Hi everybody! I've been admiring the G cars since I first caught a peek at an early G35 way back in the day, and now I've finally got myself one. It's a 2011 G37xS in Black Obsidian.....



I've been lurking for a few months since I bought it, getting ideas and advice from old threads, and generally making a mental wish list longer that I will ever get through. Now that I have a couple of questions, I figured I'd go ahead and start a build thread to track progress as I get them answered. This is likely to progress fairly slowly (hence the title) but I shall persist nonetheless. Here goes....


My tentative mod/wish list:
1. Swaybars (already purchased - see next post)
2. Midnight Black Grill
2. Stereo (See thread on DIYMA if interested)
3. HFC's + CBE
4. Swift Sport Springs and Spacers (I'm still a little torn here, but leaning towards doing it)
5. BBK
6. Intake + tune (if done after the exhaust)

 

So the first thing I did was snag a set of used Hotchkiss Swaybars in the classified section. I got a nice deal and I could just slap them on, but I noticed they're a little scraped up, (original owner probably had his car lowered) and there's a little rust where the coating flaked away under the bolts. I figured maybe it would be a good idea to get them cleaned up.

I got a very reasonable quote from a local company to strip them down and powdercoat them. The question is what color to use. Does anybody know what color code would correlate to the silver of the OEM wheels and/or standard finish Akebono brakes? I could consider an accent color too and would probably carry it over to the calipers when I eventually get to the BBK upgrade, but I'm not sure I want to go that route. I kinda want my car to look like this is how the factory should have made it - not that it's obviously modified.

The company said I could choose any color from this website: Prismatic Powders

 

FYI, pic doesn't show up. You could try uploading it to photobucket/imgur/etc, then using the embed code to have it display over here.

 

Nice start, and no luck on the pic for me either.
As far as sway bar color, not something that's going to be seen often, and if you want it to look stock-ish I'd go black or gray.

 

Well that's weird. The picture showed up right after I put it there, but now it's gone for me too. It's on OneDrive. I'll see if I can figure it out.

I know the sways won't get seen much, but I'll know they're there. I want to get them done for the sake of longevity anyway, but I'm kind of a sucker for a nice, clean undercarriage. (not in a creepy way, I swear) Black would be the obvious fallback, but I thought it would be nice if I could figure out a silver that sort of matches the shade everywhere else.

I'm a little curious if anybody else has converted the brightwork elsewhere on the car to a silver finish instead of chrome. I looked through the "show off your ride" thread and saw some cool stuff, but not that.

 

What color should I paint my swaybars?



LOL, my kind of guy. Subbed.

Black car, go red. But not cherry red... something darker and more serious. Eibach's come red, but if I were to paint them, I think I'd like some metallic in the powdercoat. The flat red is kind of dull looking, although it does somewhat match the Swift Springs.

 

The picture should be fixed. Now you can get a good look at the patient.

 

Lol, thanks. I greatly enjoyed reading through your build thread and really like what you've done with your 6MT. I may never do anything particularly noteworthy to my car, but I figure if I'm going to ask for input the least I can do is document it so the next guy can read it.

Matching (or near-matching) the Swift Springs is an interesting thought. I briefly considered red, but I was a little concerned that when I get the BBK, red calipers might pop a little more than I'm after. Maybe I overthought.

It's hard to tell from the website so I may have to order some swatches, (free!) but this looks like an interesting, slightly metallic, just-dark-enough red:

 

I would never go with red calipers. They might look great in your hands, or inspecting the brakes installed and up-close, assuming it's a professional quality paint job. But soon as you step back, they just look amateur and wrong (IMO), regardless of how good the paint job, or what car they're on.

I know, I know... Ferrari. But then, you can get the Kia Optima with red brakes, too. Srsly.

That's just me, and IMO. And I'm wrong lots of times... so there's that.

 

I've actually seen some pictures of black G37's with yellow calipers and I think it's quite striking. That's not really the look I'm after on my own car, though, and also I'm a Browns fan so there are implications to that color combination I'm not comfortable with.

I'm most likely to leave them silver, frankly.

 

TonyHTX has his Akebono BBK painted in Acura Rio Yellow Pearl, which was the color Acura used on their yellow NSX. I thinks it's a beautiful look against Moonlight White, and have been wanting that for some time now.

Here's an old picture of his car when it used to be black (he since painted it white, which is kind of a mind-blowing change unto itself.) Anyway, not the best pic, but you get the point:



Here's his car now:

 

Here is the only one on my phone of when my car was black with the painted calipers.

 

Wow, a complete color change is really ambitious!

I agree the yellow is great against the white paint. I've not traditionally been a "white car" guy but the G37 really carries it well. It's funny how different cars do that. I saw a white one in a parking lot a couple of weeks ago and really thought it looked nice even bone stock.

 

Another great plus w/ the white is it's the best color for a detailed engine bay.
http://www.johnclare.com/pics/cars/engine_bay_2015b.jpg

 

I love Red but I didn't want to go with the same color everyone else does. So I chose to paint my calipers annodized red. They look great in the sunlight and they don't POP too much at all when they aren't bathed in sunlight. I think it's a healthy balance. You could consider this color.

I often find myself drawn to metallic colors, like Rochester. The little dots n specks of silver in any color make it look 10 times better IMO.

I do like your idea of going with yellow calipers and yellow sways on a black car. They aren't everywhere and they look stunning against the black. Just my opinion.