i use the engine enamel paint to paint rims comes out pretty good

 

wow very impressive self painted rims guys. norcalbugeye thanks for breakdown of the needed steps. especially that tip of "3 light coats are better than 2 heavy ones" never thought of it that way. car looks sweet btw.

i called mekala powder coating today and they are charging $60 per rim. i decided on black instead of gold, pretty sure they would charge more if i chose gold because they said depending on the color they charge up to $90 per rim.

looks like i'm just gonna do it myself. doing it myself would be 4x cheaper and i could use the experience and be all proud after i'm done.

 

i've searched specifically hawaii section and found this last night. pretty damn good job. but correct me if i'm wrong but those rims in the picture are gunmetal now right? i mean i only see your car every time at autox hehe

 

if you don't mind i'd like to see a sample picture of one of the rims.

 

thats the spririt just take your time, do it right and you'll be glad you did it yourself instead of paying $240 for powdercoat haha

 

I'm a little sketchy about powder coating the OEM BBS STI wheels because of all the myths I'm reading about structural integrity during the PC process.

I'm thinking about painting the wheels myself. I'm settled on matte or semi-gloss black.

1. Will 400 grit sandpaper scuff up the wheels?
2. What is wet sanding and what are you suppose to do?
3. Do I need to apply clearcoat if I'm doing matte or semi-gloss?

 

I just did mine.

400 grit is what you want...at least a regular $5 package of that plus a wire brush should get you through scuffing up the old paint enough. I used the paper on all the places it could easily get and the wire brush in the crevices.

Wet sanding is sanding with a fluid like water...this would be more useful after the clearcoat.

Clearcoat is worth is for helping to protect the finish. If you can find the matte clear.

I used Rustoleum because they have a "Performance Wheel" line of spray paint. I got it at Autozone but not sure if that store is in HI.


Prep Completed as far as sanding...hit one with primer already then realized I should shoot all at the same time.


Here's the first one with the primer.


All 4 hit with 1 coat primer, 3 coats Rustoleum Wheel Performance black paint and 2 coats of Rustoleum Wheel Performance clear.


One of them just before I removed the masking.




I just did all this last weekend. Beforehand I launched a thread in Nabisco for advice...a professional guy came on and posted some thoughts. http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=1958517

 

whoa, thanks for posting. this is very helpful!

 

You're welcome...it took me the whole day mostly because I was sick with a sinus infection and had to take tons of breaks.

All the paint was easy and looked really good. The clear is pretty hard to get even...I guess it is a different texture than regular paint so it doesn't cover the same way.

 

how many cans of primer and paint did you go through?
how did you paint the insides?

 

One can each. I actually have a bunch of the primer left and maybe 1/6 of the paint can for touch ups.

You do the insides first...turn the wheel over. Then turn it back over for the front. I only primer'd my inside of wheel because I don't care.