Any tips/tricks for making a sleeper engine bay?  

paint the whole motor. including head and intake all one color. satin black the bay. keep all hoses plain rubber. and put back in as much stock bracketry and clutter as you can stand.  

yeah..satin black...nu cast grey and no bling!!run a Q jet...  

Well this is what I have done so far. Headers are gonna give away that your engine is 'tuned.' I took my 45,000 volt coil and pried it out of the aftermarket housing and placed it on top of my cap and covered it back up with the stock 'Delco-Remy' cover that comes on those from the factory. Other than that, your intake and 14x3 air cleaner, on single carb set-ups, are gonna be obvious to a well seasoned mechanic. It might fool those stupid punks with the Neons, Civics, and Cavaliers though. They're too stupid to realize that the spoiler on the rear will make the car faster by bolting tit to the hood.  

keep it dirty. seriously. hose clamps...forget that AN crap, hoses and clamps have always worked just fine, and they don't look trick. unless you have a shiny aluminum radiator, don't paint it...just let it look like crap. Rusty valve covers, black distributor caps, a lil grease...just let it look like a well worn driver. It can really fool some of the full blown racer snobs who won't be seen without blue plastic tubign coverign their wires in their spotless engine bay, with tastefully decorated and color matched this and that....makes me sick...a few gobs of gasket sealant here and there can make it look like whoever built the engine was an incompitant (did I spell that right?)slob who probably measured tolerances with a yardstick. Sleepers are fun. Good luck!  

I'm definitely sticking with hose clamps and rubber tubing--you only need AN for high pressure fluids, or else OEMs would pick them up.  I like the nu-cast idea too.  I'm going to prime my aluminum heads and intake with self-etch primer and then lay a coat of Chevy orange over the whole engine.

I also looked into pairing a dropped bottom air cleaner pan with a top pan from an early-model car, one of the ones with a snorkel.  I have script valve covers, but I'm not sure if they will clear the roller rockers--I will have to try, or use some tall PML covers.

I'm going to use a stock-appearing Milodon pan and an RPM air gap.  I think a dual plane might look less crazy than a big gaping Victor Jr.  

For the Interior I set up the shift light to light up in the "Check Engine Soon" light when it is time to shift. (torn out the computer dont need it anymore)

The rear defroster use to control the line lock but since i have put in a wiper arm with intermediate wipers and cruise control. (i don't have either) so when i turn on the cruise control it turns on the 1st stage (3000rpm) of the 2 stage rev limiter and when i push the lever to the right it activates the line lock.
Then there is a switch under the dash that i can switch to change the controls to turn on the Torque Converter lockup when the cruise control is turned on.

Now i have a Twilight sensor, trunk pop switch, rear defroster knob, another button on the cruise control to play around with.  

oh ya and drive a car you are more worried about getting towed than stolen  

Nice touch.  I like the shift light--I'll be using a manual, so that will be perfect.

I think the cars that hold their value the best are beaters and trailer queens.  I feel people buy $8k cars, dump $10k in them, and end up selling them for $7k.  Maybe a beater will work fine.  

instead of a rpm air gap. get something like a wiend stealth intake. and put an oil splash plate on the bottom of it. the when you paint it up, it will look stock. and still make real good power.