So I wrapped up the work I was doing on the top end the other day.  I am happy with most of the work but not all of it.

Here are some shots of the valve covers after I pulled them from the degreasing bath.  The thing that I never noticed because of all the caked on filth that this brought out was that on every single one of the bolt bosses on the valve covers where the coil brackets are secured has visible stress fractures.  I don’t know if some shade tree guy went to town when bolting them down at one point or if they were just over torqued from the factory.  Either way it was ugly and I might consider some new covers in the future.  Probably after market since the cleaning showed me just how crappy the casting process for these covers was.  There was flash and burrs all over the covers surface along with sharp edges I never noticed before.  You could also see the obvious pour channel break marks.I guess GM figures you would see so little of the covers due to the coils being mounted on top of them that no one would care.  Of course if I get aftermarket covers that also means I would need to relocate my coils which will be an ordeal in and of itself since there is really no room in the F-Body engine bay.

I re-blacked the coil brackets with a couple coats of paint but they were mostly fine.  I sprayed the covers with some red to try and match the color of the car and it went mostly well.  There were some spots where the burrs were or where I guess I didn’t scuff it up well enough with the 60 grit that the paint didn’t want to stick to.  I didn’t worry too much about it because of the aforementioned problems with the covers themselves so I wasn’t going to put too much time and effort into something I was going to replace in the future.  I tried to spray the coils some as well but I apparently didn’t clean them well enough as the paint went all splotchy on me which I assume was from oil residue I missed.  I will say that if you are standing at least 5 feet away and not scrutinizing it too closely that the covers look much better now.

Here is a shot of the covers after mounting them back to the heads before stacking everything else back on.

And here is everything fully assembled.

The new PnP TB seems to have smoothed out the throttle alot.  I have only had it on for a few days now but so far I have not experienced any attempts of the cam to push through the brakes like it tended to do sometimes beforehand.  This will of course be fully corrected once I am able to swap out the stock torque converter for one that is better built and rated for a higher RPM flash.  This will not only resolve any poor driving manners the car has put will also put me where I need to be in the powerband of the cam much sooner.  I also like the new accent that putting in stainless bolts has over the stock equipment.