There are some minor gotchas I am going to talk to Guy about tomorrow, and Cody, I would suggest you call him about your wheels as well just to be sure.

Basically, we missed one spot to not powdercoat, the hubcentric portion, and there was a small amount of "overcoat" on the mating surface. This was not classic overspray. The area was clearly masked, but the powder built up a slight ridge that extended past what would be flush with the mating surface. If you mounted them on teh cqar without cleaning this up, they would not rest squarly on the mating surface, and would likey cause wobble. Using a utility knife like a scraper, I was able to easily take these down.

In short, before you take them in, look at your wheels, and see where they are not painted, and have them not paint the same areas. If you have center caps, this likely includes the entire center bore, hubcentric section, mating surface, and lug seats.

The attached pics point to areas not to PC, or where I had to clean up the "overcoat"...

Good lookin' out. I'll definately point out the areas not to PC. While loading my wheels into the car tonight, I noticed that the entire back side of the stock wheels is unfinished/bare metal. Perhaps I'll do as you said and just advise him to mask off any of the areas that are currenly unfinished.

Hmm. This has gotten my mushy brain churning a bit. Gimme some feedback on this:

Dean's Lightstars, PC a darker metallic grey, maybe anthracite-ish, on my white '05.

Good? Bad?

I want to PC my stock 6 spokes but I can't think of a cool color for my car.

BRP, right? That's tough. I dunno. . . if I had a blue RS I'd probably just stick with gold, myself.

I never even thought of that. I wish those wheels still fit my car. I think they would look great in bronze or gunmetal.

I love my gunmetalic Rotas. I they'd look great with on a white STI. BTW, I love the 05 STI in white.

I had anthracite P1s, gunmetal Gram Lights, gold '98 stockers, white attacks, flat black stock '01s, and white CE28s. Frankly, I thought they all looked great, but the classic, obvious choice is still gold. Subarus=blue+gold. That's just how it is. :)

I'll have to get off my lazy ass and actually put up pics of my wheels as soon as I get them back! Hope they turn out cool...

I had Sperry's input on color choices, so we'll see if WE did a good job or not! If it comes out crap, I blame YOU Scott! Ha Ha! J/K!

Apparently, I suck at the internet...anybody got Advanced Powdercoating's phone number?

What's the turn-around been like?

Cory/Mpresiv mentioned it would take a week, but that may be due to them having to order materials.

3 days for my in stock color of BK08.

Advanced Powder Coating & Sandblasting LLC

1823 Deming Way
Sparks NV 89431-6506
775-358-4610
Fax: 358-4612

Thank you Nick.

Talked to Guy this morning about the center bore/hubcentric section, and the "overcoat" on the mating surface. He said they will take care of te centrbore issue, and that the mating surface is not something they can prep for, but can be taken care of with a razor blade after coating, which is more or less what I did.

So he is aware of the issue, and on top of it. Again, I strongly reccomend you look at your wheels prior to taking them in, and make sure you know what areas you want coated and not, and communicate that clearly when yo drop them off.

thanks dean, I unfortunately don't have that much time, I'll have to find somewhere in Seattle to get mine done. I'm leaving Friday morning early AM.

Yep, I was told about a week. The color isn't anything he didn't have in stock, just has some other work that needs to get done as well I guess...

That's what I'm thinking. Maybe bronze? Or, dun dun dun...

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a51...7/IMGA2142.jpg

Guy just finished clenaing the powder out of the center bore on my wheels, and they are good to go. From now on, they will be plugging that, so hopefully nobody else should have any issues.

The one other thing I thoght of was if you have wheels that are drilled for two bolt patterns, make sure to tell him which or both sets of lug seats you want plugged.

There isn't much they can do about the slight over bleed on the mating surface, but a razor blade cleans it up real well.

You'll be at Bully's on thurs, right?

^^^ HE BETTER BE!

So I spent the better half of the monring repairing all the curbage on my gram lights. (they were curbed bad when I bought them) With my die-grinder using a wire brush attachement and a soft metal grinding wheel, I got them looking really good. Before there was like a serated edge on one of them the went 2/3 of the way around the wheel. I buffed all that out and it should look nice and snmooth once I get the new PC on there.

So steve just went down to Advanced and was told $85 a wheel! What happened to the $35? I am going to head down there tomorrow to drop off the grams but shit, that's a huge price difference. I'm going to be really pissed if the price went up.

Call and ask for Guy?

What color did he choose? Some are a premium...

How much did that job cost? I have painted black stock gsx rims... a long story. I need to do something like that.

I paid $35 per rim plus tax...smokin' deal.

Last I heard was $35 a rim for in-stock powders, +$5 per if he has to order or if it's metallic.

Is it too late to get this great deal ? i have a very Squirly rim situation i need to straigthen out . (i have 1 set of gold, 2 have quite a few little dings) i have 1 extra gold rim from a car accident, its cosmetic damage only. mostly just having paint scratched off. and i'm about to buy a silver set (1 has cosmetic damage) comes with RE070s (50% worn) for $500 (i'm thinking that's a fair deal but good to get an opion on it ) i'm thinking easiest solution repaint either my gold rim, or the damaged silver rim, to silver, and then i have a summer and winter set . and i can easily switch back and forth, every weekend, from april through may (auto Xing + living in the sierras need snows on past april )

I'de be Very happy to get a set powder coated gold though :) (bright gold, bright blinding is that real gold , type of color) 35+ preium of 5$ would be a bargain. (160 a set) 85 a rim.. not so much. :) anyone give me the low down ? :) thanks thanks

edit : looks like prices may have gone up due to paint removal costs, any est on the price increase? i'm guessing same cost if i strip the paint myself ? :)

The deal is not set in stone, they have to base the price on how much prep time and sand blasting the wheels require. Stock BBS wheels shouldn' be too bad, but you'll need to pop in there and have them look at them to give you a price. It turns out there are several wheels that take a TON of prep time, so they would lose their ass on the job at $35. I ended up paying like $60 + per wheel for mine (Gram Lights) Also, the color you choose sets the price.

