I just got my block and heads redone, and I want to paint them. What color were the original TPI blocks/heads painted? Thanks.

 

Ughhh what ? LOL THe factory never painted the block or the heads in thirdgens.

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Wrong.

The correct answer is "black".

 

Hey, just a thought, but would painting it a lighter color make it run any cooler? Cause black absorbs a lot of heat. Probably not but hey, you never know!

 

acually Blue.......you have it backwards, black in this case would help dissapate heat faster.

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85 Berlinetta Iroc exterior Lg4 305 best e.t 14.4 street tires naturally aspirated....installing/ rebuilding 450-475 HP 454....YAHOOO!!!

 

The common misconception about black "absorbing heat" comes from why black stuff is black. White light is made up of the entire spectrum of colors, the rainbow you see after rain is the spectrum. Stuff appears to be certain colors because it absorbs certain wavelengths (colors) of light and reflects others. A white object reflects almost all the wavelengths where a black object absorbs almost all of them. So, when your out on a hot summer day your black shirt gets hotter because it is absorbing more light (and converting it to heat) than your white shirt that's reflecting most of it...Just a little lesson on the physics of light and color for anyone who was interested...

-Mark W.
'88 SC Camaro w/ 305 TBI

 

Which doesn't affect your BLACK engine block much because the hood's usually closed and it's pretty dark under there.

 

What color is yours? Rust?

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1989 Pontiac Firebird Formula LO3 Auto
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Actually, the color has changed over the years. From the 50s to sometime in the mid 70s, Chevys were orange. Then they went to "corporate blue" until the mid 80s, when they switched to "black".

Funny thing, a buddy recently purchased a new Silverado 2500 with the 6.0L LS-2, and somehow I recall the block wasn't painted and just bare cast-iron. I will definitely have to look closer again. But I distinctly remembered discussing that it looked like the block wasn't painted.

 

Orange was used on BBC or H.O SBCs, all others used blue. My father had many new chevys in the '60s and '70s and they all came with Chevy blue engine. Even my fathers '78 vette has a blue engine, like my '79 Caprice I had. When they switched to black was when the dipstick (I believe) went to the other side, passenger in 1980. If you look at pictures of L69s, they were all black (even the intake).

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George P. Lara
1984 "L69" A4
1994 LT1 M6
Member:
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I've NEVER seen the block or the heads painted on a SBC in a thirdgen. What kinda crack are guys smoking ? Mine isn't rusted yet since it's fairly new. I still don't believe GM painted the blocks black from the factory...

 

K I just went out in the parking lot and looked at three of my friends' thirdgens with original engines. None of them were painted !

 

Sorry Blade, but they are indeed black. Maybe they are just covered in dirt or grease. Cast iron is initially grey when new and turns rusty brown, just like your exhaust manifolds.

MrZ28HO, maybe it was a "Canadian thing" but they were orange starting in the 50s and until the early 70s. Possibly they are forgetting or didn't have the original motors. But in Canada, SBCs during the 60s were orange and I am positive they were in the US as all motors installed in Canada were built in the US to best of my old feabile memory.

Don't worry "Mr Chevrolet" (RB83L69) most definitely knows (probably down to the specific week) of when the colors changed.

Now Pontiacs (the other GM car that I owned) had a funny "turquois blue/green" up to the eary 70s, when I believe they too went to "corporate blue" sometime in the 70s like I think all division did.

[This message has been edited by Glenn91L98GTA (edited February 02, 2001).]

 

Sorry to digress but I had to say something about both 99Hawk120 and Mark305TBI comments. Ever put your hand infront of your face while looking at the big bond fire, it gets a lot cooler. That is becuase your hand absorbs the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and it is infrared which radiats heat, infact most of the heat you feel from the sun is infared radiation. Anything hot radiats infra-red, whether the sun or your exhaust manifold, or a human body. Black not only absorbs light but also infared(which is right before visible red) so black compents under your hood will heat up much faster then shinny components. This is ignoring a lot of other factors but basically that was my long way of saying color does matter, even without sunlight.

