Here we go! Could’nt wait to get the textures on the fresh painted valve cover sanded down, so started straight. 1) Added some protective tape and started with 240 grit sandpaper and a block: 2) first results visible. Because the 240grit paper leaves some scratches in the soft aluminum i changed to a much higher grit paper once the paint and primer was removed: 3) three hours later: DONE!! Absolutely love it! can’t be happier! Just need to polish the textures now and do a minor touch up, but nothing big. Did i mention i love it?? 🙂 Update 2021: I found some old ads of the said Kakimoto valve cover in a japanese Carboy magazine from May 1986, which advertizes the “new release” of the valve cover. On the website (currently still listed, but not for sale, i’ve already asked them a few times): it says that Part no: EG.NL041 is made from forged “thin wall” aluminum coated in “crystal blue” paint and has no big advantages except a sportier design and a special polygonic shape, to reduce the the tappet noise: Here’s an old image of the valve cover installed in the famous Kakimoto Drag race machine: The car was pretty legendary and at the end running a twin-turbo setup with around 800 horsepowers: The car still exists today and is shown in the Kakimoto headquarter showroom. It once used to be the king of the Japanese drag racing when the scene was at a peak, running 9.15 seconds in an old S30 chassis in 1989. Here’s another picture i found of a street car from another japanese magazine story about Kakimoto and their products in an S130 from the 80ies, which was tuned to around 373PS in a “street” setup. I really like the style of this picture: 4) Next on the agenda was removing thepaint from the old mirror stakes / bases. Before: After adding some industrial paint stripper and waiting a few minutes: and first layer of paint removed. this thing has been repainted a few times so i will redo the process once they’ve dried, until all the paint is gone 🙂