i spent ages trying to get my inlets shiney with engine degreasent and wire wool but i think im loosin im not happy with the results. anyone got any tips or am i just better off spraying with heat paint?

best i can do,

Shotblast it, then polish it

that means payin someone, would rather do it myself. sprayin just seems an easy answer.

i got a high power jet wash for doin pavements might try that

spotblaster will cost you a tenner, a basic metal polishing kit can be had for £20...same price as a few tins of paint

fine wet and dry then metal polish

Ssssh - dont tell anyone.... http://www.abracs.com/product_info.asp?t=Polirico Discs - Polishing and Finishing&id=82

try brasso and give it a good rub use it on alloy motorbike parts

cheers im gonna do that, i got a few phone numbers of local places will give them a ring.

what are the inlets made of? is it aluminium alloy

yer they r so are the rocker covers

wire brush and elbow grease will get it like this alone

got a wire brush today and did a small bit of mine see if it worked and yer top tip debz gonna take them off in the week fix the rear rocker gasket while they r off

Hi Debz, are you sure? I'm polishing the inlet right now and i think wire brush will hardly make the inlet look like anything like that picture. The manifold on that picture looks polished beyond just cleaned like regular wire brush will do. The surface is much more smoother than what the regular inlet looks like and you cant make it smooth with just wire brush. You can also see that the manufacturing edges of the front pipes are smoothed and you need at least key-file for that or even some power tool.

Personally i started with the wire brush, then some rough polishing extension to my power drill, and now im using 150 sand paper to even the inlet surface. Later today im starting with water sandpaper and then its compound polishing time (i managed to get my old rocker cover shiny using the same method).

use a file and/or dremel to get rid of casting marks, then go at it with coarse paper (150ish).

go up in grades of paper sanding in opposite directions so you can see the scratches from the previous paper. remove ALL previous scratches as you'll waste time with too fine a paper later on.

you can stop at 800-1000 grit if you have a buffing wheel or carry on to 1400+ and buff it with meguiars metal polysh or similar to look like this:


i couldn't wait till i got a buffing wheel so slapped on the polish at this stage. working on the bigger bits at the moment till i've sourced a few wheels for my bench grinder to really get a mirror shine... highly recommend starting on this part. at least you'll know what it entails and hopefully learn tricks to speed up the bigger parts.

Great result! Too bad i had way too little time to polish it that good and only went to 320 grit and a bit of polishing compound, next time i will focus on the casting marks left and then go to 800-1000 grit. What about clear coat on the inlet? Friend of mine who work on the car most of the time said it will peel off, what do you think?

once its shiney, its apparently easy to keep it that way. clearcoat i've seen yellowed and delaminated on other cars. once the air get to it through a scratch or chip, it can oxidize and spread. then you'll be stripping the whole thing back again. meguiars metal polysh has "Engineered Synthetic Polymers [which] leave behind a protective, synthetic barrier to shield out moisture and contaminants."

not sure how long it lasts, but if you've put in the hours i have you'll be re-polishing it whether it needs it or not!

Too bad we dont have meguiars here in Bulgaria, i will order from FPS or ebay soon, probably it'll do better than the £1.5 polish compound i have (it was the only available locally that i could find). From what i've seen even considering mine isn't that polished (i only had about available 2-3 hours per day in the past 4 days) it still gets oxidized to some degree.