[This message has been edited by UVA3rdGen (edited February 02, 2001).]

 

I think I know why the discrepency, maybe different engine plants painted then different colors?

Blade, all SBC were painted from the factory to ensure that rust or any kind of corrosion did not start. Kinda like the frames being painted. Trust us when we say they were painted. Those engines you saw were probably rebuilt and who ever did the work didn't bother to paint them. It happens.

Whoops, don't need sig again

[This message has been edited by MRZ28HO (edited February 02, 2001).]

 

Ive owned 3 thirdgens, and we have 4 other GM vehicles around here. All the engines were/are painted black. Like Glenn said, if you dont think its painted, then it would have to be rust colored. If its not, then its painted black. If you are scratching to check, iron when it isnt rusted is dark gray, so you may not have noticed that it is painted.

 

My '82's engine came from the factory BLUE.

My '83's engine came from the factory BLACK.

Both original LG4's.

No crack smoking here.

Sorry to here about you and your friends rusty engine's Blade.

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Kenney
82 Trans Am WS7 notchback
83 Trans Am WS6 T-tops
72 Vista Cruiser 455
90 Olds Trofeo
80 K-10 w/snow plow
Painter @ Chevy dealer
GM junkie

 

You're right about the infared, but do you mean your face gets cooler? That's because your hand if blocking the radiation from your face, not necesarily abosorbing it all.

 

I'm surprized that nobody mentioned the Olds engines that were orange from the factory!

My LG4 is black as black gets!

I believe that the engines with aluminum heads fgrom the factory, left the heads unpainted. But, none of the thirdgen's came with factory alum heads anyway (Or did they?).

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Working on:
'84 Z28 LG4 305 with 200,000 original miles!
Added dual elec fans.
145 MPH IROC Speedo
Building 430 HP 350
using primarily GMPP parts.
Block is STILL in shop! (Waiting for my to buy the rods!)

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Starting to look like the Kicker poster child!

 

My GoodWrench motor came gray, but I guess that doesn't count.

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Don't mean to take this out of tech context but to claim engines are not painted from the factory and then claim that three cars were checked for engine paint in 2 minutes (check posting times of Blade above) including getting keys, popping hoods, closing hoods, and hey i guess they were parked right next to each other, returning to the computer (maybe a laptop with sat link) and posting again. WOW! What a guy. How can we dought such a Superman. I guess someone pulled my motors out, stipped them down, painted them and put them back at the dealer.

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Kenney
82 Trans Am WS7 notchback
83 Trans Am WS6 T-tops
72 Vista Cruiser 455
90 Olds Trofeo
80 K-10 w/snow plow
Painter @ Chevy dealer
GM junkie

 

JP84, we had a lot of "orange" in other divisions' cars. But they turned out to be Chevy engines. In Canada, you only got REAL Poncho motors in Grand Prixs, Firebirds and GTOs during the 60s. All others came with Chevy motors. In fact, prior to 1969, we couldn't get a Grand Prix, we got a Grande Parisienne instead (with a Chevy motor).

Also, Tempests intermediates prior to the early 70s were not available. We got a "Beaumont" which was a Chevelle with different grille, taillights and the dash from a GTO. I owned both a 64 Beaumont 327 (Chevy orange motor) and a 1968 400 GTO (Pontiac torquois motor).

 

To settle the color/heat argument. Black absorbs all of the colors of the visible light spectrum and reflects little of the light back, and as was previously stated, converts this light energy into heat. Since you have a HOOD over your engine, there is little light that enters that will be converted into heat. The statement made before about infrared also being absorbed by the black paint was incorrect because heat engergy has a longer wavelength which is more easily EMITTED by darker or rougher surfaces.

So if your put a black engine and a white engine in the sun, the black one will heat up more quickley. But if you put them both in the shade, the black one will cool down faster. Unless your engine is in a direct light source, it will run cooler if it is painted black.

 

O.K. This is really annoying, but I can't seem to find any photos of my ThirdGen that show the sides of the block clearly. While the exhaust manifolds are completly burned to bare iron, and the heads are charred around the exhaust ports, the rest of the iron is painted BLACK, from the factory, just like every other 1983 and newer GM engine was.

