Good luck getting anything on that valve cover/intake. When stuff is polished like that its hard to get paint to stick to it. If you want to paint or coat anything like that its best to have it rougher...which of course would make it look crappy if you were coating it with something clear. I don't know...I guess you could just never-dull it once a month, but that would get old fast...
HTH
Joe
>What did I do wrong, or what should I use - if anything? The intake I'm not
>so worried about, as it's easy to get at should it need a good shining up >from time to time, but the valve cover will be buried and needs some kind >of protection..