Painting vs. Powdercoating Mag Wheels?

My personal experience has been that paint has bubbled and melted away after some very spirited drives or driving events, powder coating has not.

Now, on the flip side, some may say powder coating heats your wheels to an unsafe temp and makes rims more brittle.

Powder coat is my chose, it seems more durable long term

Steve

 

Do some research. With aluminum @ 400F you loose 25% of strength and do not get it back. At 500F you loose 50%!!! PC uses heat around 400F to cure paint. So...unless the wheel maker accounted for this you are safer just painting. For this reason I would never PC wheels or calipers but many do and say they have no problem. Magnesium has a similar curve to aluminum but I don't know what it is.
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I went with paint. Love the results.
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Powder coating also will hide small cracks that could form.

For this reason critical race car parts (chassis, suspension, wheels , brakes etc.) shouldn't be powder coated.

 

Boh? Had my body shop guy send them out to a wheel finishing shop. They did an amazing job....at a reasonable cost.

 

Just how hot do you think wheels get when you have spent 60 minutes on the track and the rotors have turned battleship grey from the heat? That is, how much heat gets transfered from the brakes to the wheels when the brakes are being use at their limits long enough for the wheels to reach a static max temperature?

 

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62908

Cheers - DM

 

Put a temp strip on the wheels...I don't think so. But that's OK you are welcome to PC your wheels. Some wheels come PC'ed I assume they engineer for it. I do not know what non-PC'ed wheels are engineered for. I do know we local racers in SCCA are breaking wheels and wearing them out something very rarely done on streetcars. I'm a little sensitive to failures.

 

With Mag wheels its best to go with painting. Do not let them sand blast the old finish off, It will leave deep pitting. Factory wheel color code is PPG 36520.

 

I never knew that... scary stuff.

Many thanks,
Andrew.

 

Is that the generic factory silver color on the wheels?

 

+1 be careful with prepping too. Not sure what the challenge wheels are made of, but I have seen plenty of incorrectly prepped magnesium Ferrari wheels and the paint alligatored really bad after a year or two.

 

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=174694&highlight=powdercoating+magnesium+wheels

 

That does look good Bernie.

 

I remember that Bruce. It was ugly. Any new pics of your beast? Dave has me crimping new gold pins. You have to give it a try one day. After that you will have a new appreciation for just how crappy a wiring harness can be engineered.

 

I just painted mine and used imron clear coat the color is a lexus silver, as it has more sparkle (metallic) than the factory color, but its so close that you would have to sit them side by side to tell...and my local hotrod powdercoater said he would never blast or heat a mag wheel, alum yeah, mag no way
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From our paint recondition thread.
Stage 4: Wheel recondition.

Upon inspection, all four wheels showed paint chipping and it was determined that they were beyond saving. Tires were removed, then valves and caps. Last night all four wheels were soda blasted to strip the old finish. Soda blasting is a process by which baking soda is sprayed at a high pressure to remove all finish. Baking soda is a safe alternative to commonly used sand media.
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Stage 7: Wheel coating finished

Wheels just arrived back from being coated. Originally we planned on painting the wheels. With the cars sole purpose being performance, we decided that a powder coated finish would be better suited to handle the abuse. We went with a matte black finish for an aggressive look. With what we plan on doing to the car, it will fit its character well.

With magnesium wheels, we only recommend painting. However, with aluminum wheels; painting and powder coating is common. On this set of rims, we went with a low temperature baked powder coat. All surface flaws were sanded and filled before coating. We are very happy with the end result.
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Still got them ugly wheels..lol

I modified the wiring harness using Dave's Gold Connector Kit over a year ago...what took you soooo long to jump on board?

Dave's kit is the best improvement that can be made to this crappy italian wiring harness.

The beast has been on hold as we are building a new 30,000SF shop.

 

Ferrari maranello's are the 328 of the 12 cylinder world. They work! But you are right the Helm's kit is the bomb! I definately got improvement even to a near perfectly working system. Dave is lucky my brother lives in his town not me, otherwise I'd be at this shop all the time and he would not be able to get any work done.

 

You misunderstand. What I am asking is how hot the wheels get on race tracks use of the car, and thereby how much strenght do they loose (without the paint/powder-coating even being a part of the consideration of the issue).

 

Daniel- Affirmative on the paint color. Same thing I have been told by FNA and many others. Argento Metallic B/C, PPG 36520.

Taz
Terry Phillips
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