After four years of having the red OEM wrinkle pain flaking off of the intake plenum, I finally took the leap to get it powder coated. Here are the steps I took: Determine what powder color to use Find a reputable professional powder coating shop Figure out how to remove the plenum Deliver the plenum and let the shop do their magic Finding the Powder I ordered sample swatches from Prismatic Powders. This is the one I think best matches my F430. Finding the Shop I located Clockwork Powder Coating in Lansing, MI. The owner Mark worked with me closely to cover all of the necessary details, ordering my powder selection, the chemical stripping, the masking process, etc... There is a MASSIVE amount of prep work that goes into this process. Remove the Plenum This was tricky, and I ended up starting a whole new thread on this process. Intake Plenum Removal In-Process - Advice Needed Start the Powder Coating Process I delivered the plenum to Mark at Clockwork and let him take it from their. Chemical strip Pre-Baking - A necessary long bake cycle to minimize metal outgassing during final bake after powder coating Masking Powder Coating Final Product Thanks to Mark and Phil for helping me with the photos.
Step #2 of 4 was the most important. Finding the right shop is critical. Here are two more pictures of the final product:
One of the pics makes it seem like he’s painting “Ferrari” on, but the scuff marks implies the wrinkle paint was sanded off instead. Can you confirm what was done?
Good question. He is removing the powder coat from the Ferrari text with a cotton swab before it is cured in the oven. Its cleaner and more efficient to wipe away the powder on the lettering and lightly sand it after curing. Masking the lettering would be imprecise and much more time consuming. Here are pictures that show more closely how Mark did it without masking:
I just messed up a script that i was trying remove the powder coating off of— I wished I had left it to a pro.
For the full job including: Chemical strip Pre-bake Masking Powder coat Lettering cleanup Final bake Lettering sanding Final cleanup Cost should be around $150-$175 with a one year warranty. For the Michigan market at least. YMMV Its pretty cost effective for a near permanent solution.
Great write-up and great results. I decided to go with my 430's color instead of common Ferrari red intake. I thought that heat would be a problem using body paint but when you think about it cars have body paint under the hood with no issues. I was concerned with the bare metal lettering so I painted the letters black.
The Ferrari members of the "Only STOCK Club" will vomit looking at this photo. But I'm the presidente' of the "Not STOCK Club" so it evens out. LOL. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Definitely unique. In the context of a Giallo Modena F430 I'm sure it makes sense. And your throttle bodies look incredible! However you cleaned them up like that, please share.
Well, first let me tell you why I think that the intakes are all red and use wrinkle paint. It's because the intakes are cast aluminum with all kinds of blemishes, and red w/wrinkle is best to hide it. The hardest thing in the whole process was preparing the intake for primer and paint without showing the blemishes and pitted metal, etc. I used paint stripper, then hand-sanded for hours before taking to the body shop for paint. Then they sanded and preped more. Prep time for this project was well over 12 hours.
Removing the plenum is relatively straight forward if you follow the WSM. Then follow the advice in this thread: Intake Plenum Removal In-Process - Advice Needed You'll need new hose clamps since all OEM clamps are single use Oetiker style. Image Unavailable, Please Login
A gloss finish on these plenums is quite rare. You're description of what's required has helped me understand why.