Oldestzguy

Black top, Mercedes or Audi silver bottom with a TINY red pin stripe to separate. The stripe has to be tiny because the red will leap out at you; but if you get it thin enough it looks fantastic like the 78 Corvette Indy pace car.

Clifton, can you tell me exactly how you put the picture in your note here. I tried to do my son's 91Q45 and only got the tiny one you see. What am I doing wrong? This has frustrated me for two years. Someone else did the one of my old Zcar for me. I want to learn how to do it myself.

Hi, welcome; and I have some advice, You seem like a very likable young man. Search here for a member named mtcookson, he is the expert on this swap. Use the search function daily for your answers as this site is different than other sites and there really are most of the answers available for you. Maybe listen to your Dad, he seems like a very smart guy. It will take three to fours times your budget with no changes in your plans. It will take four or five times as long with no changes in your plans. It will take ten times longer if you have a girlfriend. You will probably lose your girlfriend over it in the end. Good luck with it, my son has a custom 91 Q45. Sometimes it is easier to change a car a little rather than build one from scratch. He has now removed the ugly mudflaps and replaced the wheel well moldings which are painted to match. These thumbnail pictures are horrible they make all the color separation and body lines look jagged. The big pictures show the perfect line separation. Not bad for an 18 year old with no money and his first paint/car job.

I have used RacerX's posts over the year as an example to my 18 year old son on how to learn to share a wealth of your own information when it is obvious that you know much much more than all the other people on a particular subject and exactly how to diseminate that info in such a way as it is very easy for them to absorb, as well as, making sure you don't talk down to them by accident, which makes them eager for more. All in the presentation, of course, and most people think they have this skill, but they don't and I don't. Some of you know I have tried very hard to teach my son the finer points of being a nice young man in this day and age and, you also know that he is doing quite well (Scholar athelete of Cen Fl, Full football and academic scholarships, Iron man award created in his honor, Beta club, funniest guy award, blah, blah, blah. etc), but he has no uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, aunts, etc. and he can certainly still learn something from RacerX instead of his old man, and I make sure he is exposed to that opportunity. footnote: I was brought to the ground last friday night by what can only be described as total hell. I called for God to take me "right damn now". At any rate, I ended up at the ER and the doctors told me I had a very large kidney stone but when I saw what they were going to do to me and how they were going to get it out, I jumped up and left and am now still trying to "pass" it, even though the pretty nurse at the time, said out loud, "he wil never pass it through that thing". Just kidding. Gallons and gallons of water later and I am scared to death because I know it is going to strike again any second. God bless your father in the hospital RacerX and I really hope he is going to do very well. I know he sure likes you being there.

Am I seeing a single windshield wiper in the rear middle of the hood on the red one. Does it come up with the hood, wiring, motor, arm and all? Is the front all tilt. Would Tammy Faye return my phone call, I am not sure Jim handled her correctly. Interesting.

I feet I made a major mistake with my Porsche styled whaletail spoiler. Some guys used a simple 3" spoiler across the back like some other race cars had and the outragesness of the rest of the body lines flowed and stood out much better. Mine looked glued on and out of place. I mean the lines of the rear hatch/roof are part of what makes the Zs look great and I messed it up with my own ironing board.

Please see "Imsa Wide Body Kit - 5 pieces" thread under Body Kits and Paint for an update.

Here is a good dream, Racerx doing all the body and paint work using IMSA wide body kits. Grumpyvette doing all the mechanicals. Me owning the company building hybrid Z cars to perfection. These boys know what they are talking about.

Damn, you know how I feel about it. Yes, still lurking out of pure jealousy

Ken, this is the thread that mentioned how I got the Z that is now for sale in the Project car section. I hope this helps

This poor guy has missed the point somehow. I think we all prefer a wooden "ironing board" spoiler to the one he has mounted on a perfectly good smooth body. Someone on this website has installed a very nice wooden one (nice three piece) on his Dodge Cornet (I think it is in photo albums). The only thing he did wrong was that he was not experienced enough to use "treated" wood so it would stand up to the elements. Oh well, live and learn.

As far as real wide body flares check under my old thread for lots of details: Body Kits and Paint maybe on page 2 or 3 Old IMSA FLARE / BODY KIT As far as money goes you can pay $100 for a proper radio knob, etc. and get a car perfect and still have it picked apart by some yahoo that never had one and barely get your money back. Can you imagine the trick dash including new and improved guages with new wiring you could build for the $1500 you spent on the original. I say sell it and do a cutom. There are threads on here that have fabulous dash applications you could copy. I am sure you know this already, but If you do a custom, you have to remember one thing; less people in general will want to buy it in the end; but the ones that do want to buy it will want it terribly and will pay almost whatever you ask for it. However, you have to sell it to an outsider that doesn't feel he can build his own. If you go too far and have the best one (usually most expensive to build) around (see Eric Bernstein's ad in classified) it will be hard to sell because of the price level and will only sell to certain people and you have to have patience and go out and find them in the more exclusive magazines or sell it at a national car show/auction. For example, just compare the quality and cost of a new-old-stock factory stereo system with what you could put in today and carry this comparison throughout your decision. by the way. if you change to normal 5 lug wheels; huge wheels (wide) can be bought cheap as long as you like 15" or 16" diameter, it is when you get into the 17s, 18s, etc. that they get prohibitive. The ones in my picture below were Crager and I could have and should have gotten them 2" wider because they were available then, as well as, now. I just screwed up back then. Check the Hot Rod mags for suppliers. Good Luck, I am jealous

It is when I read threads like this, I realize I don't know jack#### !!

