Hi all,
For all you guys who like shiney things I thought you might be interested in the work my brother has done on his 300ZX. It's full of go fast parts (like under drive pulleys etc) pulling 300hp at the rear wheels. He's just done some serious overhaul work himself replacing fuel lines and all sorts. While the car was off the road he had a mate polish the plennum for him (see pics). Looks sweet. The polishing was acheived by using successively finer grades of paper on a buffing wheel. The alluminium has come up sweet. Didn't cost too much either.

you may be interested in seeing photos of the beast and members of the 300ZX club (Qld) at www.m-clayton.com (http://www.m-clayton.com)

Looking very nice, I've wanted to do this for ages. Polished Aluminium is killer :D

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Greetings All.

Yeah, I would like to try to polish the intake pletnum inside and out to remove the bumpy **** from it...
What tools would I need??
Also, I might get the RPW product that stops heat from the engine heating up the air in the pletnum...

Cheers,
--Tonba
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http://members.westnet.com.au/jasonbroadhurst/images/compressor/ :cool:

OK here's the whole Job.

300ZX Plenum pull (http://aus300zx.neuralmotion.com.au/index.cfm?action=view&type=post&postid=244366)

Nice, especially the third picture with some nice use of depth of field.

This is how mine looks and I've never polished it.
Prehaps the old guy that had it before me thought this was how ya port n polish an engine :bowrofl:
I think it looks :cool: .

This is how mine looks and I've never polished it.
Prehaps the old guy that had it before me thought this was how ya port n polish an engine :bowrofl:
I think it looks :cool: .
Thats looks really nice. I like it a lot. For a magna its very different. However, if the plenum is aluminium, you can do a lot better than that. Get a good brushing wheel or two (different grades) and you could cut the rough finish back to smooth and make it look really hot. I dont think it would be difficult to do once you had it off the car, just all the mucking around before and after would make it a hassle. :confused:

Hi all.

I have basically zero metal work experiance (never got to do it at school. bastards!)

How do you go exactly polishing metal? I want to take my plenum off and polish it up.

first up you have to sand it flat, sand cast intake manifolds have a rough finnish to them, inside and out. Then once its flat you need to remove the scratch marks left by the sand paper, this is done with finner sand paper, once its all nice and smooth then a scotchbrite belt is used to totaly remove any scratch marks left leaving the metal very very smooth, then a polish is applied.

^ what he said

i would start off with a 500 grit then work your way to 2000 grit sand paper (and if u can find better then 2000 grit use that) then u will need some help from an electrical tool unless u want ur arm to fall off

from memory a guy made a polished zinc cube computer case and he did it all by hand he quoted something like 50+ hours just sanding the dam thing! the second one he did he used power tools and took him something like 20+ hours

either way it looked killa

From what I understand the process started off with those emery paper buffing wheels (looks like a turbine made out of 30 od little pieces of emery paper) of varying grades, they attach to your power drill. Grind away till smooth, then as said before just start working down through the paper grades. Start wet rubbing with successively finer grades. As you get finer, the smaller the "sanding scratches" become, hence giving the impression of a shineier, smoother surface. After the finest grade you start with your rubbing compounds and a rag. Finishing up with various metal polishes (which are just a mild abrassive anyhow). To keep the shine, you'll then need to strip off all traces of oils and residues, then use a heatproof clear coat, or just polish it regularly by hand. And there you have shiney stuff.

My brother Michael was given a "loan plennum" whilst his was polished. The guy did it for him after hours and took around 3 weeks. There you have "Project Bling."

Anyway if you have access to power tools the first parts of the project will be far far easier.
And blake if you can find yourself a spare plennum (from a wreckers or something) it will be far easier for you, no hassles of reaching far in to an engine bay and spraying shavings everywhere.

Thanks for the comments on my engine bay. I'm really happy with how it turned out. The Magna engine bay would be a lot easier to clean and work on. I lost a lot of skin off my hands from working in the cramped engine bay of the Zed, painstakingly cleaning every corner of it.

Here are some links to articles on how to polish plenums. They relate to 300ZX's but they are a good guide to polishing any plenum. Remember to take you time to achieve that superb mirror finish. If you rush it, you'll end up with scratches and pits all over it.

A link to "How to polish your plenum- The basics 101" (http://www.twinturbo.net/net/viewmsg.aspx?forum=technical&msg_id=840923)

A link to "How to make your Engine look like $1,000,000 for only $500" (http://www.twinturbo.net/net/viewmsg.aspx?forum=technical&msg_id=888242)

Now that I've had my car off of the road for one month it's time to catch up on some driving.

Happy polishing.

MikeZ

Hey Guys,
Now i know this is probably damn impossible, but the "what if" factor is too big for me not to ask it. Does anyone know if the 300ZX intake plenum, and the Magna one use the same mounting flanges? IF anyone has any pics of the Magna one, or can scan in gaskets, that would be super!I dont need to say anymore because i know you all get the drift of what i am thinking! Cheers,
Chris

Wild imagination you have their Screaming TE lol

Don't think the arrangement of the 300ZX plenum would fit in the Magna bay. From the first lot of photos, I gather that the 300ZX have a twin plenum, twin t/b => hence the set up of the twin turbo for some models.

easier to just make custom plenum.

hi i polished the plenum in my car , what u think

the pictures too small to see :P