Home >> Styling >> Underbonnet Styling

The finishing touch to a modified car is to make it look good in the places you don't normally see. A clean and tidy engine bay with chromed parts and coloured hoses is the icing on the cake with most cars and is often the most impressive part of the car, as most people expect to see nothing more than a greasy and oily mess under the bonnet.

The first place to start is by cleaning. Steam cleaning is possible with care, paying attention to the location of electrics and ensuring the engine is running when cleaning. Engine cleaners and degreases are widely available from car accessory shops, as are stiff bristled brushes, ideal for removing grease and oil.

Coloured silicon hoses not only look good, but they are capable of higher pressures that standard rubber hoses and won't perish over time. Samco do a 6 hose kit for the Fiesta Turbo. It's available in the standard Samco blue or yellow, red, black to special order. The kit contains most of the boost and coolant hoses, but if you want to continue replacing them you'll need to purchase the separate lengths of hose. They come in various diameters of 1 metre lengths for different applications.

Warren's engine bay showing Chrome parts and Samco hoses.

RST engine bay with alloy header tank and braided hoses.

An alternative is to cover the existing hoses with overbraid. This enhances their appearance and is not as expensive as replacing them with silicon ones.

The rocker cover and the 'TURBO' charge carrier pipe are the most common components chosen for chroming. It is possible to buy pre chromed items outright or on an exchange basis. Many other parts can be done, including bonnet hinges, bonnet props, strut tops etc. Trade stands at shows are a good source of chrome parts and most electroplaters will be able to chrome your existing items. The more you get done at a certain time, the cheaper it works out per item, so if possible get together a group of parts and have them done in one go.

There are many companies that produce polished stainless steel or aluminium components to replace the standard Ford items, a particular recommendation must go to fiestaturbo.com sponsors Auto Specialists. These products include the coolant expansion header tank, battery covers, cambelt covers, turbo heat shields, brake fluid reservoir covers and so on. The disadvantage of alloy tanks is that it's difficult to tell the level of fluid inside unless the tank has a sight glass built in.

[resources] relevant links >> Samco Hoses http://www.samcosport.com Auto Specialists http://www.autospecialists.co.uk GRS Motorsport http://www.grsmotorsport.co.uk