Whisper

So, having had some recent success in my career, I've elected to see just how nice a car I can make my 86 n/a into.

I'm purchasing a turbo trans w/LSD, planned out a LS3 swap with the Renegade kit, after that some suspension upgrades, new carpet and interior trim, etc.

All planned and budgeted for.

But I'm a bit at a loss as to paint. I really don't know what I can expect to pay for a high quality paint job, perhaps with a little (subtle, understated) custom stuff.

I've tried searching the web for businesses in socal that do this kind of thing, but this industry seems to be one of the least "wired" out there. The few paint shops that *have* sites at all don't seem to respond to their email.

So perhaps someone here can help me out by giving me a rough idea:

1. What (ballpark figure) can I expect to pay for a good (not adequate, good) paint job, including some disassembly, plastic media blasting (to strip the PO's already-peeling cheap job), good paint, and clearcoat?

2. Is there anyone in Socal who stands out as really good for this sort of work?

3. Would it be a good idea to tow it in as rolling body, when the engine and tranny are removed for the swap work? Would this make things easier?

4. Should I have the primer stripped and re-prime, or is stripping back to the factory primer good enough?

5. What prices are A: "too low, you're not getting quality work", B: "About right", C: "Too much, you're not getting much more for your additional dollars" ?

6. What colour schemes do you all think are nice? (Feel free to post lots of pics we can all drool over.)

Keithr726

1)A good paint job is typically $5k
3)Towing is a good idea, engine out they can paint the engine bay, if you do this also remove as much as you personally can from the car to save costs.
4) definitely reprime
5)<$1,500 is low quality
6)repaint it the factory color, if you don't in this case it isn't as bad because you'd be painting the engine bay. If you change the color any future owner can simply remove some carpeting and see the original color in the hatch.

IGROWL

If you are looking to not go back to the original color search chameleon paint. I saw this on a 944 for sale on ebay right after I had my car painted and I wish I had seen it before I made the decision to paint it the original color. I showed the pictures to my painter and he said he could have done it but it would have cost a lot more. That I would understand.

spoolinturbo

1. $4k ...make friends with an autobody specialist. It only costs about $600-800 to actually paint a car including supplies.

2. no idea

3. towing the car in with nothing on/in it makes it a million times easier to paint a car. if u dismantle it yourself, ur paint job cost would be cheaper. But they will not install the items for u.

4. u cant just go down to the primer and use it, i would strip it all off, prime and seal.

5. a 1500 b 2500 c 5000

6. if your going to use two colors for your scheme, use your factory color as your base. Radical changes in color can be difficult to accomplish, depending on what color your color is now.

if your going to pay that much for a paint job, stay away from single stage paint jobs.

Whisper

Hmmm, yes, the Alsa stuff. I've been eying their "ghost chrome" paint as well, might be nice as part of two-tone paint job, with black as the base colour.

The car was originally burgundy, and the PO went over that with black. Doesn't look too bad on major surfaces, but it scratches really easily, there's some orangepeel, and it's starting to peel in some of the recessed areas under the front, where the prep work was probably sketchy at best.

I'm not going with the original colour. It's dull and ugly. Anyway, I have no plans to sell; makes no sense to spend 20k upgrading a car just to try to flip it to someone who would try to offer me 15k and think he was being generous.

Alex 944S2

I did it 4 years ago.
Price was round about 6K.
Enginebay and trunk have been repainted too.

Burgundy was the original colour but now it's Gulf-Blue.

Mark944na86

Actually, I quite like your S2 in burgundy! The blue _is_ nicer, though. But S2s are just nice...

I must stop noticing how nice the 968 side mirrors look. No good can come of that.

J Berk

Nice S2 Alex! I too am eyeing the mirrors/door handles. They look so good....but they don't make it handle better or go faster on the track...so I am torn.

V2Rocket

Devon, the burgundy car shown above is the color your car was originally. I think it's quite lovely and as mentioned above if the factory color is different from the repaint color it will be easy to tell by looking under the carpet...

unless you want to strip the car bare and paint the whole thing...

When the time comes for my car to be painted I will be looking into soda-blasting as it is supposedly somewhat cheaper than media blasting and the material is easier to come across not to mention I've seen it done with excellent results, stripping down to metal nonetheless. However if it gets down to metal you need to be absolutely 100% sure that every square millimeter of the car is sealed with primer so it doesn't rust.

There is alot of overspray under the hood of your car, so it would be better to tow the car to them as a disassembled roller to make sure it gets done completely. Not to mention having it disassembled beforehand will make labor rates go down considerably

Whisper

Well, I'm not crazy about it.

I was thinking of replacing all the carpet anyway. This might as well all get rolled up into one process, what with the trans and engine coming out already.

I thought all the late cars were galvanized, yes?

Yeah, the current paint looks good in most places, but it's easy to tell that they didn't do much disassembly or prep work, and that is starting to take its toll.

I think I like the black, though. Perhaps a little Ghost Chrome as well.

V2Rocket

944s are galvanized yes but blasting can remove the coating in places.