Red Caliper help

[78F350]

Jimmy, are you considering doing it yourself or getting a professional job?
If you are going to have it done professionally, get on the phone and ask some local shops. Just takes a few minutes, and you will get a better answer than our guess.

For DIY:
Buy a specific caliper paint. These things get hot and will ruin nice paint job done with ordinary paint. There are caliper paint kits on Amazon, and lots of customer reviews.
If you haven't flushed your brake system in the last year or so, you might as well take the calipers off. That way you can give them a thorough cleaning and get the paint even. As mentioned, many people have achieved decent results painting them on the car.
I did a set a year ago in silver.
A few tips:
Plug the brake line connection, or put an old brake hose end in to prevent residual brake fluid from messing up the fresh paint.
Let them sit for 24 hours after painting for the paint to set.
Buy decals "PORSCHE" to apply to the caliper afterwards. - I got mine from eBay.
Finish it off with a high temp clear-coat.

Color:
Probably best to stay with red. Red adds about 5 'Brake Horsepower' per caliper.
Silver, orange, or yellow are nice if it matches trim pieces or contrasts well with your car, but performance gains are negligible.
Avoid Green. Green painted calipers are known to cause premature clutch wear.

[Pdwight]

If you want the color Red to pop than paint them white first and let it dry for 24 hours before going to red

[JIMMYC]

Originally Posted by 78F350

Jimmy, are you considering doing it yourself or getting a professional job?
If you are going to have it done professionally, get on the phone and ask some local shops. Just takes a few minutes, and you will get a better answer than our guess.

For DIY:
Buy a specific caliper paint. These things get hot and will ruin nice paint job done with ordinary paint. There are caliper paint kits on Amazon, and lots of customer reviews.
If you haven't flushed your brake system in the last year or so, you might as well take the calipers off. That way you can give them a thorough cleaning and get the paint even. As mentioned, many people have achieved decent results painting them on the car.
I did a set a year ago in silver.
A few tips:
Plug the brake line connection, or put an old brake hose end in to prevent residual brake fluid from messing up the fresh paint.
Let them sit for 24 hours after painting for the paint to set.
Buy decals "PORSCHE" to apply to the caliper afterwards. - I got mine from eBay.
Finish it off with a high temp clear-coat.

Color:
Probably best to stay with red. Red adds about 5 'Brake Horsepower' per caliper.
Silver, orange, or yellow are nice if it matches trim pieces or contrasts well with your car, but performance gains are negligible.
Avoid Green. Green painted calipers are known to cause premature clutch wear.

I would like to remove and paint myself , the painting part I can handle it's the removing is my concern as this would be a first and I am no mechanic but keen to learn to tinker with this in the spring .
How much paint & clear coat did you go through for 4 calipers ?

[78F350]

Originally Posted by JIMMYC

How much paint & clear coat did you go through for 4 calipers ?

I'd recommend two just to be sure. I bought two spray cans of the caliper paint and used almost all of one of them, and less of the clear-coat. The self-leveling brush on paint may be better and cleaner to work with. I saw some good reviews.

If you are removing the calipers, make sure that you are prepared to bleed the brake system when you reinstall.
Here are two good write ups:
Porsche Boxster Brake Bleeding - 986 / 987 (1997-08) - Pelican Parts Technical Article
Boxster Projects | Brakes | Bleed and Flush

I bought a "Motive Power Bleeder" like the one that Pelican Parts sells. It really made flushing and bleeding brakes a lot easier.

For those of you who paint your calipers off the car, what are you using to cap your brake lines?

I cheated and have a spare set of calipers. I was able to paint them all, then swap them in one at a time. To plug the calipers when I painted them , I had a small piece of plastic rod that fit (scrap from something else). Screwing in an old brake hose works well too to make sure that any fluid that seeps out is away from the caliper.