It may have been due to the rather stagnate, miserable, and disgusting weather we had today but none of our family of friends had any type of July 4th activity planned today. It was just as well as the weather was very miserable and it gave me the chance to try some ideas out I've had for my track wheels.
Here they are (or two of them at least), a set of four "original" 949Racing 6UL's. They are actually quite rare in a way since 949 only produced this first batch for a little over a year and then moved on to the second generation ones. These were the only ones that ever came with the machined lip and colored center. I like the look, but I kind of feel I want them to match my street wheels, a set of TireRack C1's which are matte black. I also intend on selling these at some point and really don't want the original finish to be damaged any further from dust from my track pads. To change their look, and protect them, I decided to give them a shot of PlastiDip. I also wanted to try painting the lettering on the tires. I'd actually experimented with using white PlastiDip on my street tires which did not turn out as well as I planned. They looked good when I put them on but the first time I went over 45 mph the letters literally just flew off.
For this attempt I decided to try something new. I'd stumbled across a post somewhere by a guy with a Factory 5 Cobra. He, after trying a number of paints, finally tried fabric paint, the puffy type used to paint T-shirts. I figured if it's designed to withstand washing and drying and still stay flexible maybe it would work. I picked up three little bottles of the stuff above for $1.37 each at the craft store.
It actually worked pretty well. It has about the consistency of Elmer's Glue so you sort of just let it float on thickly and make a little pool in the letters. The first one tire took me about half an hour but the rest went much quicker. The PlastiDip turned out nice as well I think. Hopefully it will still be removable after being subjected to the track.
I liked how they turned out with the PlastiDip and white letters but I still felt they lacked something. It turns out I still had a little of the red pin striping left from when I redid my stripes a few years back. I'm not sure how well it's going to stick to the PlastiDip but I do like how they turned out in the end:
We'll see how they hold up on the track. I may add the stripe and white letters to my street tires if they hold up here. All-in-all not a bad two hour's work.
-Jason
-Jason
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