I'm redoing my front brakes, took em all the way back to the metal. Do I have to use brake caliper paint (hi-temp) or can I use Automotive paint? If I apply several thin coats, I can get away with it right?

 

you can use high temp motor paint.

 

Yeah, I have a black car and I used the GM engine block orange...nice change from the usual red...folks that see them like them better than red...they've been painted for 4 months and are still nice and shiny...Used 2 cans of brake cleaner and wire brush and got all 4 done. Used two full spraycans and got about 5-6 light coats on em in about two hours...about the time you get finished sprayin the fourth caliper, it's time for next coat on the first...did mine while still on the car...tape the daylights out of everything, and don't wear white sneakers (mine are orange hue now)...that stuff floats to places you'd never believe...LOL.

 

I know all that, I did it before. I'm redoing my calipers. But can automotive exterior paint work as well? Think of the Subaru WRX STi, or the Infiniti G35, or the Nissian Sentra SE-R Spec-V. They all have the Brembo brake upgrade option. They are all also painted a high gloss gold metal flake. That is what I want to do to my calipers, but in red.....with a LOT of metal flake in the paint. How do you do that and have it stand up to the heat? Obviously Subaru, Nissian, and Infiniti (or Brembo) figured it out....now how do I do it?

 

anyone?

 

Well, I went down to my powder coaters yesterday and asked about coating my calipers and he said he was not comfortable using the powder coat process as it starts to break-down at 400 degrees F. He recommended VHT or a similar high temp engine paint.

I am planning on cleaning my calipers as well as I can using degreaser followed by Metal Cleaner. If they turn out nice I'm planning on painting them with a High Temp Clear, if not a High Temp Aluminum.

 

maybe I should ask on the ricer boards.

 

If you use regular automotive paint on your calipers you will have problems.

Caliper temps will get high enough to damage regular automotive paint. I was just down at the autoparts store and they had a very large selection of High Temp ceramic paint in a lot of different colors these days, possibly even a metal flake red. They even make a high temp clear to give the paint some depth.

I'm sure the finish on the Brembo Calipers is a high temp finish even with the metal flake.

 

Temp temp paint MUST be used. The calipers get way too hot for normal auto paint.

 

i know the calipers get hot...but hot enough to ruin a powder-coating??? i thought that stuff was pretty tuff??

 

I was just inquiring about this myself. I'm thinking about buying the KVR rotors from fasttoys.net but wanted to ask about the zinc plating finish in black (they also have them in gold). A guy from rotorpros.com told me that the zinc plating wears off so that they won't stay black or gold the entire time. I'm not too comfortable painting them just because that creates a layer that may become slick, plus I've not heard of anybody painting their rotors only zinc plating them different colors.

You may want to check out rotorpros.com. They have colored hats on their rotors as well as zinc plating.

By the way does anybody have the KVR rotors? Do they compare to powerslots?

 

I have KVR rotors and pads - they work great. I can't compare to Powerslot as i have not used them. I painted my rotors with high temp. black tremclad when i put them on about 3-4 years ago and they are still perfect - no rust.

 

Does the hi-temp tremclad come off in the fire path, where the pads meet the rotor?

 

everything is going to come off of the place where the pad meets the rotor...the only way i know to keep the actual rotor from rusting in to use it...after you wash your car the rotors are rusty because the water got on the untreated metal, after you pull out the driveway and put on brakes for the first time they look like brand new rotors again

 

I know this is an old post but I was skimmng through and thought I would add my experiance. I used high temp engine paint the first time and after a year and half the paint chipped off in spots. I redid them a yearr ago with VHT paint specificly for brake calipers and they look as good as the day i painted them.