'66 318 POLY ENGINE PAINT

[harold prentice]

Hi all,

Anyone know of a supplier for engine paint for a 318 Poly? I found a chrysler part # 4349218 which is supposed to be the correct red colour. Haven't tried a dealer up here yet, but I'm not too hopeful - their parts books don't go back that far.

Thanks!

[thebankerstoy]

The highest quality and freshest paint would be from one of your local automotive paint suppliers, but if that's not an option for you, Mopar Performance still sells their engine paints through most of their dealership Parts Departments and Jegs is showing that they sell most all of the colors including the Red used on various small block engines including your 318 Poly.

Before anyone rips me a new one on how much they hate Mopar Performance products, please don't bother. While I did hear of some issues with this paint a few years ago, I have a long time friend who works at one of the local Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealerships here in the Phoenix area and he says that this paints quality has been improved in the past year or so and I can personally vouch for that because I just used a can of the Race Hemi Orange to respray my intake manifold and intake manifold gasket a couple of months ago on my 66 Coronet 500's 440 and it worked just fine for me.

I obviously can't guarantee that the M.P. paint that you might purchase will be fresh and will work as well as it has for me over many years, but I will say that this paint has never given me any issues whenever I've used it. If the engine isn't clean and prepped correctly for paint, nothing is going to work well no matter who makes it. I will also say that I have never used the M.P. Red, so I can not vouch if it is the exact shade of Red that was used by Chrysler back in 1966, but unless you're building a 100 point show car, or trying to match existing paint on the engine, that shouldn't make a huge difference.

Here's the Jegs web page link for the Red, M.P. part number P4349218AB: http://www.jegs.com/i/Mopar-Performance/...oreDetails





Here are some pictures of my 440's intake manifold and intake manifold gasket painted with the M.P. Race Hemi Orange a few months ago. The rest of the engine was painted this same color back in 1991 when it was built and installed into the car.








Richard

[4264door]

Richard, your engine compartment just blows my mind! So nice and clean and everything has it's place. Yes, that 318 poly engine red is quite dark red if I remember correctly.

[honcho]

Hey Rich, are you using a aftermarket radiator? I have the original radiator on mine,and it is completely opposite of yours!!

[thebankerstoy]

Hello Tim,

Thank you my friend. Some of my friends here in Phoenix would tell you that I'm a bit obsessed about that "having everything in it's place thing"!

Hi Todd,

My radiator is a custom built piece built by a radiator shop here in the Phoenix area that does, or at did specialized work for high performance cars along with the usual repair work back in the early 1990's when mine was done. I told them that I wanted maximum cooling for my 440 along with being able to handle the factory air conditioning system that I would be reinstalling into the car at some point, so they ended up using a set of original upper and lower radiator tanks that they had at the shop that were originally used on 1966 C-Body cars equipped with 383 big block engines, 26" radiators and factory a/c. The inlet and outlet were altered to work with the factory cast 1969 water pump housing that I used along with my 1969 HP 440 short block. The top tank has part number 2582962 stamped on it which identifies it as the 1966 C-Body piece. As far as the radiator core, it is a custom aftermarket four row (rows are off-set for maximum cooling) unit made out of copper and brass. The fan shroud is one of the 26" reproduction B-Body units that Mopar Performance sells under part number P2785434, which is listed for use on 1967 through 1969 B-Body cars with 26" radiators and 383, 440, or Hemi engines. The water pump is one of the Moroso aluminum HP units and the radiator hoses are the seamless copper hoses made by the Cool-Flex Company. The radiator over-flow bottle is from a late 1980's Chrysler mini-van that fits my car like it was originally designed for it and the fan is an aftermarket flex fan with a spacer to properly set it into the fan shroud. That fan worked ok on the drag strip, but I will be going back to a much better steel fan with a thermostatically controlled fan clutch set-up if I can make it work with my slightly thicker custom radiator, as I really don't like the flex fans on the street.









And now back to talking about Poly 318 engine paint! Dang, you guys are really good at getting me in trouble for getting threads off topic! Blonde

Richard

[harold prentice]

Thanks to all, especially Richard. Now I know where to look. I got a can of "generic" red from NAPA, but it's way "too" red to match the valve covers & they don't need painting.

[harold prentice]

Oops. should have mentioned that I'm only looking to paint the intake when I pull it (for the second time) to regasket it. Did the same job back in August & it still leaks. The end gaskets were a tad to long & I tried to make them work with a dab of good silicone as the shop manual suggested & now I'll be doing it again. This time, I'll make sure the end gaskets fit properly by trimming them for a perfect fit. Fingers crossed ...

[67r/t4speeder]

Need pics Harold, I need to do our wagon soon so let me know how it goes. What brand intake set did you buy?

Also using Permatex Right Stuff on the ends instead of the supplied gaskets works allot better .

[thebankerstoy]

Oops. should have mentioned that I'm only looking to paint the intake when I pull it (for the second time) to regasket it. Did the same job back in August & it still leaks. The end gaskets were a tad to long & I tried to make them work with a dab of good silicone as the shop manual suggested & now I'll be doing it again. This time, I'll make sure the end gaskets fit properly by trimming them for a perfect fit. Fingers crossed ...

Hello Harold,

If you've already painted the engine recently, are you not able to use the same brand of Red paint that you used last time? Trying to match differnt brands of pre-mixed paint will be extremely difficult at best. I was able to do so on my 440 because I've been using the Mopar Performance Race Hemi Orange on all of my engines for years, so touch-ups and smaller repaints like the intake manifold and intake manifold gasket isn't a problem.

Richard

[harold prentice]

Thanks again, guys. Not sure if the paint that's there now is the original. It's definitely different than the NAPA "universal" red, seems to be darker & almost a bit "orangey" (??). Regarding not using the end gaskets, I've heard that was a popular thing to do with small block Chevys - anyone else tried it with just sealer & no gaskets? If so, how large a bead is needed, any set up time before installing, applied to the block or the manifold? Just a few questions that come to mind. I really don't want to do this too many more times.....This is a great site & I sure appreciate your support!