Removing a UIM

[Sidewinder]

Its more because of it getting dirty and keeping it clean for it being a bad idea. It would better match my color scheme if it was white though.

[IsaacHayes]

If you sand it smooth enough, and use a high gloss paint or clear, it should wipe clean easy... My small port intakes always were pretty clean, no oxidation. I just took a black sharpie and colored the "3100 SFI" black and that's it... LOL it stayed like that until I removed them.

[Sidewinder]

Would it need to be high temp. paint?

[robertisaar]

any engine paint should be fine....

unless you have MASSIVE amounts of EGR running through the intake, then a high-temp paint would be a good investment...

i coated mine with VHT 1500*F stuff...

my dumbass self polished the letters before spraying it on, so it's flaking off there, but otherwise, it's working well. not cheap though. like ~10 a can last time i checked.

[IsaacHayes]

I used Wal-mart $1 spray can white for my chevrolet letters (cause I didn't want to drop $5 for a can of engine paint white for just letters).

It's held up for years now and has not turned yellow or anything. I did use high temp chevy red-orange for the bow tie ($5 can again lol) to get the right color, and then semi-gloss black engine paint for the rest. I did sand where the lettering went, but didn't polish. I used the paper sanding discs that come with dremels, to take down the rough cast so the letters would be crisp and I could lay down my mask.

[1988GTU]

You should soak the aluminum in a good washable cleaner. Then soak the aluminum part in continuous hot water for a while. Then once done, convect some heat to the part and bake the pores of the casting. After all said and done, it is ready for prime/paint. Doing all this will decrease your chances in the paint chipping, flaking off.

[IsaacHayes]

I'm careful as hell around mine since it's not just painted a solid color but custom painted with lettering/etc but on the parts that do rub into it, nothing has come off. I did use a lot of coats of the black though. Lots of light-medium coats.

For prep I used dish soap and a scrub brush to get the oil and dirt and oxidation off. Then I sprayed it down with some brake cleaner really good, then washed again. It was pretty filthy when I got it. The LIM however was a smooth cast which was not very porous at all, and wiped clean really easily. Same for my original valve covers. I could have polished them as-was without sanding them first. In fact they were so smooth they made the semi-gloss black look like high gloss!