I ended up going the single stage black with a 50% clear mix for the final coat. My paint supplier told me he was in Roger Ward's shop the day before and Roger was shooting George Poteet's latest ride using the same approach. His instruction to me was epoxy prime, sand 500 wet and complete any filling, etc. If down to bare metal shoot a coat of primer, or reduce 25% for a seal coat if it had been more than a week, wait 15 minutes and spray the single stage base (no sanding of the fresh primer). Once you have good cover, mix the top coat and after an hour flash time shoot your final coat wet. Let it dry overnight, wet sand 1500 keeping away from edges, and two stage polish 3M white then 3M blue. Sands and polishes really easy at that point, but gets harder as time passes.

On blacks, there are lots of black hues out there. Matrix (and PPG, I believe since Matrix matches PPG mix codes exactly) uses Harley Davidson black as their black base tone, and then adds tints to get OEM blacks. The only way to get a blacker black than their pure base is to shoot a thin, even coat of candy blue over the final coat then clear it. Supposed to be the absolute blackest black possible, at least until someone comes up with a new trick. I stayed with their base black with nothing added. Wonder how base black with candy blue ghost flames would look??