1) What type of color should I be looking for - heat resistant?
2) Should I paint the entire wheel or just the spokes and leave the cylinder original color
3) Alternatively, can exhaust tips be re-chromed?

The wheels I have are similar to these:

http://www.wheelenhancement.com/Imag...rreraS_obw.jpg

Thanks!

 

my advice is to NOT powder coat the tips. Either prep and paint them yourself with high-temp paint, or get them ceramic-coated.

I powder coated my wheels and am very happy with them. Some people prefer to see a silver or alum rim, mine are all black. It's a matter of personal taste.

ps-I originally powder coated my tips, but one hot day at the track literally disintegrated the black coating, rendering it nothing but fine white powder.

 

I painted my exhaust tips and have had no issues with flaking, etc. I roughed up the finish with sandpaper, sprayed a coat of primer, and then used high heat flat black from Autozone. Piece of cake.

Concerning the possibility of re-chroming them, I say, " Once you go black, you'll never go back."

 

If you paint wheels they look nicer,color options are more, however they are a lot weaker than powder coating,therefor more work to keep them looking nice.As for the tips , no experience with them.

 

Thanks guys and LOL Taxi!

I am starting with wheels first. I will worry about tips later.

I will go all black (including rim and inside cylinder) on the wheels. I have colored crest as center, how do they get painted? Cover crest with blue tape?

Thanks!

 

Let me know how it works out. I pull my tips on a regular basis and polish them up. They get corroded so easily, so I'm thinking about doing the same and going black with them.

 

What do you use to polish the tips? I am considering not coloring the tips black since I have a black car.

 

Get a bottle of Busch Aluminum polish - works great on tips - cleans and protects - I think you have to get it online, not too expensive.

Also think shoe-shine techniques, this stuff buffs to highly reflective with 2 or 3 applications.

 

I came across the Borla Exhaust cleaner as well. Apparently it works very well.

 

I (still) don't understand why guys are so reluctant to have their tips powercoated. If prepped properly, they simply will not blister, flake, 'burn up', chip or otherwise look like ****.

The tips on my car have 7,000+ miles on 'em. They look as good today as they did the day I put 'em on the car. I'm not joking.

My tips are not "black-black", they're 'smoke-black' (a translucent black). I didn't want them 'too black'.

If you ceramic coat your tips, the finish will not be glossy - guaranteed. Depending on who does your ceramic, you may end up with tips that look good (flat or semi-flat finish), or you may end up with some major orange peel. I'm speaking from lots of experience. I've had lots of m/c headers ceramic coated over the past 15 years, some that turned out good, and some that didn't. I've never received a set of headers with a glossy finish, no matter what the ceramic coating company's marketing says.

Just my .02 cents, but I'm willing to bet the powdercoating naysayers have never had tips powdercoated.

 

Your look awesome. I am not sure how they would look on my black car. I ordered the borla polish for now. Thanks for sharing pictures.

 

Agree..

 

That looks great. Any shots of the whole rear?

 

I bought diamond black tips from AWE and I love them.

 

They absolutely WILL burn up under the right circumstances. Mine were absolutely PERFECT, but sufficient heat pulverized the powder finish. I don't recommend powder coating tips unless you do not track the car and you do not live in hot climates.