[Cautrell05]

From there came painting and detailing before I put the motor in. I have painted a lot of motors in my life, while I'm partial to the orange and black classic Chevy pattern depending on the build, orange is normally the hardest color to cover. They make engine paint in primer and normally I'm too cheap for this stuff but this time around I figured why not. Couple good heavy coats of Gray to get the color All uniform, let that dry over the weekend and then one and a half cans of VHT brand Chevy orange. The primer made a big difference in coverage with the orange. The pulleys, brackets and anything that's black was done in DupliColor semi-gloss black. The oil filler pipe was just a $10 Chrome one from speedway. But the Chrome wouldn't look right so I sandblasted it that way it had some texture because if anybody's ever tried painting Chrome before you know it usually flakes off sooner or later.
Probably the best thing that I didn't want to spend money on but I'm glad I did was the stencils for the valve covers. I got those off of eBay, I think they were around 15 bucks. There's basically three ways you could do the lettering on that. You can freehand it which I absolutely do not have the skills for. You can paint the valve cover black and then put a coat of orange paint over top of it and then very lightly sand through the orange on top of the letters just enough to get into the black but that's really sketchy if you're not experienced. Or you just order stickers. But, those stickers are not fun to put on. The ones I got did not come with transfer paper on them that is absolutely a must for something like this so they stay lined up. It's easy to put them on, but kinda hard to get them lined up straight on the raised letters. Some transparent low tack transfer paper is required. The end result was well worth it though.