[RichSchmidt]

I had the intake on my race car cleaned at a machine shop.They used some kind of method that made it lok like it was Jet Hot coated.I think it was the tumble method described in the other posts.I wanted to polish parts of mine and clearcoat it as soon as it was done being cleaned,so I bought a can of carb cleaner and some engine clear coat.As it turned out,the carb cleaner smeared the finish a bit,so I didnt use it aside from on 1 of the runners.My real plan was to put a light shine on the tops of all the runners using 1000 grit paper,then clean it with carb cleaner and clear coat it.After I got it back from the machine shop,I polished the tops of the runners,and used the carb cleaner on one runner and thats when the trouble occured.I cleaned the rest with a damp cloth,then clear coated the intake.It looks very nice,and if I hadnt polshed the runners,it would have looks like an as cast intake with clearcoat on it.
Before I had it blasted,I tried carb cleaner as well as wheel magic cleaner and neither would brighten up the 20 year old Strip Dominator intake,and te machine shop shine was absolutly the best way to go.I am attanching a few pics.If you look closely,you can see that the cylinder heads and carb spacer are as cast while the intake is slightly brighter.Late model aluminum parts do have a somehwat more deep finish then original old castings did back in the day,but the comparison is still pretty accruate.