I went and looked at the car again and at my test panel. The spray pattern on the test panel is about 10 inches tall. On the car, the top of the door to the rocker is about 28 inches. I replayed my painting and I had 5 passes on that part of the car.... and when I draw that out on paper, it gives me about 50% overlap. The centerline of each pass is about 5-6 inches apart.
I also replayed my painting and I think my speed may have been a little faster than 1 foot per second. I would do a 10 foot pass in about 8.5 seconds.
So maybe I'm not as far off on the coverage as I thought...[/QUOT
I've been practicing on a test panel I shot with base and clear a few weeks ago...
On the flat area, I spent a minute or so rubbing an 8" x 8" area with 1000 and a soft pad and didn't break through the clear. And then I switched to a hard block and did another minute with 1000. It finally broke through and immediately went all the way through the base and into the primer. I had expected that I would see when I broke through the clear and stop before I get through the base, but it didn't seem to work that way.
On a hard edge, it was much easier to break through the clear and base... but I still had to really try to intentionally do it with the soft block.
I'm not familiar with that gun, or the settings you used, but if you sprayed 4 coats unreduced like you said above there should be plenty of clear to sand and buff the orange peel out, IMO. Now if your going for totally flat, that's different. Just stay away or tape the sharp edges. Bad technique can burn edges no matter how many coats you have. Pictures up close would help. On your 8x8 panel, how many coats of clear did you spray? If you sprayed 4 coats on it and you're going through that easy with 1000, definitely reclear.