That is one black insulator. Did you photoshop the whole insulator or is your'* actually still that black?....dang....

When I started this project it wasn't, but I removed it, spray painted the whole thing black, then stenciled the letters

What I did was start out with a pic of the door emblem

then I cropped it to just the emblem

then I opened the image file in Microsoft Paint, stretched it 300% horizontally and vertically, and printed it. It prints across 4 letter size pages (i.e. the letters in SSE are each about 4 in high by 7 in long, the letters in SUPERCHARGED are each about 1.5 in by 1.5 in). Each page printed with a small margin (I probably could have done something in the print options to eliminate it, but I didn't) so I fold the margins back, and tape the 4 pages together with transparent tape, result is a "pattern" about 29 in long. Actual length from left edge of first * to right edge of i is about 27 in, from bottom of SUPERCHARGED to top of SSEi is about 6 in. Then get stencil blank, the biggest I could find is 8 in by 10 in ($2.99 cdn each at Michaels Arts & Crafts www.michaels.com ), so 3 pieces taped together makes a blank 8 by 30, trace the pattern onto the blank.

Note: almost all the letters in SUPERCHARGED that might have a "floating" piece are styled to avoid it (i.e. the loop of the P does not come all the way around, same with the loop of the R, the top of the A is not enclosed) and the E and the H are done in 2 pieces, making it very suitable for a stencil. The only letters that are a problem is the i in SSEi (since I wanted to duplicate the "hollow" effect), and the D in SUPERCHARGED is enclosed. The i in SSEi needs 4 bridges, one from the top of the dot, one from the bottom of the dot to the top of the middle line, and bridges on either side of the middle line near the bottom. The D needs a top and bottom bridge for the enclosed portion.

Lay the stencil on a piece of glass, and using a stencil cutter ($24.99 cdn at Michaels), melt the lines and remove the pieces where the paint will come through.

Then remove the under hood light, pull the plastic retainers and remove the hood insulator. Clean the insulator and spray paint with high-heat black. Position the stencil on the insulator and mark where the corners will go with tape, then spray the stencil with stencil adhesive ($6.69 cdn at Michaels), and stick the stencil onto the insulator.

With a sponge roller, roll on Acrylic paint, I used white Delta Ceramcoat (made by Delta Technical Coatings, Inc. bought at Michaels). This is paint intended for "craft" surfaces like cardboard or fabric, seems like hood insulator fits into that category, instructions with paint say that when painting on fabric, use with Delta Ceramcoat Textile Medium, but I didn't, and it seems to be fine. When used on fabric, this paint is suposed to be set with heat, so I figure the engine heat will do the job.

After peeling the stencil off the insulator, I touched up all the edges of the letters with a black permanent marker, then installed the hood insulator with new plastic retainers (GM PN 20064875 $1.96 cdn each 11 are required)

sorry for the dust alert..

but i think i wanna try this..thanks for the nice write up...

Whoa, had a sense of deja vu there

Here'* a pic of the equipement I used to stencil the hood insulator, clockwise from top right is the paper template (it'* been folded up for a while), the plastic stencil (mounted on piece of cardboard to keep it flat), roller, stencil cutter, stencil cutter instruction card, spray top coat, spray stencil adhesive, acrylic white craft paint