Im thinking about painting my stock rims gunmetal black, because the old paint is peeling off. If anybody has a blue FD with black stock rims id love to see pics of what it looks like, thanks

 

just buy new wheels :] or you can look through the picture thread hahah all 477 pages

 

giver ernesto, it will look good. just picture it in your mind bro!

 

gold looks better

 

^bronze is even better than gold, Tim.

 

bronze on blue ftw..

 

Black looks much better than gold/bronze AFAIC. Do a search for Max Cooper. His aren't stockers, they're 17" Volks, but it looks GREAT and not ricey.

http://maxcooper.com/rx7/parts_info/...37k/index.html

 

not on the car yet....

 

Ok I think im ready to finally repaint my stock rims to black, but I have a LOT of questions

PAINT

(1 What kind of paint do I use for the most quality long lasting result? I was thinking several coats of Duplicolor High Gloss ceramic black engine paint, or is there a better option? Also, should I use a primer so the paint will have something to stick to?

GLOSSY FINISH

(2 Do I use a clear coat afterwards for a glossy finish, or will it be glossy enough?

SANDING AND PREPPING

(3 My rims are in pretty horrible shape, how do I go about sanding them, what grit sandpaper should I start with, and finish with? I hear of people using a sanding wheel, where do I buy this from and whats the proper name for it?

WHEEL WEIGHTS

I know I have to remove them prior to painting, but I was thinking about using sticky weights for the outside, that way when I get my tires balanced they dont mess up the paint by hammering the weights on. Is this a good idea?

Thats all the questions I have, hopefully somebody is very experienced in this and can give some pointers! lol i'd really appreciate any help

 

I ran black powder coated stock wheels on my MB 3rd gen when I autoX'ed it. Don't have a picture of it but it think that it looked OK. When the wheels were powder coated the shop had them sand blasted before coating. Looks great and really holds up well but cost me about $40 per wheel to get it done professionally.

IMHO - Wet sand (start with 120, then go to finer grit until you have the desired finish) and paint with a rattle can is a more cost effective route if you don't value your time highly. If you plan to paint the back of the wheels then you will be spending some major time getting all the road tar/grime/brake dust off.

Wheel Weights - I think that most tire shops will use the stick on type of weight if you ask them to.

 

After a long time of research, iv'e decided to go with having my OEM rims powder coated gunmetal. After researching how it's done, there's no question that powder coating is the most quality long lasting method.

The only thing about my rims that makes things a little more complicating, is that they are chrome, and peeling. After talking to the powder coating employees and explaining my situation, they told me they can NOT sandblast peeling chrome rims. They told me that the chrome has to be chemically removed from the rims, and for that they charge about $900 for all 4 rims not including the powder coating, which obviously is not worth it. I even went online, and apparently sandblasting does not work very well with chrome.

After spending countless hours researching how to remove chrome from rims "The cheap way" I found a solution. I found several reports of people using "Easy Off oven cleaner" to remove the chrome from the rims, and in literally minutes, it melts right off. So I could remove the chrome myself, and then drop off my rims to be sandblasted, and powder coated. If the oven cleaner works REALLY well, maby I won't even need sandblasting. Before anything, I will test the oven cleaner first to verify that it does in fact work.

This whole thing is a lot more complicating then I thought

 

I had gunmetal oem wheels on my MB car when I first got it. I liked the color combo but didnt like 16x8 wheels, they only stayed on the car for a couple weeks.

 

blue, with the black OEM 99 rims are sweet.

 

Ok today was a really bad day. The easy off oven cleaner didnt work to remove the old chrome :-/ all that happened was it made the peeling chrome even shinier and cleaner so the whole idea about remove the chrome myself just went out the window.

One complicating thing about having peeling chrome rims, is that it takes a professional shop to chemically remove the chrome, and I heard 1 quote of $900 for all 4 rims ONLY for removal, which obviously is not worth it.

I thought about aftermarket, rims, but If if I go aftermarket, I will go all out with something like 245/35/ZR18 black volks with a chrome lip, and I cant justify spending thousands of dollars on rims and tires right now. Either I do it right with powdercoating, or I dont do anything at all. Tommorow, i'm gonna contact a few local shops in sacramento too see if anybody can sandblast the chrome off of the rim, for a hell of a lot less the $900. If not, then i'll put everything back together, and just live with the peeling chrome....

 

Why don't you take a look at some used wheels here: http://www.rbwheels.com/

You can find good wheels without spending a fortune.

 

Ok so just now, I got a price quote to remove the chrome which actually sounds reasonable. A local Custom plating shop in Sacramento charges $15 per wheel to remove all the chrome plating, and $50 per wheel to remove everything completely from the rim, down to bare metal, to prepare for powder coating. Then powdercoating from there at the place I want, is $75 per wheel. About $500 for everything... a little more then I expected, but not extremely bad either. What do you guys think?

