My next project on my car will be to paint my calipers..i have a titanium 8 and i was thinking about painting my calipers red....what do you guys think?

Depends. If you are going for a red and gray theme, more power. Red isn't my personal choice, but I think it would work. It'd be flashy.

If you go crazy and just paint your calipers red for gets and shiggles, I'd advize to wait until you have a plan. There is nothing worse than a disparate color theme.

it'll look great.

Remember red isn't going to only appear on your car in the calipers, it is all over the rear tail lights, so it ends up working well.

the red looks sharp

you wont regret it

I love red in any car - The problem is some people are not painting it as smooth and leave the lumpy bits on the brake caliper. It look gay from that point. Look like a big pretender. Some I saw can make it real smooth - near the real aftermarket caliper like the Brembos. With the PoLak's RX-8 logo it makes perfect match.

So anyone have tips to make a "SMOOTH" look when painting the caliper?

The caliaper is a bit rough, but after 3 coats it started to get smooth. I did 5 coats on each, and they're about as good as it'll get.

The paint I used was thick... I used both black (for the centers) and red (for the caliapers). I tried silver, but the paint was super watery, wasn't working...

Good application seems to really be important to how classy the end result ends up looking. Something so obvious has the potential to really trash your car's good looks if messed up.

So far I know i want to paint 'down there' but have decided calipers and hub as a combo are a must along with Polak RX-8 stencils. Pretty painted looking calipers look nice, but the result of water on our totally unprotected hubs is a rusty hulk - I've seen the nasty result. Not classy - think low budget 5 yr old chevy look 'down there'!

So what I need to decide is: spray paint - 500 or 900 degree store cans, or expensive epoxy brush on? With velocity red, I see all red caliper paint that is a brighter red than the car. Ummm. I'm not sure about that. I've have found some 500 degree anodizeit that is nearly Velocity Red, and I like that idea, but will it last? Decisions :(

And lastly I still haven't seena good pic or explaination of how to mask around the rotor area so as to paint the hubs, but not the swept area. Any ideas from those that have done it?

Now if the weather would warm up some month up here :)

Originally posted by Spin9k


And lastly I still haven't seena good pic or explaination of how to mask around the rotor area so as to paint the hubs, but not the swept area. Any ideas from those that have done it?

Now if the weather would warm up some month up here :)

I used 2 inch blue painters tape, I taped over the swept area with overlapping strips and then used an X-Acto knife to cut around the inside and outside of the swept area. On the inside of the swept area there is a small ridge from the rotor wear that I used to guide the knife, just apply a small amount of pressure and it will follow the edge right around. If you mess up a little it doesn't matter, the first time you step on the brakes it will take care of any overspray. I also masked off the hub area where it fits against the wheel to avoid the clicking noise problem http://www.finishlineperformance.com/rx8/docs/02-002-04.html
I then painted the inner hub and the outer edge of the rotor, I used Aluminum color high temp paint.

Originally posted by Zoom2X
I used 2 inch blue painters tape, I taped over the swept area with overlapping strips and then used an X-Acto knife to cut around the inside and outside of the swept area. On the inside of the swept area there is a small ridge from the rotor wear that I used to guide the knife, just apply a small amount of pressure and it will follow the edge right around. If you mess up a little it doesn't matter, the first time you step on the brakes it will take care of any overspray. I also masked off the hub area where it fits against the wheel to avoid the clicking noise problem http://www.finishlineperformance.com/rx8/docs/02-002-04.html
I then painted the inner hub and the outer edge of the rotor, I used Aluminum color high temp paint.

Hey bud could you provide the rest of us some pics of your fabulous work of art?

thanks...

You can get a caliper paint kit by Dupli-color at wal-mart.. comes w/ cleaner, paint and brush.. my calipers look great.

just go ahead and paint them red it usually turns out fine, if you dont what will you do instead?

I have titanium grey and I painted the brake calipers red. I also painted by engine cover to V-Shap and also the engine support beam red.

Open the hood and stand back about 30 feets from the front side...the car looks great. I will take some pics tomorow so you'll see what I mean.

I painted my front calipers today with the duplicolor kit... worked out pretty well, just have to find some more free time and ambition to do the rears. The duplicolor red is an almost near match to the red leather in my interior so it looks pretty good.