question on intake gaskets - appearance

[BarryK]

ok, i'm going thru a lot of work to make my motor look better.
cleaning up the aluminum intake, valve covers, and exhaust mainfolds.Also touching up the paint on the block.
When it's time for re-assembly i'm using FelPro gaskets (#1256 was recommended) for the intake.
The problem is that the intake gaskets are blue and the edges of them between the intake and the heads are somewhat exposed and I don't want the blue color to show.
I believe from the factory the valve covers were masked off and than that small valley along the edges of the intake were painted silver to hide the factory gaskets and match the color of the aluminun intake.

Is my best bet to re-assemble everything and follow the factory procedure of masking off the valve covers and just carefully spraying silver paint such as aluma Blast along the sides of the intake allowing the overspray to hit the intake and intake bolts also, or should I just spray the gaskets silver before installing them?
I prefer the idea of spray painting the gaskets PRIOR to installing them so I don't run the risk of any overspray on my new paintjob but not sure if that will affect the sealing of the gaskets to the intake causing leak problems.

i'm NOT going for NCRS points, just a nicer appearance of my motor

Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated as always!

 

[c5vetter]

paint before - why risk overspray, especially since you are not going for the judging

 

[BarryK]

Rick
that's what I'd prefer to do....but not sure about it. i'm afraid the paint may affect the gaskets ability to seal properly and than cuase leakes which is what i DON'T want, especially after going thru all this to clean up everything.

 

[Bwmurph]

Barry,

I've been kind of waiting for others to chime in on this one, but for my money, the blue of the intake manifold gaskets showing is not a bad thing. I'm not sure how NCRS feels about this, or even how they did look originally, but if you ask me it's acutlly not a bad looking blue if kept clean. And, everybody has their gaskets showing in this area of the motor and the blue, to me, looks better than the dull gray or brown of gaskets of yore.

But if you want to paint them silver, by all means do so. It shouldn't hurt the sealing effect of the gasket, as long as you keep it a nice thin coat. I would probably only do the top side of the gasket anyway.

Bernie O.

 

[BarryK]

Bernie
I know the blue isn't a 'bad thing" but it bothers me everytime I look at the motor and it has done so for the last year since the last time the intake was pulled and replaced.
I just found that there is a repro intake gasket that is cut much closer to the shape of the intake and won't show except for the very edge of it and it's black, not blue. I just wonder if it seals as well as the FelPro gasket is suppose to seal. I guess my other option could be trimming the FelPro with a utility knife or razor blade right to the edge of the intake and remove the excess away.

As you can start to see, once I begin a project, I'm very anal about the end results! since I'm going thru the efforts anyway, i'd rather get the end results as nice as possible rather than cutting corners and only getting a portion of the results i'm looking for.

 

[BarryK]

wow, I'm impressed. I just ordered all the stuff I need to finish off this project from Paragon. 34 items and only one not in stock and it's due in later today or Monday.
34 items.......... it's amazing how quickly the lists grows.