Painted Interior Parts

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My 488 had the interior painted- had no issues with wear and tear and I liked it quite a bit.

 

That's very nice!

 

That looks very nice!

 

What about doing them in red carbon fiber?

 

Yes, you're right. I was looking to that pic with the black/red interior.

 

You might contact Sticky RX - they have a very durable finish.

The other thing would be to contact 3M or PPG and inquire about durable finishes. Generally speaking, most rattle can finishes (single stage) aren't going to be very durable. You need a two stage paint with a hardener at bare minimum. Ideally, you want some sort of industrial grade paint. I'm not an expert on paints, but I do know that for my chainsaws, I use a tractor paint, which will stand up to pretty harsh abuse and also gasoline. The paint can be applied with or without a hardener. I have tested it both ways; without the hardener (even if you bake it), gasoline will strip it right back off. With the hardener (baked or not), you can leave gasoline sitting in contact with the paint for weeks and nothing happens.

In gunsmithing, there is a paint called Duracoat. I have used it in the past. It's pretty decent also. Again, I would contact industrial paint companies and ask them to direct you towards consumer paints which are designed as hard coat type.

Surface prep is also super important. Even oils from your fingers can keep the paint from properly bonding. So unless you are really skilled at painting and fabrication, sometimes it's best left to people who do it day in / day out.

Ray

 

You may want to have your dealer ask the factory if an Atelier appointment would be able to get you that degree of customization for your build.
Then it is done to your specifications right from the factory.

 

Thanks. Here is a better pic of the interior. Dang, I forgot how much I miss this car!

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The OEM silver parts are actually painted parts. Ive forgotten but on the F8 there are 2 silvers that are used . Actually the same colour spec as on the body.

Im sure Ferrari would do it at a cost and would be a better choice. It would be 2KPU ( 2 part urethane ) then finished with a clear coat. Just like a car but they would use a more flexible version like they do on the bumpers ( reason why mas produced cars the bumpers always look like a different shade )

The clear will be the same as used on carbon fiber so it will have the same level of protection. As far as film they would be very hard to do well because of the curves.

BTW any spray shop could do it but you will have to dismantle the dash and then put it all back together.

DO NOT DO IT YOURSELF.

I would get Ferrari to do it and just specify Piano Black. Look at a 488 GTB for the dash strip around the passenger display.

But I will point out the silver OEM is darker than the 458 and blends in much better and if you do it ild paint also the carbon stripe in the dash.

 

Yes that would work also. Im not a lover of Carbon. My wheel on the 488 has LED's but all leather no carbon . I don't find the silver to be that silver and i like it.

 

Just to clarify a few things here...

First, when it comes to painting stuff, it really helps if you hold a either an M.S. or a Ph.D. in Chemistry.

Second, generally speaking, you usually can't just blow automotive clear over the top of carbon fiber parts. I mean, you can - just like you could also top coat them with your wife's clear gel finger nail polish - but it's not really a great idea, nor is it going to give you a beautiful, long lasting finish. Most likely you'll just end up with a less than ideal chemical reaction between the paint and the substrate - and probably either long term failure of the clear coat or just a terrible finish that looks like someone rolled it on with a Home Depot paint roller.

Be extremely careful just blindly handing your interior parts over to the local automotive paint shop. I know guys who own paint shops; most of the people working there aren't exactly rocket scientists.

The problem isn't always the IQ of the people doing the job. It's also that painting is a much more complex endeavor than many people realize.

Just in general, when it comes to painting, it's important to think about the chemical make up of what the paint is attempting to bond to. Try to think of it more from the paint's standpoint, not your standpoint. So in the case of carbon fiber parts vs. plastic interior parts vs. a freshly sanded and primed car panels - you are dealing with vastly different surface substrates (each with different chemical profiles), which the paint must bond to and adhere to. That means the successively sprayed on coat(s) - whether they are clear, flexible, colored, etc - all need to have specific chemical makeups for proper adhesion and curing, etc.

In the case of carbon fiber, for example, you are dealing with a composite surface very similar to fiberglass (sort of like the side of your fiberglass fishing boat). That's a whole heck of a lot different than the PPG Ferrari red paint you just sprayed down 30 minutes ago. Usually, (unless you are dealing with prepreg), when it comes to making carbon fiber, you are mixing several parts of a 3M resin based product. That means you're going to be painting over a polyester resin surface. Unless you are using some sort of Polyester based topcoat, you're in for fun. Here's a typical top coat for carbon fiber, made by Duratec:

https://www.fibreglast.com/product/Duratec_Sunshield/Duratec

Refinishing car parts is another mixed bag. With most car parts, the core part is some sort of plastic. Plastics usually are some form of crazy chemical polymer - that means you are dealing with a bunch of nasty chemicals all bonded together. But the biggest point here is that the surface of a polymer is typically nonporous. Because of this, not much likes to stick to it (think of trying to paint glass basically). So not only do you need the correct paint, but you also usually need to sand and prime the surface correctly; if not, then even the best paints will often fail.

It helps to think of paint sort of like glue - that will help get you down the road a little further here and avoid failure.

Everyone knows glue has to really match what you are gluing. You're not going to have much luck gluing plastic with wood glue or gluing a wooden cabinet together using super glue. It's a similar situation with pain; the paint has to really match what you are painting. If you stop and think about it, paint is really just colorful glue. At the end of the day, you are basically gluing the paint down to the surface. As such (just like with glue) you really have to make sure you know what you are doing, otherwise you are just asking for trouble.

