Okay, so hear is the situation. We have gone through the WC Touring Cougar and have repaired about 99% of what we wanted to do. All we need to do is have the car repainted and we can put all the pieces back on the car and we can finally get it back on track.

The problem is I CAN'T FIND ANYONE WHO WILL PAINT THE FRICKEN CAR .

The car has had all the bodywork done, is pre-sanded using 800 grit paper and already has the first coat of white applied and finish sanded (long story). All the paint shop has to do is use my custom blended paint, mask the car, lay on 1 coat of colour and 3 coats of clear. The car has no front or rear fascias, no trim, nothing. They all want the car for 3 weeks. I don't want to leave the car with them for that long as I am concerned that some throttle jockey will decide that the car really, really needs to be aired out and end up grenading the $30,000 motor or destroying the $10,000 transaxle or blowing one of the $2500 halfshafts. The cheapest rate I was quoted was $500 cash, but I had to have the car to them today and leave it with them for 2 weeks .

Freek, I may just paint the car myself unless I can find a reasonable body shop who is willing to work with me.

Anybody here know of any good shops that would be willing to mask, clean and spray a car in one day (the painting should only take 2 hours) and have me pick it back up the same day I drop it off or at latest the next day.

I want to get this car back on track, but I can't believe the Auto Body Shop Industry, at least here in Oakville. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, I feel better now...

Eric Nummelin

 

Contact "classicauto" on the forums. Does awesome work and your car will be safe in his hands. You'll have to ask about turnarounds though.

thewird

 

If your afraid they might take it for a spin, just pull an essential part before you leave. (The ECU or something similarly essential and hard to replace. Not the battery)

Then you can rest in piece that they wont drive it around and crash the thing inside that 2 or 3 week period.

Good luck.

 

A race car isn't a race car until it's painted with Tremclad.

 

Eric, I have a couple people in Scarborough that will likely do it if you're in a pinch.

 

So I went ahead and painted the car myself. It looks fine from 10 feet away, but it needs a ton of wet sanding and maybe another few coats of clear to smooth out the orange peel from the cheap clear I was sold. Anyways for those of you who care look at the car on this site.

I just need to add the other headlight, install the harness, align the car, change the rear tires over to RA1's, add the numbers and transponder and we are good to go for this upcoming weekend. I will be running the car for the rest of this year as number 75. I will be bringing out the RX7 for the last weekend if other plans don't make it to fruition.

Regards,

Eric

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30289785@N05/?saved=1

 

Race cars aren't meant to be show cars. In my experience, a 10 foot paintjob is probably better than what most re-painted race cars will have at a non-professional race weekend.

 

I'd like to know where you spent $30K on the engine build? wow I didn't realize it was so expensive. is that just engine work or complete driveline work?

car looks awesome though!! great job.

 

The actual engine build was done by Kinetic Racing Engines out of Michigan. It has a billet crank, custom Carillo forged rods, custom Ross Pistons, the cams came out of Europe ( I think from Cosworth), fully studded and the heads and intake were custom ported by Kinetics. The oil pan had to be baffled and to do this they had to make a see through version. They also had to develop the accessory drive and cooling systems.

These motors were the first full race 2.5L Cougar motors for the World Challenge Series. Capaldi had the first and I understand the development costs were close to $70,000, but the story is that Ford assisted with the program and the cost to the teams was well under that.

I have 2 motors, the other car has 2 motors as well. The really interesting thing is that the car alkso has a Quaife dog box transmission with a Quaife diff. The box alone comes to close to $10,000!!!!!!!!

Always buy a used race car. It never makes sense to build from scratch unless you have mucho dinero.

Eric

 

Looks sic Eric, its a race car, so if you're going slow enough for people to comment on the paint work then there something wrong

Nice job! EDIT: and FWIW, I could've done that over a two day period. Damn city shops

 

Joe, thanks for the comments, but I may still call you after the season to get you guys to blow on a couple of coats of clear. I am concerned that after I wet sand out all of the orange peel, I may only have mostly base coat left, lol. Any tips on easily removing orange peel other than sanding forever with 2000 grit, then compounding then polishing and waxing???

The pictures do it more justice than it deserves in the light of day, but my crew chief says cover it with decals and nobody will notice.

Eric

 

Other then using velcro wet paper and DA - no lol

I usually go pretty rough first though, sometimes 800 on really peel-y stuff then work up. Speeds up the process a *little*.

 

I finally put most of the graphics on the car and we are ready to go for Celebration on September 27th and 28th. We will be running the car in GT-B/ maybe GTA if the car (and driver) is fast enough.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30289785@N05/

For you RX7 guys, it looks like the #23 RX7 will be out as well. The car will be tested by a new driver on the Friday before the event and if she is fast enough, she will run the car in G-70 for the weekend.

Eric