What colour is your engine bay?

[AU dude]

I thought it might be a good idea to continue this thread with everyone showing a pic of their AU engine bay, as there is a thread go on in the B series.com.au showing B series engine bays.

I'll go first.

Not the best, but better than stock.

[b2tf]

[james22]

White, same colour as the car. Hehehe even painted white under the hood lining too. It seems that Ford skimped painting under the hood lining on a lot of cars

[Sledgehammer]

Originally Posted by b2tf

Looking sweet Aust.

[Sledgehammer]

Here a red one for you. Still some more work to do though.

[StealthAu]

Sledgehammer, thats sweet. How much rooting around was involved in dropping the 51 in there, and is it street driven?

[eXi7w0unD]

i got red engine with a blue car..

[b2tf]

swap ya stu

[walker]

well I have a series 1 XR8 in white and that is the colour of my engine bay!

[Umineko]

Ok well as a spraypainter I can clear this one up, Ford in order to cut down on the number of coats applied in the paint process (something most other car makers do also) started using coloured sub base coats to improve the coverage of COB (clear over base) finishes, IE metallics and Pearls which tend to be quite translucent in nature. solid colours like white, black etc are not clear coated so the engine bays will be the same as the overall colour and usually a gloss finish, while metallics are a metallic or pearl tinted base coat which is overcoated with a clear finish, the engine bay receives the sub base coat but not the metallic base coat or clear gloss coat hence the "flat" finish and in some cases differing colours, were you to sand off the colour coats from your car you'd find the same colour over the entire vehicle by doing this Ford could drop about a kilo from the overall weight of the car and save a fortune in paint every year compared to previous models you can actually get mixing codes for these sub base coats should you wish to touch up the engine bay. say after repairs or mods and the surface sheen can be obtained by adding about 10 to 20% 2K hardener to the base coat mix, this will also stabilise the base coat and make it harder wearing

[DJM83]

My old AUII XR was Venom with a matt venom engine bay, my TE is galaxy with a black engine bay

[AU dude]

Originally Posted by Umineko

Ok well as a spraypainter I can clear this one up, Ford in order to cut down on the number of coats applied in the paint process (something most other car makers do also) started using coloured sub base coats to improve the coverage of COB (clear over base) finishes, IE metallics and Pearls which tend to be quite translucent in nature. solid colours like white, black etc are not clear coated so the engine bays will be the same as the overall colour and usually a gloss finish, while metallics are a metallic or pearl tinted base coat which is overcoated with a clear finish, the engine bay receives the sub base coat but not the metallic base coat or clear gloss coat hence the "flat" finish and in some cases differing colours, were you to sand off the colour coats from your car you'd find the same colour over the entire vehicle by doing this Ford could drop about a kilo from the overall weight of the car and save a fortune in paint every year compared to previous models you can actually get mixing codes for these sub base coats should you wish to touch up the engine bay. say after repairs or mods and the surface sheen can be obtained by adding about 10 to 20% 2K hardener to the base coat mix, this will also stabilise the base coat and make it harder wearing

thanks Umineko, i can understand why ford would want to save money on paint even if its just $1 per car, times that by how many AU's were made.