Ravenex

iTrader: (1)

After helping a friend paint his calipers a couple weeks ago, and reading various threads on here along with seeing some of the pictures, I decided to go ahead and do mine. I figured painting them blue to go with my DB Z would look pretty good without being excessively 'fake' (your opinion may vary).

So this past friday night me and a couple of my friends headed to a friend's garage to begin this excessively time consuming project. Props go to my friend Dave's parents for letting us steal their garage for almost a whole day because my house has an un-useable garage.

I had ordered and recieved the G2 caliper paint kit from TireRack and the "350Z" vinyls from JVD.

Quick timeline:
Arrived at 6. Ate dinner and started setting up around 6:30.
Took until 7:15 to get the car jacked up and get the tires off.
It then took 2-3 hours to remove and clean the calipers. Probably got a little too perfectionist at this in hindsight as the car is still pretty new. Also I didn't know **** about taking brakes & calipers off, so alot of this was new to me.
Spent the next hour to hour and a half painting. Painting took roughly 15 minutes per caliper for the first coats. Second coat was probably 5-10 minutes / coat as the G2 paint rocks.
We put the calipers back in place at 11:30 and let the car sit on the stands overnight as the directions called for 2 hours wait time for tires, and 24 hours for driving
Came back next morning, put the JVD Vinyl "350Z" stickers on, threw the tires on, and went cruising by noon time.


Random Notes:
Jacking the car up proved very tricky because I wanted to do all 4 tires simultaneously. This was A) because I was hoping my friends were going to help clean the calipers, however they ended up spending all night doing oil changes and B) because the caliper paint I used (G2) has a 4 hour paint time, and I did not want to run out the clock changing tires and ****.

When cleaning the calipers make sure you buy wire brushes in advance. Some of the caliper paint kits' instructions say you can use a toothbrush, however brake dust is hard as **** to get off even with brake cleaner. Get 2 tiny wire brushes. They're worth it.

I used newspaper to cover the rotors and other stuff I didn't want to get paint on because that's what I saw in other pictures online. However if I had to do it over again, I would buy thick painter's tarp from home depot (a couple mil) and cut it into squares and use that instead because the newspaper was tearing all over the place as I tried to slide it under the calipers (after the brakes were removed)

Removing the calipers made painting them easy but it obviously took alot more time. I wanted it to look as clean as possible though so it was worth it to me.

Putting the caliper stickers on was a bit tricky. They initially don't take to the calipers well, and I had to use a coin to rub them onto the calipers so that they would stay on as I removed the backing. But once I had the backing off, I rubbed them on more with my fingers, and they appear to be firmly adhered now. And they look great.

Before:



After:






Before I put the stickers on I was kinda pissed because of how much time the whole project was taking and the paint by iteslf looked par to sub-par. But once I put the stickers on they made the brakes look amazing. Instantly redeemed all the effort I had spent on it.

davidv

iTrader: (2)

The extra time that you took to do the job properly shows. Sharp.

alnfong

Good job,bro!look great in blue!!!I did mine in red w/nissan.

kourosH

iTrader: (3)

nice job

Mike Wazowski

iTrader: (113)

looks good

Vq.turbo.DremZ

iTrader: (6)

Nice, to bad there seems to be some road rash.

mg350ZR

Looks great!

Ravenex

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the props

Yeah unfortunately I curbed my front passenger side rim a couple weeks back. I need to find a place in/near Delaware to get it fixed at.

Brick-Z

iTrader: (2)

Looks good. Nice, cheap mod.

type7

iTrader: (15)

nice

Wired 24/7

iTrader: (2)

Did you remove the calipers completely, or were they still attached via the banjo bolt/brake line?

You should be experienced enough now to do a braided stainless steel brake line install, which is a really really nice brake mod that is also pretty cheap. I recommend that for your 2nd mod

Ravenex

iTrader: (1)

I did not remove it completely. I didn't want to have to bleed the lines. If I had though, the caliper painting would have been alot easier.

Funny you should mention that. After I had the wheels off and the calipers removed, my boy Brian says, "oh yeah, we should have replaced your lines with SS since we're already doing this. meant to tell you that...." Obviously I had no lines to replace them with at that point...

I will probably do this when my pads wear out though.

Wired 24/7

iTrader: (2)

You can do it whenever. It will add a noticeable bite and firmness to your pedal.

Quijano187

iTrader: (3)

i have a db also and i was thinking about doing this. Can you do me a favor and take a picture of the whole car to see what it looks like . I wanna see who off the blue is to the Db and if it looks cheezy or not.. thanks i appericate!!

JVD Graphics

iTrader: (3)

Hey guys!

Ravenex, the decals look great! They definitely help make the paint and calipers pop compared to just straight paint.

If anyone else needs any let me know. I have not been posting as much as of late, but I am still working like crazy and plenty to offer, so please do not hesitate to email me for requests. http://www.jvdgraphics.com/

Thanks!
-Jason

nothix

iTrader: (27)

anyone done this to their silverstone? I'm considering red to match my EBC red stuff pads, but I'm not sure if it'll stick out too much and look cheesy.

zzz350

I don't have a SS but I think red would look much better than trying to match the SS color. I have a black Z and I am going to go with red calipers. IMHO, you need an off-setting color, no offense to the blue on blue that the thread-starter used.