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I was thinking about powder coating the running gear on the car, the suspension struts, springs, calipers, hubs and stuff. The cars in pretty good nick although its coming up to 100 000 miles, i'm thinking of a strip down and rebuild of all running gear so thought it might be a good idea or would i just be better off painting it?

I am a big fan of powder. I don't think powder on the struts are a good idea, nor the springs if you want to install them. There is a specific paint for calipers that has been proven. Powder is not cheap and there is normally quite a waiting list. So expect your car to have some down time. ~ 4 weeks in my area.
Powder is great for manifolds (ceramic), intercooler piping, valve covers, rims ect.
Aside from the whole compressed deal, you are better off to buy new springs and struts when you add up the time/effort and cost of taking your old (damn near wornout) suspension out and replaced.

Only powdercoat things that will be seen! Calipers, VC's, TB, Intake manifold, etc. Getting struts done is silly, like above said. Replace w/ new parts and they will look better and will perform better - you have no use trying to rebuild a stock strut

Check out posts by Iceracing (I'm not sure if that's how it's spelled, but he'll be easy to find). It looks great!

powdercoating is great, durable. i bought one of the systems off ebay for 80.00, a lb of paint is about 20.00 which will do quite abit of stuff. got my old dead stove in the shop to cook the powder, mind you i can only do up to a certain size. ceramic coating is not the same as regular powder coating, different product and method. ive done a set of wheel hub's, which were the wrong ones so i chucked them away (accross the room) and the coating didnt come off on the cement floor. did the millenia intake which i have to redo due to crap landing on the coating while it was still soft. the only thing i would not do from your list would be the springs and probably the struts, due to size and people making arguements on ruining a strut with the heat from the over......no one has ever said if it was good or not, such as explosive, wrecking seals, draing gas etc. i personaly think it would be ok, but kind of pointless. caliper and high temp paint wear off easy, ecspecially if not cleaned properly. aluminum is very hard to powdercoat if you dont use primer, very pourous which lets lots of tiny airbubbles into the melted plastic, it does not flow out either. over all its not that hard to do but there is alot of work involved for prep and masking off stuff.

thanks for the input, might have to check the prices over here and waiting times. the suspension was changed about 12months ago to ZX2 set-up, its all black that's the only reason I was thinking of powder coating that. I have some new rear callipers and braided brake lines, the callipers are coated with something but I'd like them coloured.

I was thinking about getting in on that bushing GB, and getting a whiteline sway bar too, basically upgrading and replacing parts that might be worn or becoming worn.

Then or maybe during, I want to start on the engine, not powder coating, but replacing seals, gaskets and bearings. Is this a good idea or should i leave the engine as it seams to be running ok? My opinion was that replacing those parts, could extend the life of the engine, but I did think that ripping into an engine that is working fine might not be a good idea.

opinions please....

(sort of gone off topic a bit oops)

I recommend getting the bushings, and replacing everything you can afford. Here's Ice Racing's post: http://www.mx-3.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=57685" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I think it looks awesome for a racecar, and would totally paint my suspension stuff, if I wanted to spend the extra $$..
You could maintain your engine, and replace parts at the right intervals, and your engine will last pretty much forever (I can only speak for the K8, because that's all I've had). You could even treat it badly, like alot of guys on here, and wait (a looong time) for it to die, to justify putting in a 2.5L (or BP, if you're 4cyl).

wow his looks mad, I imagined black and purple or a dark blue like srd bushings colours. thatsa what i want my calipers to be like anyway.

just read all 12 pages of the poly bushings thread, put my vote to kit without sway bar as I want the Whiteline one.

A friend at work, has a brother who powder coats, I've got him on it to see what he can do for me, firstly on the callipers then we'll go from there.

If you can get a deal, go for it! I'd love to powdercoat stuff.

If you guys need powder coating, let me know. What kind of parts do you need coated.