What effect, if any would the salt have on an unpainted car?
I should say, a primered car. I would not want to go back and have to sand the whole car down and start over.
I would not take it there in bare metal to run. I think you will regret it. Prime it with epoxy primer. Not that expensive from Summit using their brand. Later go back and sand it and then start the real body work when you have the time and so forth for it. I'll use the epoxy on everything on my car and not just the body. I'll home powder coat some small pieces maybe that won't need to be worked on later but the epoxy paint is just as good and easier to make changes if needed (the reason I would never powder coat anything complex).
You are building a race car not a show car. There are race cars that are show cars and that is fine but if making the car a 'show car' first is going to get you on the salt later then I don't like that approach myself.
Last year with Hooley's Stude the car was painted in bits and pieces by about 4 different people, including my part at midnight the night before we left which was a couple days after we were suppose to of left. It doesn't look near as good as when John had a chance to paint the whole car, but it did make it to the salt and I don't think the paint job effected the speed by 1 mph
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I had more people look at my pickup when I drove it around in bare metal and you could see where it had been...
http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/underconstruction/underconstruction3.html...chopped and section by all of the welds. Get it done so it will run, don't go there with bare metal, spray some epoxy primer on it and move on,
Sum
