I took brake cleaner and a tooth brush. After that a sponge and dish washer. Let it dry in the oven and painted 2 layers of Enamel premium paint. After that I baked it for a good half an hour. The valve cover does not get as hot I guess and the original paint under it should protect it from peeling of. If I would paint on bare metal, things would look different, but I kept the original red paint with the ruff surface on.

Thanks for the nice comments guys

 

looks good

 

clean

 

thanks for the info


what did you set the heat to while baking

 

looks good i like the whole black and gold theme

 

The gold plug cover screws are a nice touch, props to you

 

Looks hot!

 

very sexy! is there is DIY on this? If not, you should definately do a write up!

 

 

Since this caused more interest than expected (normally my threads get locked within 24h ) I shall sum up what I have done:

1. Removed the spark plug cover. It's an idiot-prove job even for a first timer. Just take out all the bolts you see on top, disconect the 2 sensors in the back, pop out the dip stick and take that thing off. The gasket can be reused, no need for a new one.After you took it of, remove the 2 sensors from the cover. Just pull them gently out.
2. My cover was pretty greasy so I started with some brake cleaner that I had left from the brake calipers paint package. Due to the ruff surface, I highly recommend a tooth bruch. It helps to reach all the corners too.
3. You don't want any greeze on the to-be-panited surface, so wash your hands with dish washer (I washed the cpver as well) and avoid any paper wipes, they leave small hairs all over the place.
4.I dried the cover in the oven (50C only) to make sure there is no water left in the corners and let it cool down a bit.
5. Cover all the holes with tape.
6. I used a laundry hanger that I bend into a hook to hang the cover. It's not a good idea to keep it on the ground since the spray can works best in full vertical possition specially once it's low on paint. The last thing you want to create a nice surface is interruption of the paint flow into the nozlle.
7. After the first coat, I kept it for 230min in the oven, temp was 150C but the door of the oven was not fully closed to allow the paint thiner to vaporize out. Keep kitchen fan on!
8. Re-do step 6&7, remove tape, enjoy

Now to the spark plug cover. Prepare the surface same as the valve cover. Covering up all the details of the letters with a tape is a P.I.T.A. so I desided to paint over and remove paint later. Toluen did the trick, the problem is once it comes on the edge of the letters (they are painted as well on the OEM cover), the paints starts peeling off (then you have to wash the whole thing in paint-thiner like I did)
BTW mild toluen is a good paint thinner in case you screw up.Just soak the whole thing in it, use a brush and you can start again. Just place it in the oven to make sure all toluen is gone.
Now once the paint has dried out, put some fine sand paper on a even surface (thick carton works best), turn the spark lug cover upside down and make sure only the letters are touching the paper (they stick out). Move the cover on the s.paper in one direction only, it will remove the paint only on the top of the letters and create fine scratches in one direction, so you get that "mashined" look.
If you want to keep the stock surface of the silver letters, you have to cover them up or remove the paint with paint thinner.

The screew were just mildly sandpapered, screwed into carton and painted with the same metalic gold as the spark plug cover.

Good luck!