Two kinda silly questions, but im not 100% sure. 1) valve covers. Can i just take them off of my 305 and paint them. Do ihave to drain fluids or nethin like that? Also, is there a foot/lb torque specified for putting them back on, or just snug them down?.
2) Looking at the engine, left hand side. Two huge hoses coming from the back of the engine. One goes to the top of this lil black plastic piece, then out to another? What are thy?

You shouldnt have to drain any fluids to remove your valve covers. Just wait a little while after its been ran. All the oil will drain to the oil pan.
Im not sure about the hoses you are talking about. Do they go into the fire wall?

Also make sure you dont torque the bolts back down too much. just snug them down, and you should probably change you gasket and use a little rtv glue.

I believe those hoses you are talking about are the hoses for the smog pump and the A.I.R. system.

Ok, another question. When would you get sniffed if you had to? Because i dont think i have since ive had the car, and id love to pull all of that crap out adn clean up the engine bay

Where I am they check the cars every two years.

Do they tell you that you are supposed to get it done or something?

Well here in Cook County they send out envelopes stating that you must get your car checked by a certain date. If I were you I would call or try to get in touch with some type of governmental facility in your area and find out if they administer emissions checking. If you've lived there for a while though and haven't heard anything and have a registered car there I wouldn't worry about it.

In that case, how does one go about removign it? what does it do for the engine?

If you remove it you wont see any performace gains, but you'll see an appearance improvement

Just make sure you don't have to pass an emissions test, here in PA I have to go in yearly and it's the hard to pass test so I'm stuck with my crap on there for awile.

This should help you out: https://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/t...rpentine.shtml

Thats great, how to reroute the serp belt. How to i remove all the smog crap, where is it?..and what needs to be done?

Haynes manual called for 12 ft/lbs. Chilton manual calls for 8 ft/lbs. I'd trust the Chilton #s. When I did mine last, I did not have my Chilton's manual yet and 12 ft/lbs seems like an awful lot.