 

If you really like the stock rims, then go for it. IMO, the stock rims are one of the two things that date the car (the other being the 93-95 front lip). I would suggest putting that $500 to some decent aftermarket wheels (used or new).

 

Ok so I did a lot of thinking about what you just stated Mahjik, and I feel that you're right, $500 is quite a lot to spend on factory rims. I did research aftermarket rims, to try and find a 17'' rim for around the price range of $500, and I found something. The rims are called Drag DR11, and they are about $470 shipped, which I think is excellent.

Another reason why I'm decided to upgrade my rims, is because I noticed my tires are actually gonna need replacing too in the next few months I'm very picky when it comes to rims, so I did a lot of research.

The stock 16'' FD rims are about 16-17 lbs per rim, and the 17''s I want are 20lbs per rim, but with my chrome plating on the stock rims, the weight for both rims roughly equals out, so there shouldn't be much of a weight increase at all if any.

I researched 225/50/16 tire weight, they weigh roughly around 21-23 lbs per tire depending on the manufacturer.

I also researched 225/45/17 tire weight, and they weigh about the same, depending on the manufacturer.

SO....

Advantages:

----More aesthetically pleasing
----Will raise the car up 1'', and make pulling in and out of driveways a little easier
----Weight increase will not be enough to affect performance, if there's even an increase at all
----Price is right

Disadvantages:

---Will have sticky weights, and balancing will be more difficult
---Tires will probably be a little more expensive
---Ride will probably be rougher
---My Speedometer may be slightly off

Here's a pic of what they look like: http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z...ag_DR11_GM.jpg

 

I was suggesting putting the $500 towards some new rims. Not suggesting to find some new rims for $500.

I would suggest spending a little more money on your wheels and maybe look at something like this:

http://www.racinglab.com/5zigen-zr520-wheels.html

You can get a staggered fitment of 17x8 and 17x9 or run either of those all around. There is also:

http://www.racinglab.com/5zigen-zr520-wheels.html

You can get a staggered fitment of 17x8.5 and 17x9.5 or run either of those all around.

There is a decent set of used rims on the RBWheels site:

http://www.rbwheels.com/index.php?ma...oducts_id=1999


Just FYI, increasing the wheel size by 1" does not raise the car 1". Basically, you are keeping the same overall diameter of the tire + wheel. So each inch that you increase by the wheel, you decrease in the tire sidewall.

 

I didnt think about the sidewall, you're right. I wouldn't be gaining any height at all, unless I had maby a 50 series 17'' tire, which would look big and ugly in my opinion

 

Oops, BTW that second link should have been:

http://www.racinglab.com/5zprgnwh.html

 

What do you guys think about the 17'' Tenzo R DC6? I found some on ebay for $850 shipped. They use a Low Pressure casting for the wheels as well, and only weigh 17lbs per wheel. The style im going for is black with a chrome or polished lip.

Here's a pic... http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z...ion2_black.jpg

 

Ok so I have been doing a LOT of research on tires: weight, overall diameter, RPM's etc. If I have a 17x8'' wide rim in the front, If I use a 235/45/17 tire, the overall diameter of that tire would be 25.4''. The stock 225/50/16 tire diameter is 24.9''. Wouldn't that mean that I would actually raise the front of the car up by half an inch?

245/40 on the front will lower the car, I don't want that. 245/45 on the front will raise the front of the car up, but the sidewalls will look huge, and with that width and height, it may rub the fenders. 255's won't safely fit on an 8'' wide rim. That's why im thinking 235/45, because it will raise the front of the car .5'' ( which has several advantages for a daily driver) also less chances of rubbing the fenders, and lookswise... the sidewall will look roughly the same as a 245/40, because the width of the tire will be skinnier. I even pulled out my calculator, and according to the numbers I got, the 235/45/17 sidewall height will probably "appear" to be the same a 255/40/17 (which is what I plan on using in the rear). Does that sound about right?

 

245/40/17 on an 8-8.5" wheel all around is a nice combo, as is 255/40 on a 9"... the lower profile of the tires looks great.

 

True the lower profile does look better, but a 235/45/17 will look similar to a 255/40/17 in the sidewall, because the sidewall is a percentage of the width.

So 235/45 sidewall means that the sidewall is 45% of 235mm.
A 255/40 sidewall means that the sidewall is 40% of 255mm... see where i'm going with this?

235/45/17-----235mm divided by 100%= 2.35mm---2.35mmX45%=105.75mm sidewall height.
255/40/17-----255mm divided by 100%= 2.55mm---2.55mmX40%=102.00mm sidewall height.

This means that If I stagger the sizes 235 in the front and 255 in the rear, the sidewalls will look the same to the naked eye. I'm very picky when it comes to detail.... another thing I didn't even realize until I checked yesterday, is that the McLaren F1 used 235/45/17'' in the front, and the 2000 RX7 RZ actually staggered the tires, and used F 235/45/17 R 255/40/17

If Mazda used this set up on a factory RZ, then I feel this is perfect for me.