Engine - Engine Cover Design

While I wait for something of substance to turn up in my garage I have been surfing the net and looking through old magazines for ideas to dress up the engine. As you can see the "as is" look isn't very hot rod like so I'll need to do something.

As you can see below (double click on the image to see a larger version) I will create a cover that sits right over the top of the engine, but flamed of course. This will match in with the paintwork I am planning for the car itself and I'll probably run a flamed theme across a few of the other components as you'll get to see as we go.

Having done this drawing now I think it looks too flat so I will look to raise the centre section to make it more 3 dimensional and give it a bit more shape. I will also make sure the flames stand up from the background, again just to give it a bit of dimension.

I intend painting the car two tone (silver bottom half and blue from the swage line up) so I'll carry that same colour scheme through to the engine cover.

One of the other reasons I want to do an engine cover (aside from getting rid of the plain black plastic one) is so I can make the engine more symmetrical. The engine has just one air intake on the drivers side (the big fat plastic pipe in the top picture) I will change this to a polished or chrome pipe and replicate this on the passengers side (it will just be a dummy pipe on the passengers side and have no purpose) I will then bring the air intake to the front of the engine with a central air cleaner.

Now when looking at the engine it will look like the intake splits up and goes into both sides of the engine Voila! Symetrical.

Once this is done and the pulleys are chromed, the stainless radiators hoses go on and all the other plumbing done with braided hose, all of the sudden it starts to look a bit more like a rod engine albeit a modern one rather than traditional.