3JsVette

Your car. Your choice. Nice job on the photo shop.
IMCO the black wheels give a different look and I like it.

Dennis Tapp

I am in the process of building a white 80 corvette and it will have matt black side pipes and wheels. I like the wheels on this car (even paying to have the rears made an inch wider) and I will take it to a local wheel repair shop and they will paint the wheel a matt black. Done well with baking after they paint. The trend now is larger wheels with some art work of spokes. This lets your painted calipers show. With the stock wheels I am not sure if I will paint the calipers. Might do it for the fun and they might show when the car is setting just right in the parking lot. The 80 to 82 cars were made to hot rod. The shinny wheels looks like it needs to be your plane jane numbers matching car. Not for me. Have fun.

leadfoot4

I had a Firebird of that era, for a number of years. Back then, Enkei made a wheel with the black, crosslace spoke pattern, and a polished outer rim. I had a set on my 'Bird.....

Dennis Tapp

And I forgot to say I am 64 years old. Nice to know my mind is still young.

brent319

I have always loved the looks of the Buick GN and the wheels on it so I thought about blacking out my spokes and leaving the lip bare. I spent six bucks on some plasti-dip (there have been other brands added since then-some may be glossy out the can) and I sprayed the spokes. It was an easy way to find out I was glad I did not spend a ton of money messing up my rims since I did not care for it.
Even if I had liked it, it would have been nice to be able to do the rest of the wheels, drive it for a year or a few months or whatever, and then change it back for a different look again.
The only thing to watch with that stuff is over-spray. It easily peels off in sheets as advertised. But the overspray is not a sheet and will be hard to get off. I also did the same thing when i was trying to decide if I wanted to add grand sport stripes to my fenders. That one i liked, and painted them on.

Bigeddie

Hey i like the black wheels and polished look and way back when i dipped them. I used plastic dip but auto dip came out with an upgraded version Either way i think they both look good.Id advice on dipping them as you can always go back to the polished look later. I now have a different vette and I'm sticking with the polished look(I'm not an old guy ,26)

Bigeddie

Just saw that you had previously dipped and didn't like. still always fun to bring up old pics of my first vette.

The Punisher

I say paint them.

jim-81

ha! that's what I did. They are looking nice. Should have them back on the car tomorrow.

Part of this plan was also black side pipes... and those are on the truck for delivery today!

The Punisher

Cool post some pics when there on

leadfoot4

I sincerely hope that they aren't the black painted, Hooker pipes....

Emeightch

I just sent mine out for blasting and powder coating - semi gloss black. It's about $70 each rim. I should have them back next week.

jim-81

bazza77

Nice

I ran the black painted Hookers for a while , ended up buying a small can of pot belly stove black paint for the numerous touch ups right behind the front wheels .



Your car looks tough now

jim-81

Doug's

Dennis Tapp

Now that this thread has gone into black side pipes to. I will ask if there was any clearance problems with the Doug's headers and pipes? I like the look of your car. I have not seen any wheels that I like better than the OEM wheels. I will probably paint mine black after the suspension is changed.

jim-81

No places that I had to dimple the headers but possibly/maybe I should have as they are very close in a couple places. The no. 1 cylinder pipe is very close to the steering gearbox - about 1/8". Other than that everything cleared ok. They are close to the body where they turn out behind the front wheel but don't hit. Overall a good installation. And the bolts all went in easy! No fighting with those.

By the way, I was pretty concerned about the heat thing and burning my (and my wifes) legs when getting out. THEY ARE NOT THAT HOT! After driving on the freeway on a hot day (yesterday) for an hour, I got out and touched them and could touch them with my hand. Yes they are hot/warm but I don't think they would burn you.

jim-81

Oh yeah, and they are LOUD! Holy crap, and I got the medium inserts (not the loudest and not the reverse flows). They sound cool as hell, I just hope I don't get sick of them. As I said above we went on a drive yesterday about an hour and half away and it was a little annoying for that length of time. Note that I was running 3000 rpm though because of the 4 speed and 3.54 gears. At lower rpms it's not so bad. Time for a 5 speed .. lol.

But yeah, they are loud.

Dennis Tapp

Is your steering box OEM or Borgeson?

Bigeddie

man it looks good and reminds me of my 79!!!!!!