Powder coat on engine cases.

I have been thinking about trying the powder coat approach on my engine cases.anyone have any experience with this.does it hold up well discoloration etc. Thanks

Before you get your hopes up I don't really have experience.

But, I worked at a plant that did powder coats on battery chargers, welders, etc.

They spoke about how these would resist almost any environment. And they had stringent guarantees on their products. When working in customer service, I never heard one complaint about a case, or a finish. However, consumer products would not be subject to such high heats. I believe these finishes are baked in an oven and cured. As long as the bonding energy of the finish is greater then the energy imparted by the high engine heat it should be fine. What is that bond strength? I have no clue. I hope you get a real answer and not one pulled out of my ass.

But come to think of it, most car parts on new cars are powder coated. Has anyone cleaned up a new car hood after an engine fire? That should give the answer.

Go for it! I have a friend who owns his own powdercoating business... he is also a KZ rider. Most of the work he does is on engine components... for race car motors. I have also seen some bike parts he did. I am planning on striping the black off my block and going to a powdercoat so when I do, I'll post about it.
Have fun!
~Marty

The head might get too hot and discolor anything but black. I would use an oil cooler due to the heat that the coating will hold.

Powdercoat works well if the person who applies and cures is a pro. I have had engines done in the past. My personal rider is a 79 KZ1000E1 and the engine cases, cylinder and head as well as the valve cover (and starter cover) are powercoated using a semi-flat black with texture. The side covers in the pic that have black were painted with a rattle can hi-temp after a bit of clean up (fine wire brush wheel with no polishing).

BTW: You need not worry about heat and running an oil cooler. I live where it gets a tad warm and don't use an oil cooler as the oil tends to take too long to warm in the winter (I have a temp gauge to verify). If I did use an oil cooler, I would buy a modern cooler with a temp by-pass where the oil wouldn't circulate through the cooler until it was warmed sufficiently. See JPCycles.com and look at the oil coolers with bypasses in their Harley catalog. I would use one of those. Here is the other side of the engine.

Thats kinda what i had in mind george but iwas gonna have the side covers done in a bright silver.To old and lazy to polish!

76 LTD wrote:

Thats kinda what i had in mind george but iwas gonna have the side covers done in a bright silver.To old and lazy to polish!

I wonder what it would look like to clean them up and have clear powdercoat on them (I understand there is such a thing).

The look of polished aluminum without polishing? Or am I dreaming?

I have some clear poder but I don't think i would try to use it on anything that will be exposed to heat. I fear it would yellow and unlike paint, powder is a PITA to get off.

I don't know if clear powder would yellow but if there is any chance, I would forgo it as powder is a pain to remove. I had some case covers powdercoated aluminum a few years ago and the place that did it wasn't very sharp... I asked them to use powdercoat that would hold up to gas/oil but it didn't. They had to prime all the pieces as the original try to powdercoat failed when they heated the covers... the covers are porous and gasses came through and caused round spots... like paint fish eyes I guess. The aluminum dulled quickly and where a drop of gas touched it, it became whitish and real flat. It got ugly FAST. I ended up getting the powder off using carb cleaner... it came off too easy so I suspect it wasn't cured as well as it should have been.

I think if you do this thing, best to find the shop with the BEST rep... You can also get aluminum anodized. The guy that did my powdercoat sold his shop and works in an anodizing shop now and I may try that at some point just to see how it works.

anno is great however i believe only billet pieces may be done.

If you look at my avatar you may notice i was once into paintball, tippman released a marker (gun) called the model 98; most anno places were to smart to touch it but a few did. Those that did turned the body into a kinda crumbly powder.

The m98 uses a cast body, and it has some zinc and other metals in it, then they ran current through it (as part of the anno process) all of the imperfections in the metal kinda fell apart.



I don't know all the details, i think i once did another life time ago when i wanted to try some at home anno... but those brain cells are long dead.



Long post short, i don't think cast aluminum parts can be annoed.