Project IS-F, Restoring the Factory Brembo Calipers with West Coast Calipers

West Coast Calipers can turn your car around quickly, to do so, they have their crew attack your car, one person per wheel.  After carefully lifting the car and removing the wheels with anti scratch sockets, they were ready to start.  At this point the car is inspected and any dings and scratches are noted and pointed out before work starts.

Our front calipers were in terrible shape, even though we kept them clean, one day we noticed that the clear coat was starting to look milky and within a couple of months the calipers turned into this. A gross faded and peeling mess.  With our open wheels it really made the entire car look bad!  In some spots the clear coat and the base coat weathered away exposing the base back anodizing of the factory Brembo calipers.

We had tried to carefully peel off the clear on one caliper and refinish it with some aftermarket clear coat. We ended up making it look worse.

14 comments

    1. It won’t stick to the boots well, so if the boot needs to flex the paint will flake away from the boot, no problem. That’s my experience after having used high temp epoxy paint to refinish my own brembo calipers.

  1. I’m curious to know which Brembos have the pistons and boots covered in paint. (I’m genuinely curious, I’ve just never experienced it). They look amazing afterwards. Could you have had the Lexus logos put back on them if you wanted?

    1. not all of them but I have seen it on some cars like my STI. I think it so the finish won’t be damaged assembling them, they normally paint over the bolts are everything. You can put anything on them.

    2. I have some high-end Brembo Monoblock calipers sitting on my desk and the boots are covered in paint from the factory.

  2. Wow, the end results are impressive. Really nice to see the care that’s taken during the prep too.

    FWIW, I bought a used set of front Brembo calipers taken from a 997 911 4S and the stock seals had red paint on them.

  3. I am wondering if it wouldn’t be easier/better to pull the calipers and hang them in the wheel wells on a stiff wire, rather than doing all of that masking.

  4. I was curious about doing this with my Brembos but looking more towards the powder coating solution. Did you consider this as well or did you know re-painting was the way to go?

    1. Powdercoating isn’t a very temperature tolerant coating and tends to easily discolor. West Coast Calipers tells me that the paint they use is.

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