1yakini

Saw Tmonttt's thread and loved the green. Ironically I had just had mine painted by my local rim shop in an orange. Came out pretty bad if you ask me. First is the color. This is what it looked like when I ordered.



This is the color that it dried at



I dont like it. Its too Home depot/ orange safety cone for my tastes. I have had a few compliments on it though so I am conflicted.

Second problem is the paint itself. These guys paint wheels for a living and the owner told me that a brushed kit will not come out smooth. We went ahead anyway. You can see brushmarks, thin spots, and some running when you get up close. It didnt come out well and the owner of the shop even admitted he wouldnt be happy with it. I called G2 and they said it was applied wrong even though there are others on the internet who have complained about the same problems with the kit.

In any case, the owner has offered to fix it. He wants to shoot it instead of brushing. We are talking about pulling the calipers, re preping and either changing color or smoothing out whats already there. I need opinions since I cant seem to decide on what would look good. Here are some ppls cars that I was using for comparison (sorry if one of them is yours)





or just go with the ubiquitous red.... In this pic they almost look red



(I liked the green that tmonttt did but didnt want to copy since he just shot them. )

I need opinions guys, I am really irritated with the whole project so far.

MasterTomos

iTrader: (15)

I'll never understand why people use brush-on kits. Pull the calipers off, take them to a local powdercoater, and have them done correctly.

I don't like the orange either. Then again, I think that green mentioned is super trendy as well. Something a little more timeless is my style, like black, silver, maybe red or burgundy.

1yakini

This was my first attempt at brakes so I didnt know the brush kit would look so bad. I have had a couple sets of wheels powdercoated and all mine are painted today. Powerdercoat is slightly more durable but when it is damaged (and it will get damaged) the repair is quite a bit more work than paint. I dont deal with powdercoat anymore.

I am leaning towards red now... and he said he would pull them off and do it so I'm sure it will come out much better. Thanks for the opinions on it. Never thought about black...

AAIIIC

iTrader: (19)

I've used a G2 kit on three separate occasions and each time it has come out looking fantastic. I find that the paint is almost self-smoothing; I've never had a problem with brush marks. I was able to catch any drips before they set and smooth them out.

Anyway...

I wouldn't do black on a black car with black wheels. The calipers will just disappear, which is the opposite of the effect you're going for. The ZR1 blue would look pretty awesome, and red and yellow are pretty timeless. I think a burnt orange / copper would look great, too.

1yakini

See... thats interesting I have seen pics online and the g2 kit came out decent. How many coats did you usually do? The guy that did them waited about 30 min between coats but ended up with like 5 coats on there. the G2 people said that he did too many coats. There is a Jeep SRT8 there at the shop and the guy had the calipers done in red by a different shop and his **** looks just like mine. Maybe im just too picky.

AAIIIC

iTrader: (19)

I will say that the only calipers I've done have been cast aluminum or cast iron calipers that had an as-cast finish, as opposed to the smooth finish of our Brembos. I imagine the smoother finish of the caliper would make the brush marks stand out. With the kind of rough cast finish, I found the G2 paint actually smoothed it out. I think I just did 2 coats, with a 3rd in places that needed touching up.

MasterTomos

iTrader: (15)

I've found powdercoat to be much more durable than paint, and the only time powdercoat would get damaged is if it comes in contact with something very hard (like scraping the ground, hitting another metal part against it, ect). Once the calipers are installed they shouldn't be in contact with anything at all, and the only time you'd have to worry about that is taking wheels on/off. The wheels would protect them nicely. Heck, factory brembos are powdercoated and they usually last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Also, white would is another cool color for calipers. Probably not much more cleaning maintenance than silver, I'd imagine.

http://www.m3post.com/forums/attachm...1&d=1267072622
http://www.bimmerboost.com/attachmen...0&d=1328825597
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x94/ripit14/98.jpg

liqidvenom

iTrader: (2)

i think you would need to sand them a bit to add some roughness, and the guy with the green calipers did sand/primer/paint/clear. but his was a spray can if i recall

Greed4Speed

iTrader: (7)

Just a couple of thing from my experience powder coating calipers. Yes the powder coat is more durable than paint, but you also can't touch it up. I had read and heard how durable PC is and how well it stands up to solvent and fluids, but I found that brake fluid discolors powder coating. Turns it milky white. It removes the paint.

Also, the factory Brembos are painted. They were on my V and they are on the G8 GXP. My V's calipers paint had turned gold from the heat and was warned that the PC will discolor from heat too.

All said and done, if I were to do it again I would paint them. I have a feeling the powder coating is holding in heat.


As for the color for the OP, I wanted a Burt copper color, but ended up with a dark metallic orange. I get compliments all the time, but most people think they're red.



I'd still like to do the copper though. It's close to the tone you are looking for. Check it out.

1yakini

Yea, I wanted copper, or a deep blood red to match the taillights. Anyway, today I dropped the car off at my friends shop and he drove it to check the tranny out. It was my first time seeing it rolling with the calipers done, and I think I may actually like the orange. It looked real good rolling, and the 3 guys at the shop were talking about how good it looked. Might have changed my mind. Now is the issue with getting the paint redone so they look better. From a foot or two away they look fine, but up close you can see thin spots.

Also I agree on the PC.. both cars I had with PC wheels got dings or chips from rocks and road debris. Almost impossible to patch up or fix. Paint is easy and cheap to cover up dings. Our V calipers were painted, mine were 8 years old when I had this done and still looked new when I scrubbed them. No need to PC calipers.

Greed4Speed

iTrader: (7)

Many poo on the idea, but I've had very good results with rattle can painting calipers. It's all in the prep.

MasterTomos

iTrader: (15)

I've never heard of powdercoat getting messed up by brake fluid before. Not saying its not true, but if that was a common problem you'd think you'd hear about it more.

As far as the heat discoloring the powdercoat, that may be from the prep work not being done correctly for powdercoating. I'm uncertain about how the brembos work as far as this is concerned, but powdercoaters have explained to me in the past that (at least on as-casted pieces like fbody calipers and spindles), there is often oils and such from the original manufacturing process down "in" the metal itself.

My powdercoater initially bakes pieces at over 400 degrees for a few hours, which brings a lot of this stuff to the surface (my spindles were a golden/brown color after this step-I wish I had a picture). He then media blasted them to get all of that stuff off. Some powder coaters will skip this step, and just mediablast (or just sand ) then powder them, then do a final bake.

It'd be interesting from someone from powderpros or somewhere to weigh in on this.

Greed4Speed

iTrader: (7)

http://www.thepowdercoater.com/faqs.shtml#top

Not who I used, but scroll down the where it discusses calipers. Iirc, the guy I used gave a higher temp though. He brought it up because he noticed that my stock silver calipers were gold.
And yes there are higher temp powders also. I brought it up because I don't know how the car in question will be driven.

MasterTomos

iTrader: (15)

Did you auto-cross the car or anything? Or just street use? And is there any possibility they were just discolored from brake dust (which is metallic obviously)? What mileage did you start to notice it at?