Im a poor college student and i needed to paint my kit but i checked a few body shops and they were asking $400-1200 for paint alone and a few hundreed for installation. So i decided to paint it myself using paint supplies from auto zone. I used 2 cans of primer, 4 cans of paint, 3 cans of clear, and multi grit sandpaper- total cost was $35. Here are some pics..please don't flame :ttth:

http://img161.exs.cx/img161/4092/img10726yk.jpg
http://img169.exs.cx/img169/3570/img10732sr.jpg
http://img190.exs.cx/img190/791/img10696jk.jpg
http://img198.exs.cx/img198/1839/img10719bb.jpg
http://img187.exs.cx/img187/6192/img10708wc.jpg

Looks great! but wasn't your car stolen?

Looks good really, who would steal a 12k car?

yup, the car was stolen but i got the car back about two weeks later. I had my stero, speakers, sub, and amp stolen. but other than that evrything was still in good condition

sorry to hear that it was stolen, glad you got it back.

my original thought was to come in and call you a ricer, cause it would be better to have the stock body then a spray painted body kit. but damn! you did a good job on that, it looks good

Phantomxa,
great job man, to hell with high priced body shops. I think it looks really good! I painted cars for 15 years BTW.

Very nice :) Not to flame, but in the second picture you can just barely tell the kit is a different tone than the rest of the body. But if you hadn't told me you painted it yourself, i would have never said anything :wink:

thanks for not calling me a ricer.. i hated the thought of having to use spray paint but i just couldnt afford a good paint job. I did some research and found a website called paint101.com and found a guide and helpful tips on using spray paint. the paint looks more glossy in person.

you did an awesome job! that is in no way rice

thanks for not calling me a ricer.. i hated the thought of having to use spray paint but i just couldnt afford a good paint job. I did some research and found a website called paint101.com and found a guide and helpful tips on using spray paint. the paint looks more glossy in person.

I can't find paint101.com is that the right address?

Looks good

That looks great. There is that small color difference but you could barely tell, For anyone else who thinks about doing this check out http://www.levineautoparts.com/spraycanofto.html You can get some colormatched paint , its $20 a can but....

looks good man, glad to see you got ur car back.

:flame: :flame: :flame: theres your flames lol

i love the two tone look

oh im sorry the website is www.autobody101.com theres a lot of great stuff on that site including forums and how-to guides. the paint i used was from auto zone but if you want color matched paint and you live in california you can go to tri-city paint. If i can remember i think they sell color matched paint for like $20 a pint and can be put into spray cans for $7 each. a pint of paint is good for about 4 cans

wow...for $35...that looks really good.

from the pics it looks better than some bodyshop work, which is sad(cause you used spray paint)

looks tight.. good job.

looks awesome.

how long did that actually take you in time wise and what was the temp outside and stuff?

wow dude for rattle can that looks awesome!!!!! good stuff bro , now if i could only find cheap colormatch paint , whered u get yours at?

:bow:

Amazing. One of the best looking xAs I've seen.

i bought my paint at auto zone it was some cheap paint for toyotas/imports ..but i mentioned before that you can go to tri-city paint and get your own color matched paint for a reasonable price. I bought paint from them when i painted my lip kit on my civic (RIP) ..you give them the make and model of your car and the paint code that is on the side of your car. they sell paint by the pint/quart i cant remember, and you can have the paint put in a rattle can. check out autobody101.com theres a lot of good information on do it yourself paint. It took me about 1 hour to clean, prep, and primer. about 30 min to sand, 2hours to lay down 3 coats of metallic paint, and another 3 hours to lay down the clear. in total about 6 hours and that is including the drying time between coats. I painted it last week while i was back home in San Diego for winter break. Luckily the weather was pretty good for painting@high 70 degrees with low humidity. I painted in my parents garage using a makeshift paint booth i made ...Dont get me wrong if i had the money right now, i would get it done professionally. But i think it looks good and since it is a lip kit it was very easy to paint.
http://img169.exs.cx/img169/6264/img10468dh.jpg
http://img180.exs.cx/img180/9291/img10513lq.jpg

hey panthomxa... what about the gap on the front of the sideskirts?

SFM!!!!

i havent the opportunity to find the kind of fasteners that clip the sideskirt to where the stock mudflaps were. that explains the gap on the sideskirts near the front wheel well.

Looks very well-done. No flex-crack in the paint during the installation?

suprisingly there are no stress cracks or anything of that sort during and after the installation

DANG dood......i work in a custom paint shop and ill be very very honest......at first when i saw this topic i thought to myself " OMG!!"" but it actually looks hella good for spray cans.....you must have taken some time cause it dont look bad!!!

i wish it was easy to find the rattle can paint in Auto Zone for my 3P2 BCP but i gotta order the paint off line i guess

looks awesome looks like i gotta find a "paint booth" though

Looks really good. :clap:

I think of all the people in my town running around with unpainted crap on their car. This is a great idea. Even if you can't get 100% match, it's better than primer grey! Yours looks great, BTW.

:clap:

Very impressive. Nice effort, nice results.

I have to agree with the previous post regarding primer'd kits. What is the point of the 2 year long test fit, exactly? Once we know it fits, TAKE IT OFF, replace the stock, PAINT IT, and put it back on.

Pretty logical.

Again, nicely done.

Hey yeah, i thought your car was stolen too. I was driving around with my friends in sJ. and saw you driving haha! nice ride man. im not alone. you should take a look at my ride sometime. let me get 1st dibs on your your body kit.

impressive....god-like even.

ur zerocool? i thought u was black, man!

wassup bb tommie, yeah my car was gone for like two weeks but i got it back. yeah we gotta get the xa's in San Jose to meet up some time. I never see any other xa's out here seriously.

wassup bb tommie, yeah my car was gone for like two weeks but i got it back. yeah we gotta get the xa's in San Jose to meet up some time. I never see any other xa's out here seriously.

Your ride looks sweet. I agree with ugeelama, if u wouldn't have said anything i would have never noticed that it was painted with a spray can.

Niiice job tho. Where did u get the head lamps tho? I like the tinted/dark shell look? $#it, i'm actually considering doin the same paint job as u, except my ride is silver. My dads pretty good at painting so hopefully i'll be lucky and get a pretty good color match.

i gotta give you props on it. im workin on a budget and the shops quoted me a lot more than i have. so i might have to give it a shot. and again very nice!

i was also ready to come on here hoping to do some slamming. but my jaw dropped cause that's some pretty good spray paint paint job. and from the photos the color is pretty close. can't go wrong for $35.

yeah thanks...dont get me wrong when you look up close, like 3 feet in front, you can tell it was painted with rattle cans...but from the road you can't really tell
http://img114.exs.cx/img114/6975/scionandcivicpics0270to.jpg