the way you do an intake, except where it's possible to do it with buffing wheels. To polish it once sanded, you'd use a minibuff, facer buff, or the little felt bobs.

It's a pain to do it, and the followed by that fact that you can barely see our intakes once in the car, I don't believe it'd be worth it.

 

The top of the line dremel turns 30,000RPM running wide open and slows down considerably when applying with any kind of pressure. Not to mention the dremel sanding drums dont have enough surface area to last more than a moment or two before the grit will load up with aluminum. Dremel's were good tools in their time, but their uses are pretty limited and now there are plenty of tools that do the same job. About the only thing I've used my dremel for in the past year or so was with the cutting disc's. They suck for polishing, most of the attachments suck for metal, etc...

 

What about a die grinder? I use one everytime I polish something, and use a da sander,and polishing wheels on bench griners also. The pic of my advatar is my own plenum that I polished in 5 hours of work, but I didnt put any clear coat on it so the shine didnt last long.Plus I was tearing down the plenum to swap out injectors and fuel lines,and sanding my car down to bare metal. Oh on a side note I primed my SC today Im sooooo happy right now

 

I still disagree. A dremel is by no means out of date. Maybe to those have an air compressor to run a air powered die grinder. But that's bascially all a dremel is, a electric powered die grinder. The kit that comes from east wood is to be used by a die grinder. Other than the wheels, which could be used by a drill or buffer.

But I do agree dremel sanding drums wear out too fast. A sanding roll works much better, and if I'm not mistaken you can use tallow grease and enhance the life of the roll by alot.

That's beside the point still... polishing an intake is tough in my opinion. Not a plenum, but the actual intake.

Like 85SportCoupeto89RS said, it's bascially a die grinder, DA sander and buffing wheels that do the majority of polishing. A dremel works in the place of a die grinder, even if it's not quite as efficient.