This Was My 5 Am Wake Up Call!
 

so i actualy didnt sleep at all since yestrday...what was i doing you say...
please take a look....god i am such a bitch to this car...it owns me...

I moulded the kit to the car body...no not glued it on...but just moulded it to contour...i want my kit to come off when i need it off...anyways...enjoy..!!!

this is it boys and girl...few more passes of finish sanding and she is ready for paint :D ...as you can see in some pics there is "lines"...my gun was giving me some trouble...but i got it all good now...ill sand and prime one more time after i clean the guns REAL GOOD!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r2002/car4.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r2002/car3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r2002/car2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r2002/car1.jpg

You got that kit to fit really well. How much time did you put into getting that thing to fit like that. I had the opportunity to fit one up and it fit very, very poorly. It would need a lot of work. Just curious if they all come off like that. Overall looking really good too there. Keep it up. I'm guessing your garage is heated :D

looking good my freind i always hade fun doing that kind of work to my z. keep going the more prep you do the better it will come out

thank you :) yes its a detached garage but we bought a heater for it ....

oh the kit fit horrible...gaps everywhere...the wing, same thing, i put it on and the edges were sticking up 1/4"...that took most of my time and not the actualy fixing up (car didnt have that many dings)

it took me about day and a half...what i did was tape the body where kit will meet it...then put on the kit and then just filled in the blanks...



ONE QUESTION: my wing only came with 4 studs sticking out at the top and nothing on the other side?? I was actualy going to drill and put in another 3 on the backside since i doubt the silicone ill use to seal everything will hold it....How did yours go on if you have this wing?
thanks again



p.s. How is your kid nowdays Buddha? :)

That Z is looking tits Skully, keep up the good work! You are the man! :D

Amazing! Just being all primered makes it look so much better now. You can see how all your body mods flow together. Very good work.

THANKS!

NIce quote hahahaha

Car looks really good man. I'm undecided about the hood scoop though... How did you make it? I bet after you paint the car I will decide that I like the scoop. Overall it looks awesome.

I gotta move to Canada so I can have enough free time to work on my Z!!!:D

Rod.

Primer gray... I gotta paint my car! I've been staring at gray too long!

That kit came out great! I don't know if I missed something but what color are going to paint it?

thanks guys...im happy my brother bought me the whale tail for my b-day...last present was the rims...now the tail...:) hehe

I just wet sanded it once and its looking really good...i have a few more spots that have small dings i picked up so ill have to take care of that and prime again, then sand and prime sand and prime sand and prime ETC untill its good!

Nismo:yeah i hope i dont keep it primer gray for a long time..hehe...

Rod: you guys are welcome up here any time...ill buy you all beer, feed you, give you room all that cool stuff!! :)

Drew: thats a fiberglass scoop...i just decided to play with it...if it doesnt work out i will get a later hood with the other kind of vents and paint it black...all i did was lay some fiberglass over the hump and peel it off, then split it in half and make my scoop narrower...so its actualy contoured to the hump ...

black is beautifull!!! so black :)...i WAS going to put stripes on so i got these guys to photoshop me up some stripes....but you know what...naaaaah pure black.

is your scoop functional?

You can't go wrong with black

black is sweet... just remember to put a lot of clear on it. at least 3 to 4 coats...

You can if you hate washing and polishing and washing and polishing and washing and polishing your car! :D

hahah LWW that is true....when i had my brothers 300 for the summer...i would wash it bring it home...
polish the hood and fenders...then by the time i was done polishing the doors abd rear end...the hood and fenders had dust on them!! but hey nothing 250 kph cant get rid off :-D!!!!

my scoop is functional (to my point of view at least..) I will have the flow directed to the drivers side of the engine where the turbo will be to cool that side down when im moving...i dont know how functional you mean but thats what i had designed for it to do...

yes i had plans to put 3 coats of clear on

I've mentioned this before, but I am really against clear coating a black car. It's great if you want it to be shiny with less work but it sucks if you actually want the car to be black. I have yet to see a clear coat regardless of cost or quality that didn't have some hazyness or murkyness to it. They cloud the the finish enough to be noticeable. Clear coats are great for most colors, but they make black look "less black". My car has no clear coat and it's all good. Yes, I have to wax it alot... But, when it looks good, it looks DAMN GOOD.

Rod.

That's why flat black is cool, Rod.

:D

interesting Rod...now what kind of paint would you recommend then because a 2 stage (i was gonna go with) is black base and required clear coat to seal it so paint doesnt fade or rub off...what kind of paint do you have on your Z, just a base coat?how many coats did you put on? and also do you have some nice pictures of it..all the pics I looked at of your are arent really clear...(i dont mind waxing :) )

thanks for the opinion..

