I’ve had a few inquire about my white OEM wheels from this thread:
http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119883
There’s been a lot of posts about how people have had to temporarily go back to the small OEM wheels/tires while waiting for new wheels, and how surprised they were with the handling gains. I’ve kept my OEM 15”/16” wheels on since they have low rotational inertia and are lightweight since this leads to a much better handling and quicker accelerating vehicle. That, and tires are cheap (this is my daily beater).
The problem is, they are old-looking and most NSX owners make fun of them (but non-NSX owners seem to like them?). Since mine needed to be refinished anyways, I thought I would sand and paint them just to see what they looked like. If I liked them, I would powdercoat later. I’m not a fan of the black or gunmetal wheels (to each their own), so I went the opposite route with a white wheel. The only other white phat five wheel I’ve seen on here was on an early white NSX and it looked pretty good. So I thought I would go ahead and make this thread about them on my red one.
Keep in mind that if you use aggressive pads for the track, some may quickly discolor the paint and even white powdercoat, but I use stock pads for the street and this isn’t an issue. That’s why not many track cars have white wheels unless they refinish often.
Prep/Painting:
With the tires still mounted (I’m not sure I would want to paint the whole wheel where the tires make contact with the wheel), I thoroughly cleaned them front and back. Then, I sanded out the rash with various grits, and then lightly went over the face to rough it up for paint. Sorry – I forget what grit I made the final pass at but you probably want no less than 800.
These were washed again with soap and water, then allowed to dry. I taped up the tires and then used a few coats of Rust-Oleum semi-gloss enamel, #7797 (semi-gloss white). After that, I sprayed a few Rust-Oleum clear coats on there too. These even look pretty decent up close. When I just had new tires mounted, I was surprised that not much touch-up was needed.
When finished, I scraped out the paint where it would make contact with the lug nuts just to be sure.
These have held up well for a year now with no discoloring (and it's parked outside in the hot S.C. sun during the day), but I use stock brake pads.
Spacers:
On a lowered NSX, you pretty much need spacers for the street so the wheels don’t look so tucked in. I went with H&R 25mm on the rear (the ones with the integral studs so it’s just a plug-n-play), and H&R 15mm up front (with longer studs). I feel the fronts are just right, but the rears could be up to 35mm IMO. There’s really no noticeable difference in handling on the street with these, but I would be leery of using integral stud spacers on the track.
Finally, I just finished redoing my aluminum center console so thought I would post a pic of it here too (what the heck). I’m working on removing unused parts of the car yet trying not to have it look like it’s been completely stripped….
http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119883
There’s been a lot of posts about how people have had to temporarily go back to the small OEM wheels/tires while waiting for new wheels, and how surprised they were with the handling gains. I’ve kept my OEM 15”/16” wheels on since they have low rotational inertia and are lightweight since this leads to a much better handling and quicker accelerating vehicle. That, and tires are cheap (this is my daily beater).
The problem is, they are old-looking and most NSX owners make fun of them (but non-NSX owners seem to like them?). Since mine needed to be refinished anyways, I thought I would sand and paint them just to see what they looked like. If I liked them, I would powdercoat later. I’m not a fan of the black or gunmetal wheels (to each their own), so I went the opposite route with a white wheel. The only other white phat five wheel I’ve seen on here was on an early white NSX and it looked pretty good. So I thought I would go ahead and make this thread about them on my red one.
Keep in mind that if you use aggressive pads for the track, some may quickly discolor the paint and even white powdercoat, but I use stock pads for the street and this isn’t an issue. That’s why not many track cars have white wheels unless they refinish often.
Prep/Painting:
With the tires still mounted (I’m not sure I would want to paint the whole wheel where the tires make contact with the wheel), I thoroughly cleaned them front and back. Then, I sanded out the rash with various grits, and then lightly went over the face to rough it up for paint. Sorry – I forget what grit I made the final pass at but you probably want no less than 800.
These were washed again with soap and water, then allowed to dry. I taped up the tires and then used a few coats of Rust-Oleum semi-gloss enamel, #7797 (semi-gloss white). After that, I sprayed a few Rust-Oleum clear coats on there too. These even look pretty decent up close. When I just had new tires mounted, I was surprised that not much touch-up was needed.
When finished, I scraped out the paint where it would make contact with the lug nuts just to be sure.
These have held up well for a year now with no discoloring (and it's parked outside in the hot S.C. sun during the day), but I use stock brake pads.
Spacers:
On a lowered NSX, you pretty much need spacers for the street so the wheels don’t look so tucked in. I went with H&R 25mm on the rear (the ones with the integral studs so it’s just a plug-n-play), and H&R 15mm up front (with longer studs). I feel the fronts are just right, but the rears could be up to 35mm IMO. There’s really no noticeable difference in handling on the street with these, but I would be leery of using integral stud spacers on the track.
Finally, I just finished redoing my aluminum center console so thought I would post a pic of it here too (what the heck). I’m working on removing unused parts of the car yet trying not to have it look like it’s been completely stripped….
