The second shot is going AWESOME. This time I really prepped the fender, taking it down to bare metal with 40grit on a DA sander. I did a lot of filler work to get it as smooth as I could and then today I shot it with primer.

This time around the paint is laying down silky smooth. I learned that I needed higher air pressure and a second filter at the gun end of the compressor. Those two things have really made this second try get off to an amazing start. Last time it was all orange peel’d up. This time… magnificence!

When i get back I’ll fill one small low spot that I missed and then lay down a guide coat and sand it down again to make sure I got all the low spots. After that comes the base and then the clear.

This time I hope to come out with better than OEM quality thanks to my amazing prep work. Stay tuned…

Having a great weekend so far. Andy came over today and we made a couple passes at my “dragstrip”. Tried two 0-100-0 runs.

I wasn’t extremely impressed with what we came out with: 0-60 in 4.375, 0-100 in 9.2968, 0-100-0 in 15.4218. Don’t get me wrong, it is fast but I know there is a lot more in the car.

What holds me back most is the tires. On my best run I didn’t floor the car till 42mph. I tried to floor it around 35mph but the tires broke loose. Around 40mph is the sweet spot for traction on a set of smokin’ hot Nittos. I have the burnt rubber smelling interior now from doing a burnout with the top down (thanks Andy). The picture above is after we drove the half mile or so back to my house - yes these guys grab like glue, I just need stronger glue.

Upgrades coming soon (sitting in boxes in my house) so that I can run stickier tires.

Here’s a good list of some “fast” cars and their 0-100 times. You can see my car boogies to 100 but can’t stop for nothin’. No matter what, I can take a Civic Type R who boats a 0-100 time of 16.2 secs.

Having a great weekend so far, yesterday was “honey do” day so I put up a new ceiling fan in the bedroom.

I got a new DA sander so I have been taking the paint off of my fender to attempt painting again. Last time I did not get it to bare metal.

The front of this fender is chocked full of Bondo, in some places it is almost a half inch thick!!!

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In other news K and I went swimming today and we got to hang out all evening together while mommy went to the movies and dinner with friends. Kayla is taking on more of her own personality. She likes to chase the dogs around and can say “Ball”.

I ordered up some new axles, new differential and taller gears (3.73) to give me a bit more MPH at the track. I am hoping to trap closer to 120mph and that just wasn’t going to be happening with the 4.10s. I also needed some beef back there to run the slicks and launch HARD. I’ll get a couple more MPG out of the swap also, go figure! Stay tuned for more on this.

It’s been a great weekend.