Which Paint?

[Eagle7]

Planning to repaint the entire race car. Here's what I'd LIKE to do:

• Prefer single stage paint (no clear coat), but not mandatory
• Paint in my garage, with compressor and spray gun, and not poison myself
• Touch up with rattle cans readily available locally or online

My internet searches haven't turned up a paint source that fills the bill. I've previously been using Duplicolor Engine Enamel (it happened to color-match the prior paint job) and pretty satisfied with it, but don't really want to spray the whole car with rattle cans. Any suggestions?

[callard]

MAACO will paint a car with their basic single stage color choice cheaper than what you will pay for materials. You do the body prep and light sanding and you will be quite happy with their results.

[zchris]

I'd second using MAACO for a race car. Just do your own prep and masking. They paint all day long and are usually good at it. Inspect it before pickup and point out runs or dust and they will buff it prior to pickup.
Chris

[Chip42]

we do this pretty much every build - the only thing we've been disapointed in is the match between the chosen color and the color as applied. stay away from bright yellow and maybe this goes away. otherwise, very happy with their work, and they give you a bottle of touchup paint too.

[manny]

I've used maaco when i first started back in 99 and the paint holds up pretty darn good. BTW mine is trans am yellow

[gran racing]

I've painted a few cars in the garage and it's a PITA. What you'd need to do is go to your fav home store, and get pastic that will cover all of the walls. And the floor. And the outside of the garage doors. Plenty of ventilation too. Then know it'll stay make it's way onto stuff.

Not sure if you've had much experience with automotive spray painting, but I've found it to be much harder than it looks. The temps and humidity need to match the activator. My last paint job I must have gotten that wrong as it left a residue on the car. Needed to spend a lot of time buffing it. In the end it came out pretty good.

If you decide to paint it yourself, based on what you're saying I think using fleet paint is a good option. I've used it on my cars three times now. It won't look great for 15 years, but I've always figured that a racecar would need to be painted every few years anyways. It's also inexpensive. http://www.levineautoparts.com/autopaint.html

What does Maaco charge to paint a car? I don't see prices on their website.