Project WDE Talon

[BigTyla]

Painting starts this week!

[BigTyla]

I have my garage ready for paint! Hung up some drop cloths today. Got them for $1 a piece at the Dollar Tree.



Here are some pictures of the car masked off. I split one of the drop cloths into four pieces to cover the wheels.







I'm going to paint the front bumper, headlights, and three spoiler pieces later on in the build. They haven't been prepped well enough for me to be satisfied. It was pretty hot in my garage today (id estimate above 90 degrees) and by the time I was ready to paint I had to get ready to meet up with VR4Rob and VR4Dani so I stopped here. I'll make it cooler when I try to paint by putting on the a/c in my work garage (yes, I have a/c in my detached garage ) as the directions say the temperature should stay below 90 degrees during paint. I already have some paint and thinner mixed 4:1 so when I find time to paint tomorrow it will be ready to pour. The plan is to give it an initial tack coat, then paint over that immediately and let it dry for four hours. Then I'll come back and spray on two more coats. My research has led me to believe this is the best course of action when spraying as opposed to rolling like so many others do with the Cheapo Rustoleum paint job.

[BigTyla]

Got the first coat of paint down a couple of hours ago. It's more like a coat and a half because I did 3/4 passes instead of 1/2, so I'll have to see what condition the paint is in after it dries and see how many more coats it will need.

I noticed I forgot to touch up a few areas of the body that were chipped after I painted over them. I'll have to keep a stronger eye out for imperfections the next time I paint a car.

[BigTyla]

After second coat:













It's looking pretty good so far, but the next coat I lay down will be thinned much more. This was a 4:1 mix and I'm going to take it to 2:1 next time. The paint is so thick! It looks spotty in a few areas so I'm hoping the thinner mix will equal it out after a couple of passes with it.

The bad thing about satin black is that it brings out EVERY little imperfection in the body. I may have to go back on a few areas and sand them down, fill, and repaint, but we will see how these next couple of coats work out.

[BigTyla]

I kept telling myself this wasn't a show car and to ignore the imperfections in the body. Eventually, my anal side gave in and decided to sand the parts of the car I wasn't happy with. The satin black finish revealed a lot of spots that weren't sanded well enough, especially along the sides of the car where I peeled off the stupid stickers that blended in the two-tone paint. I spent two hours sanding both sides down with 200 grit and now I'm happy with trying to paint them again.

As for the rest of the body, I can see a lot of scratches that were left behind by the heavier 80-grit sanding I did. I guess the long time I spent sanding wasn't long enough to get the whole body evened out. This black paint doesn't help to hide them. I only wish the scratches were easy to see when the paint wasn't on! Live and learn.

[AdamVR4]

I'm sure the attention to detail now will make you happier down the road.

[BigTyla]

I'm sure the attention to detail now will make you happier down the road.

I'm sure it will, even with a crappy paint job.

[IPD]

I'm sure it will, even with a crappy paint job.

how can "attention to detail" and "crappy paint job" coexist in the same thought?

[BigTyla]

how can "attention to detail" and "crappy paint job" coexist in the same thought?

Because painting with Valspar doesn't exactly provide the highest quality finish.

[BigTyla]

Just laid down a fresh coat of paint thinned with about 15% water. I wish I had known that I needed to thin it this much before I laid down the first two coats because this coat laid down so easily! Of course, I'm sure the bottom coats will be more durable than this recent one so perhaps it was good that I didn't thin those down so much.

I'm interested to see the durability of this paint. At least for now I've saved my self quite a bit of money that I can instead put into "go fast" goodies.

To update you all on my thoughts for an upgrade path, I'm considering going with an E85 tune. There is a gas station 2 miles from my house that sells E85 and $2.50 race gas is a very appealing prospect to me. I'll be getting ECMLink with a wideband and an EGT to tune with. There is an EGT probe already tapped into my exhaust manifold but I'll have to tap an O2 bung in my stock downpipe as the aftermarket one that came with the car needs a new flange (piece of the flange is missing from one of the boltholes all the way to where the end of the flange would be). I'll also purchase some bigger injectors and a fuel pump since I'll need to dump a lot more fuel with E85.

Which reminds me: I wonder if this car still has the stock fuel pump. Hmmm...