Hey guys,

The silver piece across the top of the windshield flew off a few times at the track and is a mess! I was thinking of doing this.......I want to have the car look more "stealthy".

-I am thinking of doing the grille, strakes and the window surrounding in a "black chrome". I think black chrome is powdercoated correct? Can it be done?

-I am also looking to tint both the headlights and taillights (20%). Any product recommendations? I know of lami-x, but is there anything pre-cut that is decent?

Thanks!

 

This is what I have been doing slowly, Woody



And a view of the stealthiest one.

BTW powdercoating is well explained in the eastman catalog, go on line and see the options ww

 

I do powder coating for fun and I don't think the plastic will hold up to the 400 degree temp necessary to cure the powder.

Maybe if it were done at a lower temp but with a longer cure time.

 

FP had some interior plastic parts chrome painted by a place called M&M. I can't find the website now. I would think they'd do black chrome too.

 

I used www.rvinyl.com for the lights. Dark smoke on the rear and light smoke on the front. It has also prevented the "hazing" from returning on the headlights. The front is easy but the back can be a little tricky. I had to do them twice. Just be sure to spray the lights good and take your time.

 

I did the hydrographics CF overlay on my windshiled over 2 years ago and still love it. I did the standard grille with it as well and liked it until I went with the black PC mesh.

You could do the hydrographics overlay on just about everything including the plastic with a CF or even the black chrome. It can get a bit pricey. Powder coating is definitely out on the plastic.

I had a tint on my lights but the subtle curves made it very hard to get rid of all the bubbles. Even with them gone there were "orange peel" patches. Funny thing is one headlight and one taillight came out about 90% perfect while the other two were noticeable from about 10 ft. I finally decided to go with a spray tint and added HIDs. Look is awesome and very clean.

 

Hey, great minds think alike!

I wanted to do the exact same thing. Black chrome/hyper black looks really good on our graphite cars. My wheels are hyper black and I think they look awesome.

I gave up on my quest a while ago. I couldn't find any good answers at the time for something I could do myself. My original thought was to buy the chrome pieces from autoxclusive.com, but that's like $700 for the windshield surround, strakes and grill. Ouch!
Then I'd have to find a way to get the black chrome look.

Here's the site FP used: Plastic Chrome - M&M Metalizing Sales. Mentioned in this thread: Finally found a place to chrome plastic. Talk about a heck of a lot cheaper! And they do black chrome.

Something that might be worth a try is using spray tint. I did a little searching today when I saw this thread and came across a posting on a Tundra forum where some guy used hobby spray tint on his emblem: Grill Mod (Hyperblack look) . The results didn't look too bad. He used Testors Transparent Black Window Tint. Could also try VHT Nite Shades spray tint. Of course, this is assuming one already has chrome parts.

If I had extra pieces, I'd be willing to try out the spray tint.


If you're really into DIY, I also found a company that sells kits to plate plastic, but there is a bit of investment, although cheaper then buying the parts from autoxclusive.com. The company is Caswell, Inc. Here is a link to their Plug N Plate brush plating system. It can work on plastic, but there are 2 steps you have to do first... coat the plastic in a silver paint then plate copper onto that. Then you can plate their black chrome (Links to those products are on the Plug N Plate page). Looks like a $350 investment, maybe more.

 

That looks real nice! Where can I get the CF overlay from? I think that would look sharp on my car.

I am leaning towards the spray tint myself. I was going to go with VHT's Night Shades. My only concern is, here in NJ the cops can be a-holes. Is the stuff removable if they give me crap?

 

Thanks! Great info! I am goint to contact M&M and see what they say.

 

Do a Google on hydrographics. My guy does it for .60 cents per sq "

You should find someone local. When done properly, it is at least as good as the paint on our cars. You can go with any color CF, brushed or wood grains. Take care of it like the paint.

 

laminx for the headlights/tail lights. they have it precut and it is 100000000000x better than tint.

it goes on easy, stretches to fit and no air bubbles at all

 

Ok, so I just received the quote from M&M to do all of this in a black chrome. I knew it wouldn't be cheap, but here it is.....

grille - $175
strakes - $110 for both (Not sure why these are so expensive as they are much smaller than the grille?)
lower grilles - $150 for both

They said they needed the dimensions for the window trim. I will take them tonight and get back to them. So we are at $435 and we still need pricing on the window trim. Yikes!!

 

Ask them for a discount to do all the parts at one time since they will only need to set up once.

 

Yeah, I was thinking that. If they say no, then I look elsewhere......