I know what I'm doing now when I start my 3.4 swap...haha.

Are you going to gasket match the ports and help it flow better? I've read (could be mistaken) that you want to only work on the inside radius of the runners.

 

you know, I'm really not into speed and HP. I don't think I'm going to change a thing, unless it's something so simple it would be stupid not to

I'll post more pics after I clean the emblem

 

looks good!

 

 

fixed the emblem with glossy black caliper paint.

I also polished up the tensioner pully. I wish I had taken a before pic, it looked crusty and disgusting




next... figuring out what to do with the valve covers.

I'm sure glad I have that extra engine, I would hate to have disabled my car for this long

 

dang!

I just had to take the freaking lower manifold off to remove the valve covers! I wasn't expecting to have to o all of that just to clean the valve covers.

I'm SO GLAD I have this extra engine. there is no way I would be doing this on my installed engine. It would be out of service for way too long.

I guess I'll plan on putting new injector o-rings on when I put the polished engine parts on. It's tempting to replace the injectors at the same time, but they aren't giving any indication that they are bad.

man, this job is getting big. I hope to have it all ready for the texas gathering in june

 

Hehe, I found out while tearing mine down the things have not 2, but 3 intake manifolds. So it was probably the MIM, gotta love those early year fuel injection systems :P

 

yeah, it was the middle one...

now I'm having another issue... I want to polish the valve covers, but if I do I have to take off the paint and the primer.

If I remove the primer, they are going to rust, probably even with clear coat. I'm going back to think about powdercoating, but for that price I might as well buy the edlebrock chrome valve covers

hmmmm

 

Paint them.

 

That intake looks really good, I found this one at the pick and pull today, it has no ridges. I think Im either gonna sell it of polish it.

 

Strange...

 

wow, that would be a snap to polish! I personall like the ridges, but they did make getting the finish perfect nearly impossible

I bet there would be plenty of people that would be interested in that.

 

just clear engine paint? no primer?

would that work?

 

I wouldn't use clear, but I used engine enamel on my valve covers and it stayed on their fine, but mine weren't smooth either.

 

rough them up with some sandpaper first. It would really surprise me if the engine enamil didnt stick with sanding.

 

Yeah, I sanded mine to clean them up good, and cause I knew it would help the paint stick, intake manifold had good powdercoat on it still so the paint stuck to that fine.

 

Get the Fiero valve covers. The are aluminim, they have a similar ridge design- sort of- and you can strip them and polish to match the intake. Some dressup accessories, like contrasting plug wires, billet bracketry etc and you will be styling!

 

Thanks for the tip. I've already got both valve covers almost ready, but It's something to think about

 

valve cover update

they were more dented up than I thought they would be, but they turned out pretty good.

before


after

 

I decided to go ahaed and hit them with the buffer and then clear coat them. let's see if the paint sticks...

 

spent three days putting on some parts I've been polishing up. They look nice, but if I had known how much work it was going to be tearing down the engine as far as it needed to be to get to those parts, I would have stopped with just the plenum.

The second picture doesn't do it justice.. it really looks better in person
before

After

 

Well it definitely looks better than mine with its rust flakes in the lifter valley and cylinders, black top pistons, and rust covered exhaust manifolds just kind of hanging there till I get a sawsaw.

 

That looks really good! I always envy people who have the patience to detail their engines.

 

i like powdercoat

 

more vanity upgrades...

I polished the alternator, and replaced the overflow tank with a new one...

 

Looks great, you really need a set of Fiero valve covers! Black with the aluminum accents on top would look great.

Also if you want to delete the AIR system ( I can't really tell if you have it or not ) I have a set of non-air manifolds

 

yeah, there were enough differences that it scared me off those... plus... I coudn't even get the passenger cover off...

I started to loosen some rusty bolts over there and one snapped, so I said "screw that" and didn't do that side. If I ever have the engine out, I'll change it then

 

by the way... don't do what I did... I THOUGHT my washer bottle looked ok, it was a ton better than my old and nasty radiator overflow bottle... until I replaced the overflow bottle, and and now I think the washer bottle looks nasty.... Oh well, those are more expensive, it will have to wait

 

Looks like it just rolled off the factory floor...I hope I'll have that same patience during my 3.4 build...I might get impatient and just put it together so I can feel the difference in power. Haha!