As far as what brand it is, that's a really good question. I'll have to call my body shop guy Monday and ask him. It's got multiple coats with wet sanding in between. Honestly, my paint job isn't all that great. I just had him do a pretty basic job to get it looking somewhat decent. When I bought the car, it was a mess. It was gold and had a lot of little dents, dings and rust spots. I wanted to arrest the rust before it got really ugly, so I had him cut it all out, repair the dents and dings and shoot it all black. It was only about a thousand bucks (Good guy price). It turned out awesome but it has some flaws if you're up close. Once I finish some of the other stuff like the body kit I plan on it having re-done. He and I agreed that clear coat on black was no bueno though. All the pictures in my sig are actually of a quite dirty car!!! I hadn't washed it for two weeks when those pics were taken if that gives you any idea of just how shiny it is. I just dusted it off and snapped a couple pics at a friends house. The key is all in how you wash it (Never touch it!!!) and how you wax it. I only wash with high pressure water and soap. Once in a while, I have to scrub off a really nasty spot but it's rare. The more wax you have on it, the less likely something is to stick to it. Swirl marks are the single biggest enemy of the black paint job. A good orbital polisher with the right products eliminate them all together. Mine is still a daily driver, so I don't work that hard at keeping it pretty but, when I want it to look awesome... It looks frickin' awesome!


Different guys are going to have differing opinions on wether or not to clear coat. I know that my other black cars that had a clear coat never looked as good as my Z does when it's clean and freshly waxed.

I'll find out what kind of paint I have and let you know. I was also planning on shining it up and taking some new pictures this weekend, but my headlight covers didn't show up yet (want pics with them on the car) and it's raining here in sunny SoCal right now. It will have to wait a couple of days. I have a spot picked out to use as a backdrop that should really bring out the look of the car. Stay tuned for killer new pics.

Rod.

thanks Rod...I still have much much deciding to do..:)
And yes in my opinion i would love flat black if it would keep the water spots of the car but unfortunatly water sticks to it and when it dries out you get spots all over it...(yes i drove one car without clear coat)
Paint i wanted to go with was a 2 stage clear coat on Charcoal black ....


ok one more Q do you even know if it was a 1 stage colour (mixed in clear) ?

The key to no clear coat is just getting the surface of the paint flawless. Don't confuse this surgace with the surface of the car. While proper body prep make for a more appealing final product, that is not what I am talking about here. I'm talking about the paint itself. If you polish out any and all imperfections in the paint then you can acheive a finish that is absolutely stunning. Clear coats only benefit is that it can provide protection to the base coat. It adds a certain level of durability to the paint. It's easier to color match a clear than a base ;) . I'm working on a plug right now and Im using only gloss black spray paint (that's right out of a can). Once I'm done polishing this thing it will reflect like you're looking in a mirror. I'll take some pics when I'm finished to show you what I mean. The reason clear coat looks so shiny is in the way it reflects light. The reason most base coats don't reflect so well is because they are not designed to. You have to work them to get them to really shine. I'm talking polishing out micro scrathces not even visable to the naked eye. Like I said I'll post pics when I get to that stage. It's hard to get the point across. After you see this you'll think twice about clear coating anything that doesn't need UV protection :D I think Rod is right though, Clear isnt the greatest thing to do to a black car. To make it perfect youd have to really work each coat of clear before applying the next. Otherwise you just compile layer upon layer of imperfections. You usually cant see these imperfections but they're there and they affect the reflection of the light. Which gives it that look that Rod is talking about.

ok so what colour do i go with then...a one stage with mixed in "clear" or do i just choose a 2 stage base colour but not put clear on...

i know what you mean by surface of the paint...if the surface is screwed up it will not reflect light properly or it iwll even absorb light so the paint looks like crap...i get what yer sayin tho :) maybe i should spray it do the best polishing i can do and take it to a good detailer shop to have them final buff the hell out of it and make it proper :)

Skully your car is gonna look freakin awesome. Good going dude on the interior as well as the exterior...

Like Rod and J said...it has to do with the amount of prep you do prior to putting paint on primer and then the wetsanding thereafter....sometimes in between coats of paint. I know most pro guys only end up doing one or two wet sandings at max but they know what they are doing to start off with. I did some research and the rule of thumb is to ensure you have done some smooth bodywork and ultimately have a good primer base to start with, hence the "fuming' aspect. After you think you have a good primer base done...a relatively light sanding after the fuming should reveal any blatant imperfections in the body work...you can then do what you need to repair the fault and primer again. Sandable primers are easier to work as the name suggests. Then you go ahead with the paint coats. In between the paint coats wait just enough for the paint to become tacky to the touch and then spray again so the layers have a chance to bond with each other until you have the desired finish. With the right climatic conditions as well as the rate at which you do the painting you might even be able to cycle back around to the previous area within the required time period. Wet sanding comes near the end with a real fine wet-sanding sandpaper to get rid of the tinyl dimples you may get with the paint drying etc. If all goes as planned, mirror like finish should be the end result.

I got another delima, I am going two tone with Black and Red....to clear coat or not, that is the question.