[Paintwerks]

G'day all.

My name is Simon (people call me 'Sime'). Long time lurker, first time poster. I'm planning on buying a Pace 427 kit from Craig when they are released. Thought this as good a time as any to introduce myself.

I own Paintwerks, a SE Melbourne smash repair shop and we do quality, custom painting including fibreglass bodies, race cars and bikes. We paint aluminium all the time, including Brembo brake calipers.

When painting aluminium (or bare metal), we use a 2K etch primer....either PPG's D831 'Universel' or Metallux Direct to Metal etch primer. Both are WOW (wet on wet) systems that you can apply basecoat or direct gloss to (followed with clearcoat depending on what system you use). We haven't had a product failure yet using this method.....and that includes painted brake calipers.

I painted the Brembo's on my Subaru WRX STi back in December 2009 in candy orange using the above products. My car puts down over 300kw at all four wheels, gets driven hard and, over 2.5 years later, the calipers look as good as the day they were painted.

I can't comment on the VHT 1K aerosol products as we don't use them, but if you use professional 2K products and (importantly) follow the TDS' correctly, you shouldn't have an issue painting an alloy engine block.

Cheers,
Sime