You'll need to stop in there at some point, and you can look at color samples in order to get the right match.

Sweet thanks ;) guess i'll have to head down there this weekend. (and call ahead to even see if they are open on the weekends) hehe

I'm pretty sure they're closed on Saturday & Sunday.

Doh, well maybe i'll take off the 27 and head down there. (my bday is the 26th)
so then i don't have to sand or figure out how to remove the paint off my rims ? that rocks

Picked up my Rims yesterday morning. they look Good (not great) a few minor minor blemishes, but since i need to mount tires on them asap for tomorrow i just asked for a few $ off and took em. i do like the color and shine, though i would have prefered a more gold color then the stock.

just called the local subaru (south shore who sucks) and they don't even mount tires or do alignment. they refered me to Kens tire. ON Refferal, he'll mount them for $20 a tire. :( he's not sure if the STI's camber can be adjusted (no price on that yet)
ARG guess i'll call around, and probably end up at Wallmart . (walmart has refused to rotate my tires before when one of them was below 1/16" of an inch. i think 2 of my Extra RE070s are below that, but i pretty much just want to finish them off on the track ... )
ARG! this is still a lot better of a situation then when i had 1 set of rims. I've almost got 2 viable sets ready to roll. i think big o tire will mount for $50 ... :( wallmart maybe $40 .. time to call more places. anyone know a good shop open past 5:50 in carson city? maybe one that does alignment also (i want a tiny bit of negative camber in front) ? thanks thanks

since 2 of my extra REO70's have more tread then the other 2, i'm assuming they Should be in front for 2 reasons. (front tires iniate the turns) more importantly the Center diff can allow the backs to spin faster then the front, but not vice versa, less tread = smaller overall circumferance, which means those tires have to rotate more per mile. So i figure since the fronts will have more tread (like 1/16th more) i could ride on them with some negative camber and not care about tire wearing issues. (i'll keep off my snows except for actual snow use after this weekend)

;) advice , suggestions? thanks

** edit ** wallmart and big O will do it for $10. but only wallmart is open past 5:30 so guess its wallmart or bust for me :lol: .

You are pretty limited after 5:30, but I wouldn't trust Wal-mart with freshly powdercoated rims.

Fixed!

If Walmart couldn't get my set of 17" Hankooks mounted because "they're too large nad stiff for our machine"... chances are they won't be able to deal w/ the even stiffer sidewalls of the RE070's, unless your Walmart has a better mounting machine than the one in South Meadows.

Funny- last time I was denied mounting, she said it was because I was too large and stiff too!

raceaflais comes to mind. :) Been there done that.

Then you woke up on the dry side of the bed!!!!

:P

ARG !!! omfg :( :( okay so i tried to make it to les swaub but they closed about 2 minutes before i got there. no luck so i go to wallmart and i talk to their main guy. he's nice and tells me he will probably scratch them some. at this time i was still thinking it would be dry down there tomorrow. so i went ahead and let him, i told him if he could mount them all with out any scratches i'de hook him up with a $20 .
so he puts the first 2 on no problems very minor minor scratches on the inside lip (the side you can't see at all when the rim is on your car) no worries. but before he put on the 3rd tire he found out that the tire wall has severe damage. :( these are the tires off of the rims i bought from someone on IWSTI.com . 1 of the 4 rims has a big Dent in it. i happened to have a 5th rim (er 9th) so i had a set powder coated so i wasn't on 3 silver + 1 cosmeticaly damaged gold . anywho so i have 2 tires mounted, and i grabed 2 more tires off my stack of RE070s . so i have to make it to wallmart by like 6:20 ish am to get the other 2 mounted and then jam into reno .. and there's like a foot of snow at my house already ..

Sierra Powder Coating did my forged magnessium wheels on my Ducati; they did an awesome job. Stipped off the old color and PC'd the new, they turned out great. I'll post some pics when I get home tonight.

Very cool.
How much did you end up paying? I paid $300 for 4.

Well my home PC crashed so I couldn't post the pics.

If I remember correctly they charged me around $75 a wheel with tax.

Bump for info. I called Advanced and they're telling me $65 per rim now, metallic colors extra. Anyone know of a cheaper deal in town?

Let me know what you guys come up with. I'm very interested in getting my BBS wheels on my STI a gloss black powder coat with the lip staying the original forged alluminum color.

Anybody had this process done before with wheels? And were you satisfied with the finished product??

To powdercoat, they need to sandblast all the silver paint off the wheel. I'm not so sure you'll want to leave bare metal exposed, nor do I think they'll be keen on attempting a polished lip look, since it would most likely be done w/ masking tape and look like crap.

But when it's done correctly, powdercoating looks great.

Also, I've heard bad things about PC'ing forged wheels like the BBS's. Cast wheels are usually OK, bot the consensus is that you're basically annealing a forged wheel at the 400 degree temperatures most PC ovens run.

FWIW, I'm painting my BBS's, and that's the only way I could see to get the silver lip you want (mine are going to be satin black again).