91-GS said:

Paint first. This is your daily driver, so would be nice if it looked good since it don't sound like you'll be racing it any time soon (so probably does not need to be all that fast).

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Thanks for your input. I'm leaning towards painting it now. I'll be looking at quotes this Saturday.

Would be around $1000 for the entire paint job. Would be less if you can primer and prep the car yourself.

Depends. I never cared for racing so I went looks first. It was later that i went with speed.

I think which ever you would appreciate more is what you should do...the money could be spent ether way.

you can always budget more money into the power adding stuff in the future, but If I were in your shoes I think I'd also be looking into suspension mods and bigger brakes before going into the high power output aspects, a 500-1000HP dsm that cant stop is no fun .

keep us posted on the outcome of the paint job/build.

mitsubishikid said:

I think which ever you would appreciate more is what you should do...the money could be spent ether way.

you can always budget more money into the power adding stuff in the future, but If I were in your shoes I think I'd also be looking into suspension mods and bigger brakes before going into the high power output aspects, a 500-1000HP dsm that cant stop is no fun .

keep us posted on the outcome of the paint job/build.

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I will let you know, thanks.

Paint it first. This way you will have more time to research while you save for your next engine mod!

Isn't linex like indestructible? I don't know if anyone recommending paint noticed that it's coated with bedliner.

That isn't gonna be a scuff the old paint and shoot it. Prep work is going to be insane to remove all of that stuff. I'm thinking heat gun and a razor blade over the entire vehicle. Then filler to fix any dents/nicks. Pretty much take it all down to bare metal and paint, which isn't going to be cheap.

When people put put bed liner on their entire vehicle, they usually don't plan on ever removing it.

I got the car like that. I already showed a paint shop and they wanna charge me 1200 for everything.

i did both. a show car that will surely break records.

I know I'm not as qualified as the rest of the people here who have thrown in their two cents, but the person I learn from and do all my car work with (a 50+ year mechanic/drag racer) has a saying: "Your car has to earn it's paintjob."

Hope that helps, and it's also the philosophy I've adopted.

Well I doing both modding always and painting is on the books next month in a coworkers friends pull barn, whoo hoo I painted my last two dsms, this ones going to be the best yet. Good luck.

paint first!

Go fast wins everytime for me.

DD, main vehicle, I would say look nice first, then minor performance mods next. You don't like the bed coating so paint. I kind of like the bed coating look on it so I would probably go mods first.

Now the question of how are you gonna get that bed coating off? Does it come off easy? Maybe a heat gun and scrapper would take it right off.

I had to strip sprayin liner before and it's a pain!!! 1200 for a shop to do it all is not bad at all my friend trust me!!

Honestly i wouldn't go back to the original color.. Go white and I'm guessing the engine bay is already burgundy.. It would look dope.

It's been beat to death already but I would paint last. At least thats what I am doing. Unless there are structural issues the Linex or whatever is covering. ie strut tower rust, qp rust etc.. Then I would fix that stuff before anything else. Also, some of the trim pieces are hard to find so painting last gives you more time to track that stuff down without paying out the nose for them...

Go fast. Mod it out. Make it fast enough that u dont notice the ugly paint.

I also want to paint my 97 but figured paint is just the icing on the cake. Its what goes into the cake thats good!!

My car has 300k miles on it, was my daily driver for years traveling across the country for work. And I have done nothing but go fast bits, The only thing that is still stock is transmission. Haha. That being said, I have saved the paint for very last so I can invest every bit of energy into maintaining a new paint job, because it is a lot of work and I wouldnt have the time to do both. (paint maintenance and go fast bits)

Just make sure the back of the car looks good. If your gonna make it fast, thats all people are going to see!!

Mods FTW!! Then paint... My car looks like crap, its solid though, just clear coat peeling and all, hood is different colored and spoiler too, BUT its pretty fast, I enjoy that more I suppose.. Get a good laugh when racing someone too! Like renovatdkitchen said, Macco will do a decent job for cheap price as long as you do the prep yourself, because they are bad at it.

Brandon Lee said:

"Your car has to earn it's paintjob."

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I like that. With the exception of the Cow Car, I've never had a car that I owned painted. What people see and think was never important to me in regards to the car I drove.

And go-fast parts and upgrades are pretty much an endless cycle. I've never heard of just buying {insert dollar amount here} worth of parts and that's it. In my experience, there's always something on the wishlist for your car(s).

My personal verdict: hope you just painted it in the end. You'll be buying parts forever anyway

In my crew we've always been mods first and looks second haha. But I know what it's like to want a paint job but yet I still haven't done it a year later. I've just been getting faster!

Well, if you're like most DSMr's, making the car go fast will be neverending, as things break and the urge to do more will always be there. Once you paint, you should be good for the next 7-8 years, given you get a quality paint job. Not too many keep their cars that long, so if you put off painting over modifications, it will never be done(or the chances are you'll end up settling and doing it cheap, which equals regret, that equals money that could have gone to mods.)

Mods. Paint doesnt make the car go faster, and anyone that would rather have a nice looking slow car shouldnt be your friend anyways.