I am considering re painting my valve cover. Do I need to replace the gasket afterwards? Should I use a recommended paint or will any high temperature paint work?

 

Purely tour choice to even mess with it.

There a hundreds of comments on here, and elsewhere, regarding that vey task. The Magnesium Alloy is the issue apparently. Many have done it, some have lasted, most have not. I will stop there.

I left mine alone, it was worse than that, but I lived with it. The new owner is of the same thoughts.

A new Gasket, AND, spark plug tubes seals, would be a very smart thing to do.

 

Definitely new gaskets

 

Grant. Do you know anyone who tried to powder coat the valve covers.
Usually it provides a bulletproof finish

 

No, it's not about the painting, it's about the oxidation of the cover itself. Whatever paint you use, the cover starts to be oxidized under the painting and it makes the paint bubble up.
So preparation is the key. You have to polish off all the oxidized part, which is really hard to do.

 

No I dont.

As Japthug said, the preperation is critical, and mine being the Daily Driver, I simply moved on from that bubbling thing. No effect on performance or reliability.

 

I'd only do it, it I were removing them...

Did those on my V12 as I had to replace a few gaskets... While they were off, I did them...

 

I'm just gonna leave it alone for now.

 

New gaskets, the magnesium oxidizes, so other than powder coat, your best bet would be clean, sand, zinc chromate primer, then high heat paint.

 

Dupli Color also make a hi temp paint with ceramic in it, here is one link there arre slightly cheaper prices on ebay and there are other colors. Also try a self etching primer

DupliColor Universal Gold Engine Paint with CERAMIC

 

I've used the ceramic stuff numerous times on brake calipers and other projects, its awesome. It also has a really nice look to it, would be waaaay better than using a regular metallic silver type paint like from VHT. Again the corrosion resistance is really important though

 

as others said prep is important. use of self etching primer, 1 to 2 coats follow up with regular primer, again 1 to 2 light coats. the ceramic paint will be durable and should toughen up with engine heat and help with corrosion