I've been working in Max 2011 and for some reason at random when I remove a face or attach pieces of editable poly together (I think there may be other triggers but those ones stand out in my mind) I'll get really weird smoothing/normal errors sometimes entire faces black out or sometimes only portions of them do. The only…
flipping those polys with the editable poly's flip command does not change them at all? In general your normals are pretty nasty on some of those super high-angle 'curved' pieces, but the pure black bits look completely fucked. First, drop a reset x-form on it (utilities panel, looks like a hammer, reset x-form, apply…