Ben you should hire out a booth and cook the fucker.

I masked the area to be painted black first. I will then mask the black all up when I do the orange so that I have straight clear cut lines, unlike the "feathering" that is done from the factory..




Matt, the closest my budget comes to that is that I turned the heater on just after I sprayed it!!!

That's why I am going acrylic, easy to do at home, no ovens etc just old school backyard painting!!! (with a shit load of elbow grease)

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

Yeah know what you mean, our weather has certainly dropped off, but have a 24 and 25 later in the week so fingers crossed we will see some orange before the rain comes again!!

I will be stoked if it's ready for paint by the end of the week, so I can hang the panels, cover it and then get cracking on the winter jobs....and seriously save some cash for the engine rebuild and trim.

The car has come so far, but still feels like it will never be finished....

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

Hooray!! Still doing panel work, but got bored with it, so for a change of scenery I laid down some paint today!!

Painted the engine bay, firewall panels and air cleaner box in orange. Got a couple of minor runs, so will rub them out tomorrow and give the bay a second coat and if all goes well, will lay down the clear coat as well.
I think I need to back off the gun pressure a bit....maybe a tad high....

I must say that I am stoked with the colour, and it is yet to be cleared for the full gloss effect!! Looks a bit darker in the photo than it actually is.

Finally got the guards sorted, boot, bonnet and apron are ready for a final block down and then paint the backs. Just finishing up the last door and then onto the roof and quarters....again.

Heres a sneak peak at the yet unfinished colour....




Will post more pics after it is finished.....I think painting this bit was the best thing I have done for a while.....I was a bit like a dog with two dicks...lickin both!!!

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

I have no idea what the hell you just said, but the car looks great so far!

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-Cam
1980 Toyota Celica
1984 Porsche 911
1988 Mazda RX7

Why is the air filter lid orange?

The air filter, intermediate plates, alternator rib, oil fill tube etc etc are all going to be orange.

Everything else will be satin silver ( housings, timing cover, alternator, bell housing, manifold, dizzy) and the crossmembers, brake master, clutch master and a few other little bits and pieces will be black.

Yeah I know the factory Mazda blue is funky, but I wanted to colour co-ordinate the whole bay on one theme.

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

Nice work, but I agree to disagree with a couple of things

Im with eggbath...Air filter shouldve been done blue, I think it would look much better.
Also I wouldnt paint the rotor housings, paint the intermediate cast iron housings the colour you want and blast the alloy housings to their natural state. Painting engines may look good at the start, but I find paint quickly deteriorates around these areas + I think the natural alloy finish looks better.

Im not a paint expert but there is normally a window where by you should apply your clear coat for maximum adhesion via a chemical bond. If you coat outside the window your finish may not be as good. Better check your paint data sheet, normally you have around 48 hours but different manufacturers may be different.

Dont you love internet opinions

Ha Ha, I never thought an air filter colour would upset so many people

It was originally going to be blue until I saw this picture and loved the concept...


Agree about the housings, they are in their natural state, not being painted, I have chosen satin silver for the other bits to compliment the original colour of the housings so that it all ties in. My bad.

Worse case scenario, I can always reapray the air cleaner!!

I have just finished rubbing back the bay, got rid of the runs, flattened everything else off, ready to prepsol and respray.
Hopefully no runs in these 2 coats, and I will hit it with clear.

The can says 24 hours max between colour / clear, but the guy at the paint shop told me wait 15 (time to clean up the gun) and hit it straight away for killer gloss!!

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

While I agree to some extent that the filter should be blue, I think it's better to just wait and see how it looks, the orange may look great in which case you'll be glad you did it and it was easy to do now while he was spraying orange. If it looks bad then it's not exactly hard to redo it the correct blue. The cream coloured RX2 coupe on Ausrotary had a colour matched filter and it looked awesome, so it just may work in this case too.....it'll all depend on the rest of the colours and how they are used in the engine bay in my opinion, and also which sticker colour you go with for the lid.



EDIT: You beat me to it with the explanation and the pic.....I think that bay looks great!!!!!!

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1978 808 Wagon
1970 1200 Wagon
1969 1200 Coupe - SOLD
1971 RX2 Coupe

Resprayed the engine bay again. Looking nice now Got ANOTHER RUN But will rub that back in the morning and go again, then onto some clear.....

