I have seen many pics, mostly on here of people's hoods wide open, with their engine bay painted black, and the rest of their car painted another color.

Did Firebirds come with different engine bay colors compared to the exterior color, or are these paint jobs aftermarket?

 

Thirdgens had the engine bay painted body color from the factory. Black engine bays are "aftermarket".

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George P. Lara
1984 Z28
2001 SS #0391
SCCA, SCFB, SC3GFB

 

Thats only partially correct. The engine bays on Van Nuys cars were all body color, however Norwood cars have the top of the cowl painted black and the rest of the bay engine color.

 

Drew,
I thought the same as you until I looked at my car. My vin # is 1G1FP2189HL149337. This # and the paint quality say Van Nuys, but the engine compartment panel is painted black.

http://www.users.uswest.net/~smoyer/Another Engine Photo.htm

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87 IROC 350 TPI with less than 10k original miles
93 Z28 Pace Car #494 of 645
86 Olds 442 (All Original)
My IROC Website
Northstar Camaro Club of Minnesota




[This message has been edited by scottmoyer (edited July 31, 2001).]

 

The picture isn't working correctly. Copy and paste the link and you can also see another angle of the engine area.

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87 IROC 350 TPI with less than 10k original miles
93 Z28 Pace Car #494 of 645
86 Olds 442 (All Original)
My IROC Website
Northstar Camaro Club of Minnesota

 

Scott,

I'd start going over the car very carefully. Every body panel on your car should have a vin tag stuck on it. I'd check each of those and make sure they all match. There's no reason why it couldn't have been repainted, too. In my experiance there haven't been any exceptions.

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Drew
predatorman@hotmail.com
83 Camaro 5.0L *1995-98*
87 Iroc 5.7L
91 Formula 5.7L 14.3@98mph
91 RS Convertible 5.0L
91 Firebird 3.1L
92 S10 2.8L For Sale!
98 Grand Am GT 3.1L

 

In my car (VIN plant code L, Van Nuys) the K-member is black, the top of the cowl is black, but the firewall and the "frame rails" that are part of the body are body color. Looks like the body went through paint and the K-member was added later in the assembly process, probably in a subassembly along with the suspension and engine.

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

[This message has been edited by RB83L69 (edited July 31, 2001).]

 

My RS was made in Van Nuys has a black engine compartment.
.
.
Oh yeah, I guess it's because the car's black too.

I'm gonna go look at my Z, which is from Norwood real quick...

Ok. The car's blue, but the top of the cowl's black.

Ya learn something new every day...

 

That is exactly how my two '84 Z28 are painted, one is from Van Nuys (VIN = L, RPO = VAN) and the other from Norwood (VIN = N).

Typically when talking about engine bays, it is only the area around the engine in which it sits in. Not to include the cowl area, just the firewall, inner fender wells and radiator support.

 

All of my GTAs (Van Nuys cars all) are body color from the base of the windshield down to the start of the undercarriage... red, black, and gray.

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Frankie Rider, 2
The GTA Source Page
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'88 GTA Red Hatchback - 5.7L/A4
'88 GTA Black Notchback - 5.7L/A4
'88 GTA Gunmetal Hatchback - 5.0L/A4

 

I can neither confirm or deny this question because my car is black, so everything is black.

 

Im still trying to find a pic, but I am 99.9999% sure my 85 TA (Van Nuys car) was painted satin black across the cowl.

 

Right Max, that's what mine is, a kind of flat or satin black, not gloss at all. The K-member was all groaty when I had to replace it once (don't ask) and the new one came from GM with some sort of waxy black coating on it, it wasn't paint exactly, but it sure was nasty

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

86 T/A from Van Nuys

Black across the cowl the rest of the compartment and firewall.... body color.



But to answer your question they should have painted them all black.... so when you do a color change you won't have to mess with the engine compartment.

 

I'm changing my body color to silver from blue, and when I changed the motor, I painted the bay satin black. Looks much better IMO. Thats pretty intesting anyway.

 

I've owned my '86 Camaro since new, its a Van Nuys car, and it has the cowl painted black just like in Mikes pic above. Kind of a semi-gloss paint originally, now oxidized to more of a satin or semi-flat.

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'86 Camaro Sport Coupe and '88 IROC