Inlet Manifold removal
 

I have took my car off the road 4 the winter & looking for a bit of a poject, i was gong to take the inlet manifold off & give it a nice coat of gloss black, was gonna do a little section in the project section(start to finish)is this pretty straight forward or am i biting off more than i can chew?. Read a few threads on here,but not sure if i should bite the bullet & set to work.
95 wrx

by all accounts its a bitch :D

It takes time but there is a lot of tidying up you can do when you have the inlet manifold off.
Fuel pressure regulator.
Get rid of some water pipes to throttlebody and ICVS.
Lag water pipes.
Engine breathers to catch can or similar.
Fit manifold insulation spacers from RCMS, Carl Davey or whoever. Make sure they are Tufnol and NOT aluminium or some other heat conducting material.

BTW, I would not choose to paint it black as that colour absorbs heat. Silver is a reflector.
You need to clean and strip the manifold thoroughly. The dishwasher can be used for this as others found out before me.
Apply a good etch primer.
Preparation is the key(Pun intended :) ) to a good, durable long lasting paint finish.
a good source of paints and consumables by post is "Frosts"
Good luck. Send a photo of the finished article.

not a Sunday afternoon job then :D

The pedant in me wouldn't let this go.....:D

An objects colour only has a bearing on radiation absorbtion i.e. a black object left in the sun.
Black absorbs and radiates heat faster than any other colour but in an engine bay I bet it makes no difference as the heat radiated towards the manifold will be negligable compared to the heat conducted from the engine it is sat on.

The only way to avoid heat conduction is insulation, hence using insulating spacers. You could maybe wrap the inlet manifold aswell but then you have problems when the insulation eventually heats up and you will have killer heat soak!

Also once the silver or any other colour has heated up to the same temp as the black ones it won't make any difference.

I'd just paint them any colour you fancy!

I also pondered this. And on balance, I'd expect the inlet manifold to pick up a lot of heat off the engine underneath it anyway as well as from the inlet charge, but the difference would be its ability to radiate that heat away again. And the best colour to radiate heat away would be matt black...