Here's a perfect example from my past:

So about 20 years ago, I was sitting around the office running our servers and I thought to myself, "Hey, you know what would be super cool? To build a little robotic arm and let people control it over the Internet via a webcam". I don't know why I thought this would be a good project.. maybe the stock market was lagging or perhaps I was just bored that day. Who knows? Whatever the case, I went on line and started researching modestly priced robotic arm kits. I finally found a pretty cool little kit. The kit was made of plastic and it said the arm could lift up to 3 lbs (or something along those lines). Okay great! So I ordered it.

Sure enough, some time later, it showed up. It was pretty cool. It had a bunch of little smooth, hinged plastic parts, which you had to glue together to make the robotic arm. The whole thing was controlled via a serial cable as I recall. So I break out the instructions and the first thing it says is something like this:

"STEP 1 - Begin by bonding the base plate to the upper robotic pivoting arm structure using cyanoacrylic acid"

Say what? Cyanoacrylic acid?

Okay, so I look through the kit.. nope, no cyanoacrylic acid included. Hmm...

So I jump on Yahoo Search and search "what is cyanoacrylic acid" and something like this pops up:

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Hmmmmmm.

Okay, whatever. So I think to myself, "forget this crazy acid bonding nonsense, I'll just use JB Weld instead". Now, for those uninitiated, JB Weld is basically the most amazing glue ever made. You can repair just about anything with it - including the cylinder head and/or engine block in your Ferrari - and never have to worry about it again. If your DCT gearbox housing cracks and Ferrari wants $35,000 to replace it, just JB weld it and you'll probably be fine. 500 degrees? Who care.. JB Weld it.

So to make a long story short, I spent the next 3+ hours carefully building the entire little robotic arm using JB weld. I carefully glued every plastic surface with it. Finally, after hours of work, I'm all done and it looks truly amazing. I let the JB weld cure over night and then come back the next day to test things out. This is going to be fantastic! I'm already having visions of using this little robotic arm to move things all around my desk and all sorts of cool stuff.

So I power everything up and the first thing I attempt is to move the arm left and right. Sure enough, it moves - no problem. Then I want to see how strong this little guy is, so I hold my finger out and push the arm against it.. "Snap!" and the robotic arms breaks in half and falls onto the desk. OMG! I can't believe my eyes! I push on another part of the arm, "Snap!" and it falls off also. OMG! I must have received a defective kit!?! Then I go to inspect another area and apply just the most mildest force and, "Snap!" it comes right apart. The whole thing snapped back apart like it was held together with thin air.

Then I realized my error. It turns out JB weld doesn't like to bond to smooth plastic surfaces. Sure, it works amazing if you need to repair steel or aluminum or something like concrete or wood. But it's just not chemically suited for non-porous plastic.

A while later I also discovered that the non-scientific name for cyanoacrylic acid is "Super glue", which somehow escaped me that day.

So, when it comes to the plastic parts inside your Ferrari, my advice - unless you really want to end up disappointed with your interior - is contract out the job to a professional, such as Dave over at Sticky RX. Either that, or at the very least, contact 3M or PPG and make darn sure you are using the correct products and methods for your application.

Anyway, we all know how well Ferrari OEM interior parts hold up over time. For me, I think I'd be a little hesitant to dump a lot of money into factory painted parts, when that money could be put into doing a higher quality after market finish down the road.

I say go matte carbon fiber on the interior parts and black out that yellow tach while you're at it ;-)

Ray

 

You do realise that you just flew over everybody's head ?

Sometimes people want a simple answer. You know its not as simple as people say, but in reality not many give a hoot.

Ferrari IMO doesn't have the right paint formula/ procedure down packed for the Pista carbon parts. I can easily see the flaws and even pointed them out to the dealer. Im too scared to point out to owners as I don't want to piss on their parade. But there are issues for sure.( Cases of delamination of the paint have been seen )

In summary I agree with what you wrote ( except prepreg nearly always epoxy resin ) but in reality wont mean much to the joe blow.

 

I just meant prepreg doesn't require mixing a 2 part resin from liquids.

People who want simple answers to complex problems probably have no business painting their own parts

Ray

 

Agreed Ray.

 

OK...I'll share.
...Repaired damaged Scuderia left carbon engine panel over the summer.

heat damage
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sanded clear down to CF
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2 coats of clear w/ PPG Deltron with my Sata gun
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Fact, even though epoxy is a thermos plastic it SOFTENS with heat. How much heat ? Well depends on which epoxy used.

Old days polyester about 60 degrees celcius
Vinylester up to 250 degrees celcius
Epoxy slightly higher BUT Can and will deform with enough heat. Hence why I don't like carbon and more so thin panels like a bonnet.

 

yes, no mystery here......they will eventually turn yellow with heat as with all CF parts in the engine compartment.
As nice in appearance carbon fiber maybe ....the main purpose for it is weight savings. The CF panels are considerably lighter than the stock engine panels.

PPG Deltron clear coat used
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100% dead on EPOXIES YELLOW FULL STOP. Yes most definitely a weight saving but wouldn't be more that last nights meal.

 

The stock panels (4pcs.) weights about 13 lbs. The carbon pcs. are about 4 lbs. It all adds up.