I've noticed a lot of people paint their Offy or Clifford aluminum manifold engine color. I always thought this was a stylistic choice to make it look more like the stock setup, even tho they are dressing up the rest of the engine. But then I just had a thought that maybe this is done to help the manifold heat issue with an inline. The bare aluminum will transfer heat out faster, so maybe it is better to use the Chevy Orange, or in my case GM corporate blue, to give the manifold a little more insulation. Am I off base in this assumption, or is this helpful? I know GM switched over to painting engines black because of its thermal properties in the '80s, switching away from colored engines for this reason.
X2. Looks alot better IMOP with a painted and detailed manifold. But it doesn't matter if you do it or not....when those headers and that water is hot...you'll have no issues. lol
I went a step further: After I painted the intake I took a file and ground the paint off the raised lettering. Then I clear coated everything.
you can kind of see it here.
So THAT's how it's done. I spent a good hour taping up mine so I could paint it without the lettering being the same cover. lol Mine is the clifford.
I don't know if it's the proper way but it's the way I did it.
I'm used to leaving the aluminum intakes unpainted from V8 engines to show it off. But on the L6, it does seem quite attractive to paint it. I'm doing a budget build and so my plans are to use the stock valve cover and 292 HD 2.5" exhaust manifold, plus I'm using a snorkel air cleaner to take advantage of the stock inlet for easy ram air setup. So with the Offy manifold painted engine color, the whole thing would have a sleeper stock appearance.