Valve cover painting in 1990 BMW 525i?

The BMW valve covers are made of aluminum. You can repaint these valve covers using hardware store spray paints without any problem from high temperatures. The valve cover should be removed and degreased with something like Gunk.

The spray paints will not adhere to any parts with oil or grease contamination. The acorn retaining nuts should also be painted the same aluminum color. You should take the acorn nuts off their studs and insert them onto a piece of cardboard where you can overspray two or three coats of aluminum paint. Chromed acorn nuts do not look good with aluminum color valve covers. Do not attempt any underhood painting with spray paint unless everything within 4 feet is carefully masked off. Be very careful with spray painting things like thermostat housings, coolant hoses, and spark plug wires looms. You can buy 4 mm chrome plated flat washers from many hardware stores for about 5 cents apiece. I think you will need about 30 flat washers for the 2.5 litre engine. Good luck.

You can try the engine paints if you like, but they are much more expensive and not any better looking. If you wanted to paint your exhaust manifold, I would suggest the high temperature paints designed for 1000 deg. C. temperatures. Some hot rodders use enamal coatings on the exhaust manifolds. BMW exhaust manifolds are very hard to see from under hood viewing as they should have asbestos heat shields to protect spark plugs, gaskets, and plug wires from excessive heat.

portray won't count. in case you get rid of the area to paint it incredibly is valuable to apply new gaskets! careful with the intake air hoses. they are previous an could be brittle. Even a tiny air leak will reason your vehicle to run poorly.

go to a auto parts store and buy engine paint. It will be a high temp paint and will withstand the engine temp.

If you want just flat black paint, grill paint works great and gives it that "crinkled" effect. You can get it at most hardware stores.

you do need heat resistant paint, you can chrome if you want to, bm dealer can advise best brand of paint