I saw on p-car.com that Robin powdercoated his calipers red (looks great). I am looking forward to doing the same thing, but I was wondering if anybody knew of potential problems with the pistons, seals, etc... The people at powdertech do not remove the pistons when powder coating. Can this lead to piston damage? Has anybody had personal experience with the process? Any advice on it?

Thanks all.

Alex

 

Have you explored getting the big red upgrade kit instead? Depending on how much it costs to powder coat your calipers, the condition of your calipers and your future mod plans, just doing the big red upgrade may be a better option.

 

There was just a post about this...regarding the temperature of powdercoating and the seals (I know, I posted it). There seems to be mixed opinions about the way to do it, although removing the all the seals and pucks seems to be the safest. I am delaying my powdercoating right now just because I am too busy to strip all the calipers down....maybe next year (or this year if I get more energy!).

Do a search..there is other information out there.

Cheers,

Mike

 

there is a very informative thread on this the 944 forum

 

I just did mine. It takes time, and it cost me $100 a caliper to do the powder coating. It costs about $70 for the caliper rebuild kits for front and rears, so for less than $500 for all 4 calipers you can have front and rear red calipers and rebuilt, so they will act like new.

 

I had mine done with the exact recommendations on Robin's site and they came out fantastic.

The basic reasoning is this: they bake the ovens for the paint at 400 degrees fahrenheit or something like that, and our brakes are built to take that high of a temperature. This is coming from their techie, but he said they do not remove the seals because they are used to operating temperatures at a much higher level anyway.

Therefore, they can bake them and not damage the seals, which are sealed in the process anyway because they hook up surrogate brake lines in the place of the regular brake lines. That means the seals are in the ovens with the brakes, but they are only subjected to the same kind of temps they would have on your car, and the only part of each seal that is subjected to the temps are the ones designed for it anyway.

My brakes work fine, as I assume they will continue to do. Hope this helps.

Robert

 

One concern I have about doing this, is once you drain the brake fluid out of each caliper, cap off the inlet etc. Then I worry about the air expanding and pushing out the pistons while the caliper is being baked..

Obviously many people have done this w/out problems, but just curious I guess.

 

I did some research into this too and e-mailed a few guys who did it with the seals on. None of them had any issues even after years, inc. some track time. Here's a good DIY link from someone who did it on his 951:
http://members.rennlist.com/perry951...s/calipers.htm

Another option is to use high temp paint instead of powder. There were also threads around this topic and at least one person I talked to found them to be just as durable, even on the track.

I finally decided to skip the hassle to mount the used Big Reds as they are. I will probably either powdercoat in the future when they're ready to be rebuilt, in which case, I will remove all the seals, etc. prior to baking.

 

Gary where did you get the rebuild kits and could you give me the part numbers for fronts and rears...Im being told some interesting information ont these kits...Thanks

 

i have had mine powder coated. Cost was approx $130 for the powder coating for all 4. Several people have done it since i've had mine done. I have never had any problems. I did NOT rebuild the pistons after. Basic reasoning is the max temp of the brake fluid is much higher than the baking temp. it doesn't even cook the fluid.... needless to say i did drain all the fluid once it was complete and flushed the entire system, but i've had no problems.

cheers,
boris

 

thanks for all of your replies. I will send them in to powdertech. Btw, the cost is $60 a caliper through them - seems reasonable.

 

I thought about the Big Reds, but it seems like the price differential is large enough to warrant going with the powder coating (would be different if I was doing considerable track time).