waddisme

VHT wheel paint - good to 250*; VHT engine enamel - 550*; caliper paint - 900*. Using flat black over 18" stock C5Z06 rears.

The Panther

I painted some old wagon wheels with Duplicolor Engine Enamel ~500* after sanding and priming. Looked really good for a few months then faded and chipped. Another coat brings them back to looking good. Wheels were less than $100 but I wouldn't do it to anything nicer than that.

*C7*

I use a gloss black engine paint. Just hit them with a quick touch up every so often. You know, using no masking tape or sand paper. Maybe wipe off the brake dust first.

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SouthernSon

I simply wiped down with dupont paint prep using scotch brite followed by high temp caliper flat black and the wheels still look good with only a minor scratch or two after 3 sets of track tires. I was skeptical at first not using primer but you don't need it. I feel better not powder coating at high temp for track use.

jawfixer

Hey Arte--wouldnt a powder coat be better ?-How about a clear coat? I want to have my wheels painted from the awful silver OEM.

waddisme

I found your thread about doing yours, so I am skipping the priming and got some scotchbrite. I missed the part about the DuPont paint prep. I think I will try the airplane stripper on the barrels to see how they do. I might do my SSR GT7 barrels in flat black also if it turns out alright. I just wasn't sure how much heat they wheels take on the track. Jury is still out on whether or not the powder coating heat is bad for them, so why take a chance. Besides not too hard to mess up track wheels.

Thanks.

Joe_Knesek

It's actually the prep before powder coating that can cause problems. Some shops remove the existing finish using a burn off oven instead of media blasting. The burn off oven heats the wheel to 800° which is twice as hot as the powder coating oven.

SouthernSon

With those big brakes and the way you are going deep nowdays, you might need a 2500 degree paint. Actually, there has been speculation that regular powder which requires higher temps than the low temp powder can pass the threshold of the wheels' tolerance for transient temps if left in the oven too long but you probably won't find a shop that knows/cares about the difference in the powders. And the lower temp powders don't flow out as smoothly. I have been real happy with the way the regular high temp caliper paint has worked out. I simply painted them and put them in the hot sun to soak up the heat and dry out for a day.

Besides, don't you have a set of those really nice expensive wheels from forgeline? How long is a set of hoosiers lasting you anyhoo?

Scooter70

The other issue with powdercoating track wheels is that the coating makes it harder to see cracks, if they happen to develop.

I painted my old GTO track wheels with Duplicolor wheel paint and then a couple of coats of the wheel clearcoat. It held up ok but needed to be redone at the beginning of each season. One trip through the kitty litter off the end of Turn 8 at Watkins Glen tore them up pretty good though.