Paint Your Valve Cover

Nothing creates a dramatic visual effect in your engine bay quite like a nicely painted valve cover. This tutorial will teach you the steps of painting your very own valve cover. We have included a material list and step by step instructions that you will need to make your valve cover look professionally painted. Here is the list of materials needed:

1.) Brake/engine cleaner

2.) High-temp paint

3.) 800 grit (or similar) wet sand paper

4.) Steel wool or fine sand paper (optional)

5.) Clear coat (optional)

All this should cost no more than $20. You can find these things at your local auto parts store or Wal-Mart. Now lets get to painting your valve cover!

1.) Remove the valve cover and place it on a trashbag, peice of newspaper, or anything that you dont mind painting along with your valve cover.

2.) Clean the valve cover with your brake/engine cleaner to remove all dirt, oil, and dust. Make sure its totally dry before you start painting.

3.) This step is optional. Use steel wool or very find sand paper to roughen up the surface of the valve cover. This step will help the paint stick better, resulting in a better looking valve cover.

4.) Now its time to paint. Use your high-temp paint and apply several coats to the valve cover. Make sure to allow at least 5 minutes of drying time between coats. Paint until you are happy with the color. Please note that you are even painting over the “Honda” letters in this step. We will sand off the letters later!

5.) This is the hard part. You want to wet sand the letters on the valve cover to give them a nice shine. The letters will look like polished metal in the end. To do this, use a block of wood or something similar to hold the sand paper with. Doing it by hand will risk sanding other areas of the valve cover. Use water and sand over the letters until you are happy with the look. This can take more than 10 minutes so be patient.

6.) Rinse the valve cover and dry it. You are done unless you want to apply a clear coat. Thats an optional step. How does it look? Good right? Ya, I though so!