The auto engines from 1953-1976 were painted orange (ALL Chevrolet engines, inline and V-6, too), and the intermediate years 1977-1982 were the dull corporate blue.

An acquaintance is rebuilding a 1941 Chevy convertible coupe, and is looking for what he says is the original dark gray engine paint from those years. According to this same individual, the color from the mid-'30s and earlier was also black. My 1950 3100 pickup engine still had traces of the dark blue on it when the 235CID babbit bearing low-oil pressure six came out.

GM always paints their engines, and has since at least the 1930's, and probably before. If your engine has no paint, it has been burned/washed/worn off. When you get around to pulling it out, look closely at the recesses around the freeze plugs to find the traces of the original engine color.

BTW - Your engine will run cooler with a fresh coat of any color paint, since it won't have a nice insulating layer of greasy crud all over it (like a Ford engine). The 1° difference due to color selection will easily be offset with a good cooling system, since there is no paint on the inside of a factory engine.

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Later,
Vader
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"Make Me Bad..."
Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0

[This message has been edited by Vader (edited February 02, 2001).]

 

Just some heat transfer info here,
Black is about as good of an emmitter as we're gonna get. Probably about an emmissivity of around .90 or so.

[This message has been edited by RednGold86Z (edited February 02, 2001).]

 

Man, look what you started!

To all those who commented about the color of engines in other years of Chevys, I assumed "CamaroX84" has a 1984 Chevrolet Camaro. That is why I answered as I did. My '57's original 283 was orange (as is the '66 396 in it now), the '79 Caprice 305 I used to have was blue, my LG4 is black. The '87 LB9 setting in the garage looks silver from 10' away, but get up close and you'll see that what paint is left is black.

As for color and heat, you're finally getting it right at about reply #24. White reflects heat, so paint the underside of your intake white to reject the heat from the oil. Black absorbs but also emits heat - that's why radiators are painted black! This goes for all wavelengths of the light spectrum, including visable, UV & infrared.

Hey, CamaroX84, I'd suggest painting your engine with black engine paint...

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82 Berlinetta, orig V-6 car, now w/86 LG4/TH700R. 2.93 limited slip. Cat-back from '91 GTA, Accel HEI SuperCoil. AMSOIL syn lubes bumper-to-bumper. Daily driver, work-in-progress (LG4 w/LB9 block, ZZ3 cam and intake, WP 305 heads ported & polished, Hooker headers & y-pipe, hi-flow cat).
57 Bel Air, my 1st car. 0.030 over 396, Weiand Action+, Edelbrock 1901 Q-Jet, Jacobs Omnipack, 1-3/4" headers, TH400 w/TCI Sat Night Special conv & shift kit, 3.08 10-bolt, AMSOIL syn lubes bumper-to-bumper. Best 15.1 @ 5800' Bandimere. Daily driver while Camaro was being put together.

 

hey blade. ok....i didnt think my engine was painted either. Thinking back. then someone mentioned what UNpainted looks like. the exhaust manifolds. they are ugly rust brown. the engine...in comparison is dark....under the goo....it is faded black....that is...underneath...in hidden corners, on top however the paint was gone....and once cleaned, was more of a cast iron color.

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Rick
90 Camaro RS 305 TBI
400 small block, Hooker 1 3/4 LTs, Random Tech Cat, Hooker aero chamber cat back on the way!!
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Man if my camaro were a rice-rocket all those mods would give me what...easily 50-60 hp!!!

"Just because I've done it, doesn't mean I knew what I was doing!" - Me

 

five7kid,
I do have an 84 Camaro, but the motor is from an 89 Trans Am. The 89 motors are black, right? Now, I'm not sure, but you guys talking about all the heat absorbtion/reflection, isn't the heat inside the engine compartment coming FROM the engine? I don't really think it makes that much of a difference, if the heat is circulating in the compartment. The engine will be hot, no matter what. Just my .02.