I've always wanted to do something about the fender vents on my Lightning Yellow. To me the black vents are just too much on such a light colored car. They sort of remind me of of one of the old Tareyton cigarrette ads, or maybe a Doonesbury character.

 

So I toyed around with the idea of painting them a lighter color, using one of the Krylon Fusion paints. In the end, I decided to try to match the Lightning Yellow itself. So, I used some Fusion paint to serve as a primer, and got color-matched spray paint and clearcoat from Paintscratch.com.

The results are just what I was hoping for. Here's a closeup.

 

Nice color match. Blends in well with the car. I personally think the black ones are nice because they accentuate the side fenders, and those are a big part of the car.

 

And here's a wider shot below.



It's a nice effect. The appearance of the vents changes as you walk around the car, depending on the angles that the honeycomb facets are presenting. sometimes it's almost solid yellow and other times you're looking at the holes straight-on. I think it gives a lot more interest and brings out the nature of the vents. It draws the eye as it tries to look into and through the vents, instead of the black, which shows very little detail unless you're right up on the car. Kind of hard to show the effect in these photos since it takes some pretty high resolution to show the vent details on a full-vehicle shot. But hopefully you get the idea.


I think it also tightens up the lines of the car by getting rid of the "black eyes". I think it's a good idea for the light colors. Maybe not to everyone's tase but thought I'd share...

 

I hadn't thought of that myself. Looks really cool. You did a nice job Any trouble with paint collecting in the corners of the openings?

I think your black eye analogy is pretty good. I go back and forth about what they do to/for the car's looks on LY. I'm hoping body-colored strakes subdue the vertical black some.

 

I really like the vents the way they are. If I was going to change it, I would probably get the au to bahn CF ones. Nice interior though

 

I tried my best to not over-apply. In painting, a number of thin coats are usually a lot better than trying to get coverage all at once. I took 2 coats each of Krylon Fusion (a beige color), the Paintscratch LY base color, and the clearcoat. All three of the paints were very fast-drying. Each "coat" consisted of sprays from various angles -- to try and get good coverage inside the honeycomb. The one thing that was tricky was that getting coverage inside the holes was much easier using short bursts and a little closer than you'd normally do with spraypaint. Usually with spray paint you want to do very smooth passes from 8-12 inches away. I ended up using both techniques.

I kept a close eye for paint collecting in any nooks. No real problems in the corners of the honeycomb holes. The place where accumulation first starts to show up is right at the edges where the honeycomb meets the frame of the vent. There aren't holes there, but the mesh leaves increasingly small pockets against the edge framing. Once I started to just see the beginnings of filling in those places, I was just about done with the base coat and decided to quit there.

Another thing that was helpful was painting both the front and back of the vents. Starting with the back gives some useful practice and is helpful in getting full coverage all the way through the honeycomb. Plus, this way there arent any transitions from bare plactic to paint to promote flaking.

 

I'm not sure - I'm still out to lunch on your mod. You can get brand new vents for $14.24 each side from Trussville Mazda. I thought about getting a set and trying some things, but never did it. If you like them, then that is good enough.

 

I've always liked the Yellow 8's. Aluminum stands out like crazy on them! I would look for aluminum ones if you can find them.

 

Gives me an idea maybe I will paint my vents white on my vr

 

Welcome to the vent painting club, Nubo!

I chose to make my vents really stand out because I prefer the contrast between the black vents on the light colored cars. Whatever you do to them though, it's a nice mod with a lot of visual bang for the buck.

 

alum would look good on black

 

Not bad, turned out better that I thought. good job!

 

I remembered seeing that and I really liked the look of the silver vents on the black car. One of the reasons I started thinking about painting my vents, actually. I guess it's not as much a contrast issue for me (obviously), as being able to see some detail in the vent itself. Lol, if I listed some of the color combinations I considered I'd have to put on my wizard hat and flamesuit :p

 

nice mod, it looks like you accomplished your goal with professional results.

 

not my thing, but it turned out nice

 

you did a great job on them......they look really nice.....add a set of strakes and some clear corners to top it off

 

me no likey
It looks really cheap, like yellow chicken wire. Maybe it's just the pictures though.

 

The chicken-wire effect you're seeing is probably from having to resize and use a lot of jpeg compression to fit into the 100k limit for attachments. I guess I should put up one of the originals somewhere tonite. But, you still might not like. :p 'scool.

 

Don't like but glad you do.

I think I would use a differnet color to tone it down. I think you need a contrast.

Perhaps it's bette in person.

Come see us at Seven Stock. I'll be there.

 

I think it looks pretty kool. Good Job Nubo.
Only reason I didn't paint them was because i have a sunlight silver, and wanted the vents to stand out with my strakes.

 

Here's the original photo I promised

 

Nice work, Nubo! The larger image really shows off the effect nicely. I wonder what black strakes would look like on those vents? Don't you have the whole black and yellow "bee" theme going on in your car's interior? It'd be kind of fun to play with that on the outside

 

That's an interesting idea. I've thought of going the homemade strakes route.

 

I really like it...especially on yellow...on my sun silver I think silver's continuity and smoothness will be disrupted...one thing I think would look much better though is a piano black type finish...I may do a quick wet sand to get them ultra smooth...hit it with a nice gloss black...maybe 2-3 light coats....then

wait til dry, wet sand with 1500...then 2000...then do 3 layers of clear coat

let dry, then wet sand the clear coat...and use a rubbing compound...:D...then put a nice layer of wax on...then reinsert

what do you think?