S2000 AP1 2003 I have recently bought my first car and the cam cover paint peeling I would welcome advice on repainting

 

Do not have it media/sand blasting cleaned for painting. If you do, you will have to replace it. You can never get the engine destroying sand out of it.

 

yeah I've been considering powdercoating it red also. it's not peeling terribly but have thought about the abrasive used to media blast. I might just aircraft strip it and take it in and see what they say. I know the performance shop out here is particular about grease when they powdercoat.

 

sorry that was a side note, grease is your worst enemy with paint. warm places to spray, well ventilated and lots of degreaser. nice even primer and use high quality paint. not hard, just tedious, and make sure the edges are painted/sealed as well.

 

I did the K20 cover on my EP3 Type R I had in the UK, I stripped it completely with aircraft stripper (the paint will literally drip off) Then cleaned it as good as possibe with dish soap, then simple green, then isopropyl, then used VHT red. The color match will be the most difficult as the off the shelf VHT stuff is too bright.

 

No blasting! Story after story of people destroying their motor after trying to be over the top obsessive and thorough as possible cleaning all traces of media. But its never enough.

Aircraft strip, then degrease. Brake cleaner also works well, as do the above suggestions.

 

I just went through this with my build. I used aircraft stripper and a drill with wire wheel to remove all of the paint. Primer and paint. Pretty straight forward. I used wrinkle paint, and that can be quite a different experience. I would definitely follow the instructions or some of the YouTube videos out there if you are going that route. Best of luck!

 

When painting use multiple, light, even coats. The first few coats won't coat well that's ok, let it dry toss on another. Repeat until satisfied.

 

Whenever using a reactive paint, wrinkle, hammertone, etc, you may find that you need to reach a certain saturation point for the reaction effect to occur. Its a fine balance between enough to get the effect and too much and it runs.

I agree 100% though with above advice to start with very light coats. Don't worry about complete coverage, just lay down several passes of very light coats, allowed to dry.

If its one of these reactive paints, you probably won't get any reaction with these light coats. Don't worry about that, and don't try to get a reaction until its the last coat. But don't wait too long between all these light coats if its a reactive paint.

Lots and lots of very light coats. Then if its one of these reactive paints, lay down the final coat heavy enough so the effect occurs.

 

I used the wrinkle red stuff that comes out of a can, it ended up looking pretty decent.

Make sure that you're getting nice even coats, keep the spray perpendicular to the surface.