Well, after several months of sitting on my car and not doing anything to it (real estate issues/ cash crunch/ etc), I am finally out of the woods and able to slowly put some money into the RX7.

Step 1 is to replace the leaky valvestems that are keeping me from being able to have air stay in a couple of the tires (massively irritating on a weekend/occasional driver type car). While I've got them broken down, I think I want to paint the centers. They are a bit beat up, being almost 24 years old. It's a silver car, and I like silver, so I don't think the car itself is going to change colors drastically. The body may, however, spend at least a little time in gray primer as I get through to doing the body work/ rust fixing on it.

What color?
Black w/ silver lip
Gold w/ silver lip
Gunmetal/Charcoal w/ silver lip
Other (pink/blue/camo) w/ silver lip

I'm leaving the lip on there bare (though I will probably shoot clear over the whole shebang) so there's a place to mount the wheel weights without me having to worry about scratching up the paint.

Last thing- any pointers for good adhesion of paint?

 

Depends on the style of wheel. I have pana sports, black with polished lip.

 

What color is your car? For my white FB I am thinking about painting my LE rims black with the lip staying the same color.

 

I like your Panasports. If I ever eclipse the $2006 (probably more like $2007 now) challenge budget I'd like some of those, but for now it's budget stuff all the way.



My car's silver with rust spots and ugly/faded pinstripes.

 

Black, or a good charcoal mettalic paint. The clearcoat will not protect the rims from the lead wheel weights. If you want the edges to last, spend the extra bucks for the stick on weights. Lead weights on the outside of a rim ruin the look imho.

Silver centers and polished lips don't work for me at all.

 

gunmetal with a silver lip would prolly look pretty slick

 

Sweet. Thanks for the replies- I have been leaning toward a real dark gray or a gunmetal color. The pictures of the Panasports up above reinforced my idea that it would look pretty cool on a light-colored car, so I think I'll try it out. Since I've only got two jackstands, I'll be doing these two at a time anyway, so if the first two (or the first one!) don't look right then I can always try again.

Half the point of leaving the lip silver/unpainted is so the weights don't scar it up, so if that's the way it has to be, I'll just polish it up and leave it alone, no clearcoat needed. My experience with stick-on weights is that they don't do quite as good a job as the ones that clamp on the rim, so that's why.

Edit:
No love for gold? I guess I have been hanging out with too many Subaru people...

 

I have black wheels with polished lips on my car. But, my car is "****" red.
For a silver car, either black or dark charcoal would likely look the best. Gold would look the worst, in my opinion...... I didn't even like them on all those black T/A's that were running around soon after "Smokey and the Bandit" came out.....

 

you should paint them sti pink

 

 

Gun gray. I would beadblast the rims, mask off the lip and paint the center. Pull of the take and wet sand the lip (800-1200 grit) and then polish. Get the lip where you want it and then shoot clear over the whole rim.

 

I have stock wheels painted black with a silver lip.