ruexp67

Prompted by some local Chicago area owners (Luder94 and S2000GT) the time came for me to paint my calipers.

I thought about color for a little while, but I just can't imagine using anything other than red calipers on my car. I wanted to add the S2000 Logo and was directed to http://www.decalgirl.com for the S2000 decals and paint.

I ordered White logos for my car, and red and gunmetal decals for S2000GT to choose between as he was still deciding on what color paint to use.

Luder94 bailed out on us so S2000GT and I were left to our own painting devices. We jacked up both cars and removed all the wheels. We cleaned the calipers off with a wire brush and some brake cleaner. We masked off the calipers with masking tape. I had ordered the red G2 paint from decal girl with the decals so I started mixing it up. The kit comes with a small paint can and a small bottle of reaction fluid. You pour the reaction fluid into the paint can and stir. Then let it stand for about 10-15 minutes and stir it agin. I was now ready to paint.

I started on the rear caliper. The thought being that if I messed up, I would not notice it as much on the rears. I used a 1" brush from Home Depot to put a light coat of paint on the entire caliper. When I finished I moved around the car until I had put a base coat on each caliper. The fronts are MUCH easier to paint. Despite them being bigger, they have fewer "nooks and crannies" to get into. I went around the car in sequence 3 times. The first coat looked pretty bad, but by the third it was much better. As the paint was getting a little thicker the coats were still a little tacky to the touch as I went around. This caused progressivly more bristles to be pulled out of the brush. I had probably 10 bristles to deal with on the entire car through all coats. That's not too bad, but if I were to do this again, I would buy one decent 1" brush instead of a set of 1" 2" and 3" cheapy brushes. Also some smaller brushes wouldn't hurt any, but I think it came out pretty well with just the 1"

I let the third coat setup for a little while (mabey 10 minutes more) then went around one more time for a fourth coat. I was then going to try to embed the decals into the paint so they would hold. This did not work very well at all. I ended up removing the decal and touching up the paint. We decided it made sense to wait until the paint was dry.

Once the paint was dry to the touch we removed the backing paper from the decals, and moistened the calipers and decals with soapy water. I carefully placed the logos where I wanted them and smoothed them down onto the calipers. Removing the "top" layer from the logo decal turned out to be an issue with every caliper. The logo parts did not want to separate from the paper. It took some very fancy work with an exacto knife, but the decals are all in place. S2000GT decided to paint his cailpers Gunmetal, so he did not use the Gunmetal decals. I ended up using the gunmetal decals and I am very happy with the look.

S2000GT

Looking good

sputnik

Looks like a really good job, I've been thinking about doing it too

Jason B

Nice job. You put the logo on the rears too?

Did you do any GRINDING anywhere before you painted?

I guess it's a personal preference, ruff vs smooth.

ruexp67

I did put the decals on the rear, although its hard to see. I did not grind down the casting. Four coats of epoxy type paint was enough "smoothing" for my tastes.

Hockey

Great job, Rue!

There has been a bunch of these getting done lately.

I have even started painting other owners calipers. Can't believe Honda would allow such ugly calipers on a sports car.

I'll cover the West coast, you take the East. Hehehe.

Hockey

shift_9k

I gotta see em in person. Looks like a clean job.

I want to go black and with white decals, anyone have pics?

beutler

Looks Great! I wonder how the paint would standup to a track day? Would the heat melt or discolour the paint? Anyone have any experince with this?

Luder94

For the record:

I bailed to go make an important pick-up....but only after stopping by S2000GT's house to drop off the mini-grill, charcoal, jack-stands, and jack.

More importantly:

I bailed to see how long this took you two fools and to see if the paint is going to last. If it doesn't why should I waste my time? Might as well and learn from your experiences!!!

Shift,

Lee didn't use his logos, I think he's got white logos to possibly sell, unless he is going to use them for body tatoos.

Jason B

I've THOROUGHLY researched this on here using the SEARCH and everyone that's had the G2 system hasn't had any problems with it coming off. I read one post of a guy that did it two years ago and tracked a few times w/logos and still look new.