What's best? I've seen some folks brush on (don't know what) paint and seen some pricey powder coat exchange programs. Want to add some flash (red) to my silverstone/black. Thanks

 

I removed mine, cleaned them off then just used red caliper paint. Put them back on and its done. Looks great.

 

This Project took me about 3 days total. This mod is not difficult, but is a little time consuming and tedious if you want to ensure a quality job.

Some have chosen to grind down the casting marks on their calipers before the G2 system and others have not. It looks good either way and is a personal preference. It all depends on how much time you want to spend. If you want your calipers to look smoother like a profressional powder coat job, then you should grind. Grinding will give you that "Porsche" smooth factory caliper look.

The materials used are as follows:

- G2 caliper paint kit. Red = $31.00 on sale (www.decalgirl.com)
- Bright silver metallic "S2000" logos = $11.99 (www.decalgirl.com)
- 2 3/4' wide Artist brushes = $2.99 each (Ben Franklin crafts store)
- 1 small pointed Artist brush (for more detailed/hard to reach areas) = $2.99 (Ben Franklin crafts store)
- 1 Sunday edition Hbg Patriot Newspaper = .50 cents (QT)
- 2 Hefty Trash Bags = .05 Cents (Walmart)
- 1 Dremel #953 Alum. Ox. Grinding Stone = $3.95 (Home Depot)
- 1 Dremel #932 Alum. Ox. Grinding Stone = $3.95 (Home Depot)
- 1 BrakeKleen Brake Cleaner = $0.00 (Included in G2 caliper paint kit)
- 5ft. standard Masking Tape from your basement = Free

Tools used/optional

- Die grinder with wheel. This is a fast and easy way to remove those casting marks in SECONDS! You need to be very careful if you use this tool because if you press too hard, you can ding the metal. If you don't have one of these, then the Dreme grinding stones will do the same job, but will take longer. (borrowed from neighbor).
- Generic dremel tool. = $9.99 with 60 attachements. (Harbor Freight)
- Sanding drums- came in the 60 piece attachment kit above, fit any hand/dremel tool.

Safety

- WEAR GOGGLEs and a MASK when grinding! You don't need metal fragments in your eye or in your mouth!

PICTURES!PICTURES!PICTURES!PICTURES!PICTURES!

First, get your car up on jackstands. For best way to get your car up on jackstands, read the 2nd post here



Picture of my front caliper FULLY grinded down in all visible areas and smooth as glass. (5+ hours total for all four calipers over two days.



I put about 6 coats of G2 on the fronts and 4 on the rear. Instead of mixing the full amount of paint and reactor in one shot, I took 4 parts of paint using a plastic spoon, and 1 part reactor on a spoon into a small can. This small amount let me do 1 coat on all 4 calipers. I then, repeated the above until I got mutiple coats. I probably have enough left over to do one more coat on all the calipers. I'll save it for touch up down the road. If you mix it all at once like the instructions say, you will only have about 3 hours working time before the paint is hard and unusable.

Picture before logos:





Picture after front logos:



I did not put logos on the rear. To my eye, it didn't really look as balanced and I only favor them on the front - they look like they are made to go there....

Some full shots:









A big thanks to StknCaS2k, Virus, enzyme, Hockey, ruexp67, Johnny--2K, KenGPW, and others

 

nice writeup JB. I personally used Hi-temp paint from pepboys. $7.99 for a huge can. Took off brake, brake cleaner, let dry, spray. reassemble. done. I only did my rears to match my black wilwoods up front. No probs sofar...

 

Hey the guy b4 me painted my calipers red...i have a gpw and i wanna go black. can I just paint over the red with the g2 kit or do i need to grind that crap off???

 

you have silverston/blk combo. You can also paint it different color, either silver or black besides red. Others have done this.

If you just want to see how it'll turn out, you can always just spray paint before you apply the caliper paint kit. It may be ghetto, but it's much quicker and you can see what it'll be like before you paint it for good.

I didn't have a garage for my car, so I did it the easy way. wrapped everything up and just sprayed painted the calipers and brake pads with high temperature paint. Wasn't too bad of a turn out. 3-4 coats and it was shiny and lasted for a while. In fact, I had so many compliments that I just gave away my caliper paint kit because I just didn't have time or place to paint it properly. Just another option.

 

Jason, thanks for the detailed write up. I have one question, did you unbolt the calipers from the wheel hub or did you do all the work while they were bolted in place?

 

They were left of the car.

 

Jason. Still not clear, on or off? Thanks for the great photos and explanation.

 

mine were done about three years ago...
kuni did most of the work, and marks2k helped.
took about 3 to 4 hours. painted by brush on the car- after putting the car on jackstands.

got the kit at seriousauto.com