Reluctantly, I have decided to spruce up my engine compartment a bit with the advent of the new motor and chose to fab up some engine turned aluminum panels.
Does anyone know if I should just leave the aluminum bare or should I clean / etch it and cover it with a clear coat of something ? Thanks.
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Not sure if this helps ... but here is a link to this info.
A: Aluminum has a brighter appearance similar to chrome. Stainless Steel has a darker appearance similar to your stainless steel appliances.
Q: Which is more durable Aluminum or Stainless Steel?
A: Stainless Steel is more durable, however, if you want more durability from the aluminum we recommend clear coating the aluminum with an automotive grade clear paint.
I would recommend a heat resistant clear coat, if such an animal exists. Otherwise you'll be cleaning it periodically, which would eventually remove the engine turning.
Dave:
I've done engine turning on aluminum exactly twice. Both times, for non-automotive (Ham Radio, actually) applications, producing a spiffy-looking control panel for my Ham Station. Never clear-coated either one, but they lived their lives in a bedroom.
The first time, I meticulously glued sand paper onto the end of a 3/4" dia. wooden dowel (lots of them) and used that to make the engine turning. When I used them, the sandpaper spun off of the wooden dowel in about 30 seconds - the "Elmer's Wood Glue" simply didn't have the 'Gnads to hold the paper to the wood. After a few of these sand-paper-spin-offs, I discovered that the wooden dowel, all by itself, was enough to produce the desired engine-turned effect and finished the panels with only a wooden dowel to great effect.
It is important to make the turning impressions in a very straight line. Otherwise, if the turn lines waver about it'll look, well....wavy, and not cool. On both of mine, I used a Bridgeport Milling Machine with the dowel held in the vertical chuck. The piece was held fast to the (moveable) bed and I could index the lines of turnings pretty precisely so they were all in very straight lines. Made a huge difference (and why I went to the neighbor with a Bridgeport Machine in the first place. If you can find a drill press with an indexing table, that would be cool.
Better still would be to find aluminum sheets already engine turned.......
David, your panels are probably fairly large so this may be an expensive option but...
when we came out with our Bac Rac product line, I wanted to leave the aluminum natural, cause I love aluminum. www.bac-rac.com 
I quickly realized that after water-jet cutting, drilling and sanding/de-burring, the aluminum didn't really look that great. There are also patterns, scratches and marks in each aluminum sheet that show up whether or not you do anything else to them.
so we decided to powder-coat the aluminum using what our contractor calls aptly, aluminum grey (the same color I've done my engine shroud in). We soon decided that it really added to the aesthetics if we also had him clear-coat them.
It's proven to be very durable but I really don't know how it would hold up to fuel contact though I've used M.E.K. on them to remove errant adhesive with no affect.
Um...to most of you. I guess I didn't explain it well enough. It's done already. that's what the pic was for.
Laner...you got it. It's done and ready for final install. Just need to know if it needs a coat of something first. I had some sheets of .020" 2024 laying around from airplane building and got a grip on a ( too large for me ) 1 1/2" abrasive pad in my drill press.
Three Canadian Tall Boys and an afternoon of messing around and it's done.
Here's a photo of my stainless steel install. With aluminum I would suggest using some sort of coating to protect it from abrasion form cleaning it on occasion. Stainless steel is a little more abrasion resistant but both are drop dead beautiful Check out my photo ! Cheers!.......Bruce
Yowsa....that's some very nice looking stuff, Bruce. Very nicely matched panels. And while we're at it, I also like the slick, spring loaded deck lid support. Discreet, while being simple and effective.
David, I think you have joined Stan on the train that went around the bend, then off the tracks. Pretty cool dress-up, I must say. Al does oxidize over time and with exposure, so not sure if will stay shiny forever. Clear coating might help, but like Lane, I have no idea what would be best. Does Krylon make a clear rattle can? Maybe that??
Waiting for pics of the Frankenmotor . . .
David....That lid support is one of the best things I ever came up with! I think the whole theme of these cars is "simple" so that one fit right in......Bruce
Have you thought of Eastwood.com they have 2K Aerospray High Temp Gloss Clear
I hear that this ceramic type paint if quite durable and it is in a paint can and it is on sale right now fyi.
http://www.eastwood.com/2k-aer...emp-gloss-clear.html
El Frazoo posted:David, I think you have joined Stan on the train that went around the bend, then off the tracks. Pretty cool dress-up, I must say. Al does oxidize over time and with exposure, so not sure if will stay shiny forever. Clear coating might help, but like Lane, I have no idea what would be best. Does Krylon make a clear rattle can? Maybe that??
Waiting for pics of the Frankenmotor . . .
This whole angle of where my car is going is / never was my plan. That lazy Bitch that caused my accident in late 2014 caused me to waver into a direction I never intended.
Major body work = all new paint which made the interior look bad so that got redone.
The old Soob was running fine after that but we decided if all else is getting refreshed, let's redo the engine. Not many low mileage 2.2l 's anymore and a rebuild would cost a bundle. Some smooth talker near Baltimore mentioned Frankenmotor and I looked into it. It made sense and like that girl in Montreal once told me...why be normal ?
I got my 2.2 l heads redone and found a nice 43,000 mile 2.5 l JDM motor nearby for $850 or so. Having that in the works and unproven to me, I uncharacteristically sent some top end engine parts off to powder coat and hence my new concern about how to tidy up how the whole engine compartment looked so here I am. I'll try to rat things down a bit. When all is up and running, I'll probably hit a few things with a ball peen hammer just so I can think it's a bit more like the real me.
