Stance Complete

Today was a busy day! I managed to get enough time at work to call around the local tyre shops, Hoping to score some cheap tyres. Thankfully I did.

So after work, I rushed home and grabbed the pair of superlites, I then fitted up. I also lowered the rear a tad too.

I did try the 7mm spacers at the rear, but there wasn’t enough thread to safely tighten the lugs.

Final offsets are -1 front and +4 rear.

I’ll see how the current height goes before I get a wheel alignment.

Wheel Painting – Part IV

Weather was good today, So I wasted no time, I drove to Repco to get more wax and grease remover and applied it to the lips of the wheels. Wiped it off a few minutes later and they were now ready to paint.

All primed up.

An hour later, the lips were painted and cleared, The result below.

And finally, All finished!

In total, I used one and a half cans of primer (3 coats on both lip and centre), One and a quarter can of white (3-4 coats on the centres), Just under one can of blue (3 coats on the lips), And half a can of clear coat (2 coats all round). I spent roughly eight hours sanding and prepping the wheels for paint (this includes masking), And roughly 3-4 hours priming, painting and clearing the centres/lips.

Obviously it would be a lot quicker if you were to paint the whole wheel one solid colour. If your really committed, you would be able to knock a set of wheels over within a weekend.

Thats all there is to it, A bit of hard work can really pay off, get cracking!

Wheel Painting – Part III

Today I decided to mask the centres. First up I needed to carefully remove the tape covering the lips of the wheels.

The white centre and platinum silver lip looks awesome.

I’m glad I took my sweet ass time masking the lip to paint the centres of the wheels, as the finish is mostly even all round (thankfully).

So onto masking the centres, This took me quite a while, roughly an hour on each. It was a little harder than masking the lips.

Hopefully if the weather holds out, I’ll be able to paint the lips tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Wheel Painting – Part II

Saturday afternoon, I wandered off into the garage to get cracking on the wheels. I start tapping up the lips and I marked the primer with my bracelet. I had a look and I tried again with my finger nail … from that moment I decided to strip the current primer and start again.

I didn’t use a wire brush and a coarse sand paper to begin with, So out came my wire brush and I got stuck into it. I spend a few hours on Saturday night, and half the Sunday getting these prepped right.

Whilst scrubbing the wheels, I decided to see what the colours would look like, I very roughly sprayed a lick of paint on one of the Superlites to get an idea.

The blue is a bit too light for my liking, I’ll be adding a black undercoat to darken it.

Anyway, I come along to stripping and sanding that shitty coated wheel, And boy was it a pain to get off. I think I could have gotten away with the current preparation, but better to be safe then sorry!

In total I spent roughly 1 hour on each wheel, scrubbing them with the wire brush and then giving them a sand with some 220 grit wet and dry sand paper.

Right, so all the wheels were ready for paint, So out came the sponge and bucket to give them a good clean.

Next step was to mask the lips of the wheels up before primer is applied, I needed to be very careful to have an even finish on all the wheels. Luckily there is a little indent on the wheels that I could follow with the masking tape. I spent roughly 20 minutes on each wheel.

The centers were now ready for paint! Out came the primer and I gave the wheels 4 light coats with it.

30 minutes after the final coat of primer was applied, the Flat white came out, and I started spraying. I did 3 light coats, and 2 medium coats of flat white. I wanted to ensure that all the primer was covered. After that, the Dupi-Colour clear coat was applied, 2 coats of it to be exact. This helps strengthen the paint from stone chips, UV etc.

The final result!

These wheels were a little difficult to paint due to the amount of spokes and curves, But I am extremely happy with the result. Hopefully I’ll be finishing the lips off this weekend, weather permitting of course. Keep an eye out for part III.

Wheel Painting

Last night, Adan came over to grab some parts and we had the usual car talk. Anyway he made a good point about the Superlights, He said “You should just paint them instead of powder coating them, The money you save could go to tyres”, and it made sense. So today I was off to my local Repco to grab some supplies.

I have had nothing but great results with VHT, so I chose to use their products on the wheels. So after the trip to Repco, I got straight into it, getting the wheels out of their boxes and giving them a clean before sanding.

Here is the first wheel scuffed and ready to be primed. I used 400 grit sandpaper and scuffed the cast finish that the Superlite GTR’s have. I could/should have used a wire brush to scuff the wheels better, but the method I have used with various parts (including wheels) have worked quite well in the past.

Here they are, all primed up with a can of VHT grey Prime Coat. Either tomorrow or Sunday I will be painting the centre section flat white and clearing it, followed by painting the lip a blue similar to my cam cover. As I thought, the colour I have purchased is too light.

Roadster Of The Week – Breezy’s Decked NB

Less is more this week, thanks to Breezy’s “So-cal” low Roadster. Ok ok, it has New Jersey number plates, but John is temporarily residing in Southern Cali.

Breezy purchased the emerald green stunner in the summer of 07, from the original owner. The car was completely stock with very low mileage.

“It’s only until this past year or so when I really started making progress with the modifications to get it where I want it. I am really pleased with the results and it’s pretty much exactly where I want to be, for the time being, at least. Of course, we never know when we are truly “finished” with a car, right? I guess we’re never really finished.”

Now I remember just a few months ago seeing the beginning of this build, and I had high expectations at the time. Now seeing the recent pictures I’ve been blown away.

The height, the wheels, the stance in general, it’s … incredible!

Slamming the car to the pavement are brought to you by Tein Basic Coilovers, those wheels bolted onto the hubs on the NB, are the Aussie made Superlight GTR’s. With a 15×8 -4 Offset for sizing. And they sit pretty sweet on John’s Roadster.

Giving the NB that mega aggressive look are a pair of Garage Vary eyelids, the OEM front lip adds a nice touch to the front of the car too. There are some other little touches that make the NB a standout, like the short antenna, tinted tail lights, and modified OEM muffler.

John, somehow has added some under carriage bracing, some Flyin Miata frame rail braces to be exact, how well they hold up to the ride height I don’t know!

“I used to care about mileage accumulation on my previous cars (and on my Miata when I first got it). The way I see it now, a car is meant to be driven and enjoyed. This is not a collector car or extremely rare, for that matter.”

No doubt, Breezy drives in style, with a Miata like this, it would be sure to put a smile on his face every time he jumps in the driver’s seat.

Congratulations John, you are the Roadster Of The Week!