Lynn Larsen
Lynn Larsen
As soon as my car gets out of the paintshop, gets registered and I get the chassis debuged, I have a set of AFR 165s, a GT40 intake that I have ported and a FRPP X303 cam to go on the stock block that is in it now. I have powder coated the GT40 intake and I think it looks killer. The other day I bought one of the covers that go on the intake. It has "5.0 liter HO" in cast raised letters, beside this is a cast Mustang Pony. I have avoided anything with Cobra or Mustang on it in my car, so I was not thrilled with the Pony. I ground it off and sanded the area smooth. Some of you may have seen a post I put up asking what font Ford had used on the GT40; well I found it. I printed out FORD and GT40 in large letters and with a bit more spacing between the letters. It turned out that putting both FORD and GT40 was just to much for the cover. So I went with just GT40. I took the print out and taped it to some 1/16 balsa wood and cut a stencil out of the thin balsa. I then positioned it on the intake cover where I wanted it and filled the stencil with Lab Metal. Once the Lab Metal had dried I used a tiny carbide cutter and a chain saw sharpening stone to clean up the letters. I then took it to my belt sander and took the letters down to the same height as the 5.0 and HO that was already there. Next I will powder coat the whole cover with Eastwoods reflective chrome. Then I will mask the top off and powder coat the faces of the raised letters with the translucent/annodized blue that the rest of the intake has been done in. When I get it done, I'll post pictures. The Lab Metal come in two types: the regular will handle temps up to 350F and is a little cheaper, there is also a high heat version that, when cured properly, will take up to a 1000F. This is real versitle stuff and when it hardens it is very hard. They say you can machine, drill and tap it and I don't doubt that at all. The hint here is don't build the stuff up too high or you will have some work ahead of you, especially, if it is going to require hand sanding. It cure by interacting with oxygen, so you don't want to make it too think either. The can says less than 3/8", but if you make it this thick, it will take at least a full day to cure or longer depending on temp and weather.