ast78

Anyone have pics or photshop of dside ebadged BS ? the "6.3 AMG" badge

spifffs

i can get you one on sunday, i am going tomorrow to pick up my black from evosport, and told them to remove the badges.

LZH

Glad you decided to keep it
What did you have done ?

ast78

Thanks! Ditto to the last post, what kind of work? Evo has some cool stuff, you must give mini reveiw as i am stock.

spifffs

Ya kept the car, just got alot of paint and powder coating done. i think i am going to go to the willow springs event in 2 weeks and take it on the track for the first time, then i will see if i need more mods.

pics are of the side debadged as promised

LZH

Lookin' good man. No engine mods of any sort? I'm gonna try to make it out to Willow as well...

ast78

Thanks for the pics! Looks good! Any full car pics those black stock wheels look insane.

spifffs

will try to post more pics tomorrow.

ecampbell

AST here is a pick of my blacked out BS

ast78

Well Played Sir!! Wheels painted or powdercoated? Ill try to get pics of mine when I get it back from the shop.

ecampbell

would never paint wheels (bad experience)......powdercoat all the way.

GHAZAN

thats black powdercoat? they look bronzie or just covered in brake dust?

wonsuk_utmb

Ecambell, well done, your car looks great! What color are your rims? Also who did all the blackout trim and what was the process?

ecampbell

They are a matte/flat black...the lighting makes it look otherwise in the one pic.

I believe the work was done in Texas. I will ask my car guy to confirm as my only involvement is writing checks...

mellowyellow

You're not supposed to powdercoat forged wheels.

LZH

Why is that ? I assume you're referring to the overageing that could occur and the resulting fatigue life of the wheel. It all depends though...Lots of factors to consider in regards to the exact metallurgy used in the forging process etc. Take a look at the following from the ASM Handbook:

356-T6: aging at 305 to 315 °F for 2 to 5 hours
Yield stress = 185 MPa
Ultimate stress = 262 MPa
Fracture strain = 0.05

356-T7: aging at 435 to 445 °F for 7 to 9 hours
Yield stress = 165 MPa
Ultimate stress = 220 MPa
Fracture strain = 0.06

Based on this data, a 400 °F treatment for less than 1 hour shouldn't reduce the fatigue strength significantly. And usually, wheels never need to baked in the oven more than 45 minutes.

mellowyellow

Heat treating forged aluminum is not recommended, it accelerates the aging process IIRC. Look it up, there's plenty of references to back it up. I looked into this back when I was doing some powercoating on my bimmer.

ecampbell

Mellow,

If you go to a reputable place they can do the powder coating under 400 degrees which is not hot enough to have an impact on the wheels. I checked and my wheels were done at 350 degrees.


http://my.execpc.com/~davewrit/Powder.html

mellowyellow

OK, well, I wouldn't necessarily trust the guy with the motorcycle web page.

It really depends on the powder used. Many have cure schedules of 400 degrees or more. You can't just do it for 350 instead... well, I guess you could but the cure time would probably go up to be much longer, and be exposed to high heat for longer periods.

I don't want to reduce any strength in my wheels and take the risk. They are already built at extremely low weights. At these temps for this long you are actually changing the characteristics of the aluminum.

This is why reputable forged wheel manufacturers like BBS, Fiske, and Champion don't recommend powercoating their forged wheels. I'm no metallurgy engineer, but I'd rather not take the chance.

ecampbell

The debate to powdercoat or not has been going on for more then 10 years. i have never seen a powdercoat related failure that want also related to a pothole or some other hit (the rim would have failed whether no matter if had been powdercoated or not).

I agree curing at a high temperature but there is nothing wrong with curing at low temps and you CAN cure at 350.

Anyways, this is a back and forth discussion that can go on forever.