Best way to paint intake grills/ spikes

I picked up my extra set of intake grills and fog lamp spikes from the dealer yesterday. Of course I violated my rule. I didn't open the boxes to check the contents before I got home. Both spikes are matte black, but only one grill is black. The other is grey. I checked the part numbers, and it looks like there is no difference between the black and grey aside from the left/right designation. My intention was to keep them matte black, but now I am thinking that painting them a glossier black might be better. How should I do it? Drop them off at a body shop? Primer and paint myself? Can someone tell me the best way to paint them myself? Thanks, dave By the way...my car is speed yellow with a CF wing, mirror inserts, door sills and GT3 grill as accents. The spikes and intake grills will be black, and I am adding a Cayman GT decal along with the GT logo from a GT3. Sport exhaust tips. It will look much like K-Man's Forza car when done. Maybe powder coat the wheels in black.

Send them to BumperPlugs for the best painting in town!

swampcroc and agcroc painted thier fog light spears. You might search for the threads where they described how they did that.

Thanks...i will check it out. Maybe bumper plugs is the way to go.

I didn't paint the foglight spears, but rather the splitters on the bottom of the front bumper. Used primer, color coat, and clear coat, all from paintscratch.com. The website has very complete instructions. Marty

THANKS A LOT. :dance:

If you're going to paint them and they aren't nicked up, you could just try a high gloss clear over the matte black spears. I would also spray the black trim piece above them to match. I used a flexible bumper paint and the clear to top it off. I was told the clears are flexible too so no worries when snapping things together. I used an adhesion promoter instead of a primer ( wasn't sure about the primer's flexibility) and so far no problems. I went with a generic silver and painted the lips too. See my profile pic.

i painted my fog lights spears, front lip spoilers, "Cayman S" badge, exhaust trim, and exhaust tip myself. PM me if you want to know how i did them

What do you mean when you say you added a GT3 grill? Can you tell me where I can see pics of this? Also, how much did it cost? Thank you very much.

There is a ton of stuff in the articles section of the Cayman club; for instance this: http://www.planet-9.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=108&cat=3

Lets see pictures

here are pictures of the parts i painted at home.

I'll bet the cops love your license plate paint job.

I have not installed my grill yet. But this is what it will look like. For the strosek wing...see K-Mans pics in his article. I will post pics of my car when I am done wil spears/intakes/grill/decals.

So whose car is that on? (The Carbon GT3 front grill piece)

Unknown. It is a pic from a website that sells all of the GT3 bits. Just happens to be speed yellow like our cars.

Casual painting of grills, logos, etc with some spray can from the hardware store is a terrible idea and will result in a finish with nowhere near the adhesion, chip resistance, or gloss retention of the original. Have such work done professionally unless your are competent with a spray gun and experienced with two-part, catalysed automotive paints. The full routine might be: 1) Thoroughly wash part with wax remover to get rid of any traces of silicone or other residue. 2) Sand all surfaces with about 400 paper. 3) Prime with a light, wet coat of two-part automotive primer. This is for adhesion rather than filling any surface defects. 4) Follow within the prescribed time with thin, light, dry coats of color; only enough to cover. For flat black use 2-3 coats and don't clear-coat. 5) Follow within the prescribed time with clear coats. Perfection here is good because color sanding and polishing of intricate surfaces is tricky. I suspect Mr Bumper Plugs does it pretty much like this. It is labor-intensive but necessary for a result that is as good as the rest of the car.