suggestions for painting an attractive engine bay?
 

ok, on my bronco project, I have pulled the damaged front clip off, I have another that my dad donated that, with the exception of a small patch of rust, is nice and straight, and still has a good grill and chrome. anyways, before I set my 300 down in. I want to paint the front of my frame, which i figured would be a perfect place for POR-15. but as for the sheetmetal, I need to go from red to white to match the bronco (which is white with the top of the fenders, doors and the hood are blue). I am not painting the whole thing right now, i still have rear fenders and tailgate work to do before i can do that, but i want to paint the engine compartment before i have the engine in there. so i dont have to worry about it when i do finally repaint the whole exterior.

so...
1- what would be a good durable paint to use for the engine compartment?

2- currently the 300 is grey, i was curious as to what color or other tricks can be used to give it some contrast and make it look nice (not bland, but not extravagent either) when I open the hood. I intend for all of my wiring and lines to be neat and somewhat "streamlined" im not planning on alot of chrome and im not too sure about the grey, or even blue for that matter. I noticed that por-15 has some engine enamels, but i haven't heard of any reviews.

3- what is a good suggestion to get the hood and fenders to somewhat match the rest of the sheetmetal untill i get it into a paint booth? if it wasn't going to be too long i would go ahead and paint it, but i don't think I will be able to untill i get back from my 9 months at boot camp and AIT training.

are you gonna fill extra holes or smooth the firewall? that always looks good.

whatever color you paint the block, paint the head silver. someone will ask where you got an aluminum head...haha...ford blue mixed with a tiny bit of white or silver would look good.

i like dupli-color for engine paint. http://www.duplicolor.com/products/engine.html
holds up well, & easy to clean.

i'm thinking about rhino-lining my firewall & inner fenders (not the plastic fenderwells) to match a rhino lined floor-pan (thanks to newrider3 for the idea)

any way you look at it i think white would be a bad idea for the engine compartment.

As for question #1, use epoxy for durability.

wasn't reall planning on doing alot of smoothing, I will fill the smaller holes, but the holes that got plugs from the factory will probably just get new plugs. wiring will all be in appropriate looms, unless hiding it can be done fairly easily. minimal hoses will be used. i'm not really going for a custom or street rod sort of look. just nice looking and attention to detail.

the stock the inner fenders and firewall were white and the radiator support and rubber fenderwells were black. and it wouldn't look bad, but time had taken its toll on them. (my capri's engine compartment is all white and it looks good though) so i think that the white is there to stay.

however, changing the hue of the ford blue would be nice to break up the monotony some. and i can always do just a base on the engine and do something fancier on the valve cover. i'm afraid of making the engine too light colored and having it blend in with the white though.

epoxy seems to be a good ticket. very durable to everything but sunlight (which isn't a problem with it being under the hood) who carries a good selction though? my search isn't turning up much of anything but epoxy primer.

http://www.carcraft.com/tipstricks/c...ing/index.html

just found this article, which talks some about what i have been refering too, and according to car craft, blue would work for the engine.

I also found an article from one of the ricer mags about wire tucking, it was dumbed down alot, but it still had a couple of good ideas.