I think I have perfected my spraying technique to eliminate runs.....maybe.....

I will let all this paint sit for some time and then 1200 it back and polish it.
Hopefully will come out nice and flat Fingers crossed







Resprayed and clear coated the firewall covers and also the "offensive air cleaner"



Going to stick with my idea (or not really my idea, Feno gets the credit for the idea) thus far....I really like it orange


If I get sentimental in my old age, I will paint it blue....

I just personally feel that the blue can stand out to much on some cars.

I admit I like the blue air cleaner on Restoremaz's 323, It makes the car look like it was done like that from the factory, but I don't like the blue on this example against the pale yellow...

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

Good work Benn. As soon as i seen the airfilter i was thinkin "hope he uses a white sticker" then scrolled down and .
You should try blasting all your alloy engine components they come up killer. They have a very similar finish to the satin silver. My mate with the brake shop does alloy calipers and they come up spot on. Also seen a 12A timing cover at REVS that was blasted and it look the goods. Keep the good work up bro.

Looks really good Benn, are you going to use the other decal with the Japanese writing as well on the aircleaner ?

I wish I was painting, Im welding the left quarter skin into place instead

Nah, just leaving it like that. Other decal is a bit fussy for me

At least you're welding. I should be going over the quarters, but I am having to much fun

Hope to have the bay all done and cleared before I have to go back to work. Then I have to do some real work and finish these panels!!

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

Hey Matt, glad you like the white decal, I figured it would set off the orange nicely.

I'm pretty sure that Darren (Custom Garage) has blasted a couple of customer's engines, and as he is doing my engine I will get him to do the same.
He just finished off my Brother's SR20DET Rodeo. I took it for a spin yesterday...what a laugh...still has the factory low geared diff in it, combined with the poke of a SR, the thing goes like a cut snake!! Was doing some "Hectic dose" around the neighbourhood, wetting myself laughing.

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

Went out to start blocking my runs this morning and found that for some reason the "peel" in the parts that I had clear coated seemed to get worse overnight.....

Blocked back the engine bay, got rid of the runs, and then blocked back the firewall panels and air cleaner. Got these parts flat again with a bit of carefull rubbing with 1200 wet.

I decided to use a different gun this time, used a Scorpion that I have had for ages and have never used. Spent a few minutes messing about with the flows and fan and got a good pattern.

Resprayed the bay, no runs , and a heap less peel.
Then reloaded with clear and went for it!! Minor adjustments on the gun, and we were good to go.

Resprayed the air box clear and gave the bay 3 coats.

Lots of shine and very minimal peel. Very happy with the result, so after 3 days the engine bay is done!!

I will leave it for a bit and then 1200 it and polish it. Hopefully will come out nice and smooth with good gloss. Glad I have chosen the origianl orange over the white that I had originally planned for the car.

A few pics....

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....

I haven't finished reading this page yet, but you and I had the same idea Benn, that cream air filter box gave me the same idea as well for my wagon, but I realised that a green air filter box on green body paint wouldn't look that good.

Go for it!


oh and... I wouldn't be too fussed about paint runs in the engine bay, my 1300 had runs in the factory paint near the headlight brackets and so have a few other Mazdas I've seen.

well, i like green...

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1994 mazda 626 1.8L 16V hatchback
1977 mazda 818 1.3L 8V coupe
1992 mazda MX-6 2,5L 24V

Looking good, I'd love to know how your going to rub back the engine bay with out rubbing through the clear coat. When you work it out please let me know how !

I think the trick to spraying an engine bay is to spray it wet and turn the fan right down for the hard to reach spots. Give it plenty of flash off time between coats so you get no runs or sags as well, that way it shouldnt need rubbing back........... in theory that is

Hey Gypsy, I was planning on rubbing back the flats by hand and then using a medium grade buffing pad on the buff to the edges. I used to run my own detailing busines, so have had a bit of practice at buffing some odd bits very carefully.

There is 3 coats of clear in the bay, so the chance of going through is very minimal......hopefully!!

Have done the math with paint thus far, I am going to need another 4 litres of orange I reckon.....

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Rockin' the 7 in a street near you.....