328 Air Box plenum paint

Anyone have any suggestions on where I can get some red paint that matched the color on the air box plenum? ('86 328 GTS) I don't want to repaint the whole thing, just some minor touch up before the next concors where some of the red has flaked off. I'd prefer something in a small bottle but a spray can will work if that's all that is out there (if anything is out there).

 

Good luck Peter. The official color is Ferrari rosso corsa, in wrinkle paint, which cannot be bought in America. If you need to touch up a very small area, may be a touch up paint stick (not wrinkle). All I could ever find was a more orangy wrinkle paint in a can. Fading (more like darkening) from heat and age is another factor.

 

VHT Wrinkle Finish - Red looks pretty close, but I would suggest that you remove the Plenum and re-do the whole thing. It is not that big a job, just need some double jointed fingers. It is well documented somewhere here.
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Oh, BTW, if you decide to remove the Plenum and paint it, keep in mind the usual warnings about the small metal Spacers in the Rubber Gaskets between the Plenum and the Intake Manifolds. Make sure they do NOT fall down into the engine! That too is documented here somewhere.

 

...and of course powder coat vs. paint. We powder coated and it is really nice. Not quite as wrinkly, but really close and super durable... A little before and after...

Franny
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The 328 plenum is hard to match. Most of the pics above are much too red IMO. It might be one of those jobs where you get a painter to mix something up for you and then apply it by hand in the affected areas only in order to try & replicate the texture. Won't be easy if you want to maintain the original colour but there is a lot to be said for originality & patina these days.

 

+1 on the VHT wrinkle paint. It is a readily available product and no one will know it's not original. Your original paint color is already 30 plus years old, open to the environment, so surly has changed. This is one area not to overthink. Just my $0.02

 

+2 c!!

 

Mine was done by Bradan here in NY. Maybe you can take off and ship to them for a refinish. He had to mix the paint to match OEM. I think it came out great.
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What Braden did was to use VHT red wrinkle paint, wait for it to dry, and reshoot with regular Rosso Corsa to get the right color.

 

I have done the same thing to my plenum, which had small chips here and there that were not big enough for me to want to repaint the whole thing.

If you go to an automotive paint store, they have books of color "chips" (small samples of each color sprayed onto a piece of cardboard). They are analogous to those available at a hardware store for wall paint. They are prepared by the paint manufacturer. They also have a small machine that can measure the color of a painted surface, but the plenum does not have a flat area big enough to use the machine.

These books are precious to the paint store, but if they let you bring the sample book out to the car, you can find a red that matches suitably. For small touchups it doesn't matter that it is not crinkle paint. You should get it as a flat sheen though. Based on the mixing formula for the paint sample you select, they can prepare for you a small (3 or 4 oz or so) bottle of paint. Use an extremely fine artist's brush to apply the paint.

One thing that you will disccover is the factory red on your plenum has aged to a million different shades; you'll have to pick a red that matches them all the best.

The plenum restorations I have seen are often too red and the finish is much more "crinkley" that what the factory had. I prefer the appearance of my million-different-shades plenum although it does not look new; it looks 30 years old but without paint chips.

 

Not a great photo as I took it last night but mine is in overall good paint condition, just some chips along the top edges. Not enough to worry about removing and repainting. I may just take some Dr. Color Chip rosa and touch it up.

It's concorso season and the judging standards have been raised in all scoring ranges. Small chips like mine can be a 1/2 point deduct. Not a lot but it all adds up. Hard to make a 97 score on a 30 year old drivers car. Received a 96 score last year.
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Yes. I think that's exactly what they did.

 

+1

No one knows the exact hue it was from 30 years ago.

 

The higher up the points you go, the more little stuff like this matters.

I have a 98 point car which includes a 1/2 point deduction for my nicely painted but million-different-shades plenum. I suspect it was really a cumulative 1/2 point off for several tiny things, but I don't know for sure.

 

Just a word of caution for others that might want to spray over the VHT red wrinkle paint... That is the direction I went initially and it was a huge bummer! That VHT paint will wrinkle based on the thickness of the paint laid down. So, lots of thin coats - no wrinkle. Thick coats will pool in the valleys and will be super wrinkly there, but the vertices will be mostly flat. I stripped and painted three times. The final time wasn't perfect, but pretty good. I let it dry for two weeks and even baked it in the oven for a couple hours. I then got a dupli-color Rosso Corsa spray can and did a few very light coats about 1/2 hour apart. Initially it looked pretty good, but then the paint reacted with the VHT and it all bubbled off. That was it... I stripped it a final time and took it to the powder coater and had a wrinkle power applied in a super close color and it has been awesome. Super durable and looks the part. IMHO, the plenum is the most obvious visual in the engine bay. If it looks tatty, then the entire bay will suffer. Totally JMHO though...

Franny

 

I just used VHT and be done with it. Not a perfect match? wait a year.

 

That VHT is really orange... At least the stuff I used... I don't think it was even close. All the other applications I have seen on other cars have started to crack and peel off within a year. Probably more about surface prep as with most paint, but why fuss with all that when you can get it done for good for not that much more? Big disclaimer: I do suck at painting, so... Of course do what you want Just relaying my experience...

Franny

 

Is the silver plenum paint Hammerite?
What silver do other 328 ppl used?
My red paint is OK but the silver sides are peeling and they have a texture that show when missing.

This looks too regular as standard silver paint
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DH27mussLZc/

 

Silver wrinkle and it is not available in the US.

 

I had mine powdered coated with light wrinkle

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Have used VHT for decades and never had those issues.

 

Yes but you probably read the directions!
quite clearly "At least 3 heavy coats......cure 93C "


I have just a silver touch up from prior owner or shop to focus clean ups



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