 

thanks, but in some ways it looks better than new. GM never considered appearance when putting these cars together, so the plenum is just this blob of rough cast aluminum. it took days of filiing, sanding and polishing to get it to looks half way good, and close up it still doesn't look amazing.

I'm considering polishing the original one I took off, and I bet I can do a better job the second time.

 

I might do the same...but might just go powder coat...most likely red, to accent the red pin-strips on my camaro. Over done color...but at least it will match/contrast the body color(s).

 

The V6 will never be a beautiful engine IMO. I painted my plenum and some other parts silver but don't think I'll be doing much more work to the engine cosmetically. For looks focus on the interior and exterior, no one will ever be impressed with how clean the V6 in an f-body looks. If money or time is to be spent on the engine it should be to make it preform better.
The TPI on the other hand makes for a beautiful engine bay...

 

Bleh, I wish my engine bay looked half as good as his, but if I can even get things running with my setup I'll definitely have him beat in the power category, and be ecstatic :P Course it's still not too late really, but I'm not touching the block with it in there, I might touch up on everything else though with rust converter and black paint, maybe that head a bit too on the front. If not now, I definitely will at some point....Right now its just nice to look under my hood and have 1 more part instead of 1 less. And 1 less part in my living room for that matter...

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/v6/5...nally-all.html

 

see, my attitude is, it "performs" perfectly. It starts reliably, and runs smooth.
If I was interested in any more than that, I wouldn't have a v6.

I'm NEVER going impress anybody with how fast this car goes, but I can take pride in a really clean engine bay that looks "stock plus" not tricking it out with chrome, but making the factory parts look the best they can.

In car restoration terms, it's called over-restoring. I'm not a mod guy, but more of a stock pride guy

 

I buffed my dryer.. I'm entering my car in a car show this weekend. I don't expect it to win jack, but it's a buddy's car show, my band is playing, so I thought I would enter it.

 

i want to know how it goes.

 

i decided to take the alternator buffing to the next level. I bought a new alternator (acutally slightly used, but new to me) sanded it down smooth, and then buffed it on the wheel

this picture does NOT do it justice. Sitting here in front of me it looks like chrome to my eye. can't wait to put it on, it's going to look a ton better than my other one, and I still have it as a backup

 

What intake is that????

 

That's a 3.4 RWD from a 93-95 F-body.

 

looks a lot different when its not stuffed under the windshield of the 4th gen huh lol

 

it looks ****in amazing

 

thanks man! it looked even better after I repainted the emblem

 

im going to be rebuilding my piddly litte 2.8 over the winter, and plan to blast and paint the block hugger orange, chrome valve covers, polish the plenum, altenator, and anything else that can be polished, respray the engine bay itself, and get some polished headers. should look sweet.

 

LOL, months after I polished it, I finally put that alternator on

Today I also put a like new washer bottle on... the old one looked yellow




it's getting there... There's not much more I can do without taking the engine out

 

Put some gloss black on the air intake and other black pieces.

 

the air intake is already gloss... if you use a little compound on it. It looks better in person than it does in the pic

I'd like to have a chrome cover for the master cylinder, but I haven't seen one of those in a price I'm willing to pay yet

It's funny, today, after I put IN the washer bottle, I starting wondering what it would look like if I just deleted both bottles

 

Taking out the washer fluid bottle won't pass inspectionl, and the overflow tank might cause problems, idk. I've seen people swap in 2 in one units though. Seeing it now I can't help but feel that removing the hood struts thins things out nicely, but I doubt you want the trouble,lol.

 

Looks nice. Have you looked into any of those chrome coolant and washer fluid cans? They're a lot smaller and a ton better looking than those cruddy plastic bottles.

 

interesting... I never thought about that taking the bottles out would keep it from passing inspection... so you can have a washer bottle with a busted pump, but you can't have a missing washer bottle... Funny

Maverick, I've never seen chrome bottles... not sure if they would look right or not, I would have to see them on a car

 

Never seen those either, and I would think a busted pump would fail you also, the idea is that if you're driving along and something gets on your windshield it will cause visibility issues blah blah blah more bs law. But honestly come to think of it man, that thing isn't hard to remove and put back on, just take put it on for inspections then take it off, thats what I'll be doing with some crap, namely EGR. That or I'll take where I used to live since theres no emissions there.