hey Macspayne, is that lexus white a pearl? or is it just a plain white, almost hinging on blueish? I cant find any good descriptions of it.

Thanks guys
stay tuned

 

Here's a picture of Lexus LFA whitest white, the car was painted by Alex Rodriguez then sold to me as a shell. I figured it would be a waste to cut into an unmolested body for a racecar so I sold it to my brother for his restoration. I'm building a Rosso Corsa now

 

That red looks really good! Nice job.

 

Those 3 reds look so similar, did you decide on one yet? Also, where do you order your OEM parts?
@MaczPayne what red is that? Also appears that you have other nice cars in your life o-O

Seeing all the body working pics is getting me anxious to repaint mine!

 

Its funny, I bought 3 reds to check how the colors looked, and after the white primer Im going with white.

maczpayne how different is the lexus color from "uc" crystal white? That lexus color looks great on the car.

Thanks

 

RX-671
my oem parts come from the guys at Capital Mazda Crossroads Raleigh Nc.

 

Ok so yesterday we got the car taped up and the body reprimered including the door jams.






Today we wetsanded the body and shot the insides of the doors and the spoiler.
I think this may be the worst my car has ever looked; thank god it only saw light for a few minutes. (the gray/black on the paint is a dust coat of spray paint to help when wet sanding)




After wet sanding the hood and chassis shell






I finally picked a color too. its 2012 Mercedes Artikwiss (artic white) It is the brightest most blue shifted white I could find in the books at the ppg store. It made the "uc" crystal white color look yellow.



Tomorrow we will hopefully finish wetsanding the remaining panels and trim out the doors and the bumpers in artic white.

Unfortunatly my new door hinges wont arrive until monday, so the reassembly can't start any sooner than that, I doubt we would get there any sooner anyway. Turns out though the passenger lower hinge is NLA. Lucky me, that's the only one I don't actually need!
Stay tuned!

 

Looking good!

The white on my roller is super bright - requiring sunglasses. I'm interested in how Arctic White compares!

RX-671:
The Red is Rosso Corsa, and thank you for the nice words it's a never ending obsession.

 

You can order the white with basically no other tints, making it a pure white.
Do You like blue toned whites?

Are you painting it single stage?

 

Having worked at Mercedes as a detailer at one point I can confirm, that white is nice and deep. You will like it.

Good work on the progress

 

Rob xx 7
I did not want to get a "pure" toner color because paint company's change toners all the time and adjust they're color mixes to suit the change. I want to be able to get a good paint match on this car in the future if necessary and that requires a paint code.
I considered a more pure white though, and there were many colors to consider, the LFA color, Toyota super white, Cheverolet white, etc; but they all look slightly flat from a distance, being so white the body lines don't show up that well. I think that is a lot of the reason we see so many cream whites on cars. Even the stock crystal white is very yellow shifted compared to the pure whites.
I chose a blueish white because the yellow whites look dingy to me unless they are on a newer luxury car.
Also it is most definitely base coat/clearcoat. I am not a fan of single stage, its difficult to buff and I don't like how it lays. I also specifically avoided pearls and metallics because of the refinishing aspect. I want a simple easily to replicate and repair color; and this white almost looks like it has a slight pearl effect because of the blue.
Granted all these assumptions are drawn from a 1 inch by 1.5 inch paint chip in a old paint book, so who knows? Maybe it will look purple!

 

I paint gallons and gallons of single stage, alot of whites ( I paint boats )- single stage white is sweet, extremely durable, and will not suffer from the clear yellowing over the years- which is a problem later on when you go to lets say change hoods- you spray that hood and the rest of the car looks a little yellow by comparison. I only clear my whites if I am putting a lot of stripes and graphics over the white- to lock it all in.
The paintjob is only as durable as the first coats and basecoat is nowere near as durable and flexible as single stage is.
Its your car and you are obviously doing your homework so use what you will Im sure it will come out great.

I have single stage black on my car and enjoy the looks on people's faces when they ask: How many coats of clear and if it was just painted and I tell them no clear at all and I painted it in 1999

 

rob xx 7
I had single stage black on my car before, and it wasn't bad. I have seen some super nice single stage cars before as well, Im surprised that yours has lasted so long, I guess my opinion is biased because of the previous macco job I had. I've never really given single stage a fair shot after that, I probably should at some point soon.

my new ftps came in, I've wetsanded and buffed my old ones countless times, but ive never seen anything like these...MMM so excited.

 

I think Rob painted his with DuPont Imron, that stuff is like tank armor.

