2.3L Ford "Pinto" Custom Finned Valve Cover

Just curious if Obriens has the capability?

 

i just came across this and bought it the other day....

 

lucky man

 

Sorry for resurrecting an ancient thread, but it seems that I'm not the only person with an interest in Ford 2.3L Lima valve covers that aren't ugly...

I ran across a photo of a valve cover on Google roughly a year ago. It turns out that there is a company in Argentina, that makes a valve cover for the Ford 2.3L Lima engine (which came in the Ford Taunus down there). It took me months to figure out how to purchase one - due to language, currency, and online payment systems differences.

I ended up hiring the services of a "personal shopper" in Argentina, who brokered the transaction. I paid him with Paypal. He then purchased the valve cover and shipped it to me. Shipping was a major hurdle, as Argentina's post apparently won't accept packages over roughly 2 lbs. Therefore, it had to ship FedEx (or UPS, or DHL). If you don't have access to a volume shipping account, this could be very expensive.

The manufacturer can make it painted or unpainted. Here are the two styles they offer:

Img3-pl11

Img3-pl11 by gmiller001 posted Feb 4, 2016 at 3:45 PM

Img1-pl11

Img1-pl11 by gmiller001 posted Feb 4, 2016 at 3:45 PM

The manufacturer's name is RM Competicion (http://www.rm-competicion.com.ar/), and they are located in Buenos Aires. The "personal shopper" who brokered the transaction is Gus Schek (personalonlineshoppers@gmail.com). He also has an Ebay account, where he sells his services (Ebay username: edyta1935).

Hopefully, this info will help someone else.

 

Nice piece! I like it

 

What was the cost in round numbers?

 

Very cool! You found the unicorn!

 

Cost was $176 for the valve cover. The personal shopper fees were $88. Local pickup/delivery fees, and packaging came to another $71 (I would expect this to be much cheaper for someone else - the personal shopper ran all over Buenos Aires for a month, trying to figure out how to make this deal happen for me).

Shipping is the real issue, though. FedEx, UPS, and DHL all want roughly another $300 to ship it. For some odd reason, there doesn't seem to be any "slow boat" way to get something over 2 Kg shipped out of Argentina - the cheapest level of service I could purchase was FedEx's 2-day service. Luckily, I was able to use my company's volume discount, which dropped the shipping cost down to $56.

Total, I have $391 in it. A bit much for a valve cover, but a lot cheaper than having one custom made.

If someone has contacts in Argentina, there should be a way to get some of these valve covers imported for less. If there was enough interest, getting a skid of valve covers shipped via container ship would be the cheapest way to go. Years ago, I know that there were guys importing Ford inline-6 heads and intakes from Argentina. I wasn't able to figure out how they shipped an 80 pound hunk of cast iron in an affordable way, though.