Our shop just aquired a dealer's license so we are trying to figure out how Car Fax works in detail also. I am not sure, but I think the report will end up on CarFax but not as frame or unibody damage which should not hurt you at all. All of the states police departments feed info into their respective DMV's and then the DMV's feed CarFax and AutoCheck. However, there is one thing I am SURE of. Carfax and AutoCheck reports are not worth much because there are millions of accidents where the state police are not called. Some of these accidents are much more serious than yours but the people and the respective insurance companies do not want the police called for obvious reasons. This is especially true, of course, if you both pull out the same insurance carrier ID card at the site. Consequently, all of these accidents go unreported because the insurance agencies consider all of their information proprietary and don't share it with other agencies whether state or not and this includes their DMV's.. The only time you will hear about it is when they total your car when you have a minor accident and remind you that earlier, maybe before you owned it, it has been in a few accidents before; and therefore is not worth much and cheat you out of it's real value. What I am saying is that a clean CarFax or Autocheck report is no good because it does not contain the majority of the available information which is hidden and kept private by the insurance companies. I am sure we will here from some brainwashed claims adjuster here now trying to justify his "they are all liars and cheaters" well-earned paycheck.

Levelhead86 Generally, most guitars are originally covered in laquer. If laquer is totally cured (old helps) you can put enamel over it somewhat; but you can never put laquer over enamel, it will go right to the bottom. I am not really up to date on this, so they might have sealers out now that could solve this problem so I would check with racerx here or someone that really knows what they are talking about. Might be that the clear was laquer on top of your new enamel you had just put on that beforehand did not itself react to the original laquer under it.

tfreer85 as far as Bakersfield goes Three more good reasons: Buck Owens Merele Haggard Dwight Yokam

Man that car looks great. I just painted an old Infiniti q45 that color (if it is Nissan 350Z copper) with white/ two tone. However, I was wrong. If that is the car that used to be purple; the flares definitely are not the ones that I had years ago.

I am not skilled at body work as there seems to be some talent to it that certain people, such as me, can't learn; but I have finished up some cheaper cars by doing the body work the best I can, then sanding them and taping them off perfectly, etc. and then sending them to EconoPaint or other Macco type companies to be sprayed. They are lousy on the time consuming stuff like body work and taping, but nobody holds the sprayer more hours per week than those guys do. Consequently, they know how to flow on paint as good as anybody and they have great booths, etc, so if you are willing to do all the hard work, it is sometimes worth it just to get them to spray the paint on. However, never have a laquer guy spray enamel on your car. Also, watch out for Macco's "bait and switch" program; it is hard to believe. One time I totally preped a car, taped it and just wanted them to spray it at their "special price" they were advertising on TV and they would not do it even if I signed a "wavier" for the guarantee I did not want. Appears that they only wanted to double the price on every car drawn in by the ad regardless of what the ad said or what the car needed. Went to EconoPaint and was very happy with the price and the results..

Maybe we all should remember that shine quality is developed by microscopic leveling of any surface whether it be metal parts being polished by a machine or a paint job, etc. This microscopic leveling causes the reflective qualities. Obviously the more you can level initially (rolling, etc.) or in the earlier stages, the less work you have to do later at the very (shiny) end. However, the point is; the finer you sand the final surface, the more shine you have. Automotive paint products are trying to do this and still enable the paint shop owner to make a profit by trying to eliminate a lot of the finish work, hence the single stage trying to be glossy just with spraying. Spraying clear on a paint finish makes it shiny also and again helps you avoid a lot of finish work, but nothing BEATS finishing it out to your own level of glossiness which is theoritically endless. I guess the NASA guys could really polish something that would blind you. Alas, the more you do, the better it is, as long as you don't polish through the medium itself. You could do it to a rock. They call it jewelry. This mopar guy is fabulous, and if he wanted too; he could probably make a show quality job out of polishing cowsh t on a car if he could make it stick to the car. He said he has more time than money, which is a problem most of us share. This is also the exact opposite of the problems an automotive paint shop owner has as far as profitability in concerned. I guess, the reason this method might not become really popular is the limited amount of colors available. I am not sure I would want a specialty hybrid Z to be the same color as my grandmother's metal lawn furniture. However, I just bought a short school bus to convert to a weekender, and you can believe I will use this method to paint it.