So this season I'm in for an untested engine and untested transmission. We'll see how things go. Right now I'm on time unless something goes crazy titzup. No long distance plans for this year.
Only a couple of pics on the comparison of the DOHC 2.5l head beside 2.2l head. Both blocks are the same width and by some miracle are completely interchangeable....timing belt etc. all the same. The 2.2l setup is 28 1/2" wide and the 2.5l is about 1 1/2 " more. My old IM frame rails are 29" wide inside, hence the space concern and the Frankenmotor will be the same as previous at 28 1/2".
I've used Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish on my cleaned up Fuchs 2L wheels. It polishes dulling alloy up and leaves a slightly oil finished It would be ideal for keeping it clean looking.
My, what a fancyboy!
Bruce;
The right side of your beautiful engine compartment, reminds of the drawings by M.C. Escher.
Nice,
Art
Thank You Art.....Escher is one of my favorite artists. I have plans to do the sidewall of a 22 step staircase in my Mexico home with an Escher drawing. It would have been fun to know how Escher thought and functioned in normal life activities.....Bruce
aircooled posted:...I have plans to do the sidewall of a 22 step staircase in my Mexico home with an Escher drawing...
Bruce, has your contractor seen the plans for the staircase yet?
Attached a picture of my SS firewall... Last winters project... Its 
held up well... Fingerprints are easy to clean. Followed MangoSmoothy web directions... Simplified for my limited skills... So mine is not as prety. Took 2 nights, and no specialty tools.
So David, this is how it goes: You decide to buy new drapes as the old ones are a little sun dmaged, and dull looking. And after they are in, the rug starts to look pretty tired so you need a new rug, against which the old sofa looks pretty bad, so you get a new sofa. And that beat up old coffee table is sorta bringing the whole thing down, so . . .
Been there, done that.
Yup, Fraz....that's what's happening alright. I'm doing a flat clear coat on the engine turned panels to tone things down a bit.
That has in turn led to all new wiring in the engine compartment which it really needed anyway and it's way easier to do with the engine out. We'll see what that leads to.
The Madness is strong in this one, Obi Wan.
Seriously though, Dave: lookin' really good. Can't wait to see it.
LFEPARDO....Very clean looking ! Nice tight fitment too. I'm sort of sloppy so I made extra pieces to go around those hinges. What is that horizontal tube above the fan shroud?
Sacto...That is one of the Escher pictures I was thinking of using. There is another with stairs that I like a little more.....Bruce
Thank you Bruce.
The round tube is a Safecraft fire extinguisher...P/N 50-1025 Porsche Fire Extinguisher- temperature sensitive trigger, automatic deployment . I also carry a portable FE in the cabin.
They stoped making them ~2-3 yrs ago because people preffered the manual trigger tipe. But Safecraft has made a couple for folks on request... And they do continue to service this type. I just had mine refilled. My 8yr old daughter set it off in the garage when I had it out of the car. She wanted to play with the he prety blue glass bulb (the trigger)... What a mess it made!!! But it all cleaned up nicely!
I'm paranoid paranoid about fires, so I rather clean up a mess in case of an accidental deployment, over not noticing a fire while driving on the freeway and pulling the manual trigger too late. I'm slow on the draw!!
Cheers, luis
For anyone interested, this is what Safecraft has available today in the automatic trigger department...
https://www.safecraft.com/prod...ster_cat=motorsports
You can spec it out with smaller bottles, multiple spray heads, longer hose. Allows for fire bottle install in front trunk, and spray heads in engine compartment. Reducing from 10 to 5lbs bottle reduces the price significantly. I just installed one of these in my 356 T6.
The guy to talk to is Rocky--- <raicale@safecraft.com> 800-400-2259 . Last I heard he was still making some of the Porsche specific part #'s if you caught him on the right day. Though most people now seem to preffer the option of placing the bottle somewhere other than the engine compartment.
Cheers
LFEPARDO, what did you use to trim the edge of your opening? The black around the opening that the lid rests on.
Not a great idea to seal the deck lid edge , a few rubber bumper buttons is correct they allow for some additional hot air to exit along the edge.
Not planning on sealing but trim it out and sink the bumper buttons in to give a cleaner look.
Alan; that's interesting. In all the talk, that has gone on for years, regarding cooling the engine compartment, this is the first time I recall this point. But perhaps I missed a thread or 2.
Factory speedsters came with the 4 buttons you speak of! As I recall. Thanks !
Art
Yeah, this comes up from time to time.
Porsche did, indeed, run four rubber buttons to hold the engine cover off of the rear bodywork and get a bit more air in there. They're available from a number of sources in Black, white or gray, I believe.
I didn't know any of that when I was finishing Pearl, so I totally sealed the opening with closed-cell foam tape (happened to be white) and even though everyone says this is a bad thing to do, I haven't had any overheating problems.
OTOW, since I'm messing around with the heater installation this winter, I was planning on removing the weather strip I used around the engine cover and going with the four button approach, just to see what happens.
Bill, it's the u shaped rubber trim piece that came on my VS when built by Kirk. (not sure where he buys it).
I have not experienced any overheating, so it has not been a priority to replace with the four rubber buttons I purchased back in 2013 thinking I wanted more air in there . ;-)
David Stroud posted:El Frazoo posted:David, I think you have joined Stan on the train that went around the bend, then off the tracks.
This whole angle of where my car is going is / never was my plan.
Yeah. I hear that. Strange as it may sound.... me neither.
sounds like......house renovations
Engine bonnet buttons - IM uses them in all their builds, either gray or clear, depending on what's available. Each of my past cars has had those, but I always assumed they were there to provide a 'soft' closure. 