 

you cant compare maaco air dry enamel to a good polyurethane.
Its what boats and planes are painted with. We walk on the stuff and its on the bottom of 120+mph boats

Yes I use imron, on my car and im my shop- mostly the MS line of imron now on the boats but its not that much far off from the medium solids old 5.0 stuff

 

Laid paint on the bolt on parts. Im so tired of wet sanding its incredible...





Ralph painted most of the parts, I did a door and some molding but he has the real experience, and hes damn good at this stuff...



So 4 coats of color and 3 coats of clear + one tack coat later we got this for all our hard work





Look at that shine! it laid so smooth too, theres only one small spot on the bottom of the passenger fender that will need to be buffed, it just has the smallest ghost of a run. Its amazing how nice white can look when its new. These photos are while it was still drying, its much smoother than that now. Almost like oem texture.

We also cleared the fog lights as well, not sure if Ill replace them anyway but the clear laid really nice on them.



The chassis and tops of the doors and spoiler are tonight!

 

ok, so bad news everyone. Our paint gun ate an o-ring last night and sent black specks of rubber into the clear coat an the chassis and doors. Its too deep to sand and buff out and on the white its so painfully obvious. Were going to sand the car back down monday and reshoot it.
Im so tired, a full day of work then 6pm-530am doing final prep, taping, and spraying, and in the second to last coat of clear this crap happens. Well Ill get you guys some pictures monday.

 

Ok here's pictures of the issues we had the first time.



you can see the black spots in those pictures and some damage from removing one in the last picture. We already shot the car again this morning. It has none of the specks it did before, but is does have more orange peel than I would like. It will be getting a light shot of 2k grit and menzerna fg400 polish tomorrow and then assembly will begin.

 

new hinges are in and I picked up some fresh wetsanding/buffing stuff, new bolts and hardware for the reassembly process and some microfiber towels for the final wipe down. Cars getting buffed tomorrow!

 

Just discovered this thread. Sorry you had the problem with the paint gun...that really blows. Really liking reading through your build thread though. Wishing you nothing but great luck all the rest of the way!

If I'm not mistaken you have BBS RZIIs on the car? Exact same wheels mine has and mine is white as well. So if you're wondering what it's going to look like when you are all done I'm guessing a lot like this!

 

Aw man, that sucks. I know it's a pain, but I have enjoyed keeping up with this!

 

zoom 7
yes they are bbs rz's I have 2 sets, these faded golds in 16x7 et 35 and a set of silver ones in 16x7 et38. I love these wheels, wish I could find some in 17's though, I think they are oe on some car because they seem to be common in this size.

blackbirdzach
Thanks, the new coat is on and will be buffed tomorrow morning, fingers crossed!

 

After not comming on here in years I decided to, read this thread and get instant nostalgia for my old fc... spend 3 hours looking for my old build thread and now I'm on ebay looking for another damn fc3s! :P

Your color choice mimics my own during my last fc resto. Cool blue tinted white looks so much better than a warm one, when I mixed mine I ended up tinting it with purple! In hindsight I should of used more. I was so worried about accidently overmixing, that I didn't add enough and it was hardly noticible!

Looks like your doing good, crap in paint sucks, especially if it is in the first coat of clear. White may be the easiest paint to hide imprefections but, between the hard visibility and the ammount of crap it show can be an absolute bitch to spray!

 

pontiackid;
I actually saw your thread, it helped me make the decision to go with white, I spent hours trying to find a white with a touch of purple in it, but never found one, Im happy I went with the blue though. Specking of your car what ever happened to it? As I recall the tread just died. Loved the black filler area btw, very tempted to do that on my car.

Out of the booth!





As you can see in the shade the blue is quite noticeable. It almost looks like it has pearl in it, as it shows the body lines so well.



This is the farthest I could assemble today. It will have the doors hung in the morning and assuming no screwups it will be fully assembled tomorrow night, Cleaning on friday! New door hinges visible in this picture, Btw oem hinges have been superceedesd by 90-97 miata hinges, but they are on opposite sides and inverted. So if you need a new drivers upper it will be a miata passenger lower. By the way, the lighting is very yellow in this area. The walls behind the car are actually a off white, you an get an idea of the color there.

 

It has been reassembled excepting for the hatch and the front lip. Im going to clean it tomorrow and get you guys some photos.
I did have one minor casualty during this job, in my laziness I didn't remove the passenger door wiring from the chassis before paint and incidentally backed over it and tore the wiring. Its all been soldered back together and heat shrinked, but I will be looking for one because Im not going to be happy with that long term.