Viper Club of America at Meguiar's!

[jacob9]

Originally posted by Newport Viper
Good eye. It's about 800 HP now.

(Edited, see rule #1 and #3. - The Meguiar's Online Team)

Anyone with a paxton has the dyno sheet and knows the exact number.

is it 800 at the tire or 800 at the crank? how much boost?

stock internals or forged?

meth injection?

did dc do the install or wcv?

post the dyno sheets!

also, where are the timeslips?

-Jake

[jacob9]

Originally posted by TKDDAD
I still say you need to have an "Daily Driver" clinic to see how to turn ordinary into extra-ordinary!...if I had a Viper, Vette, Prowler, or whatever, you can be sure I'd keep it pristine...there were some gorgeous cars there this weekend so congrats to all of you on having a great class...now, take a 94 Ford Taurus that's in good shape and do the Mequiars magic...THAT would be cool to see...anyway, I'm just jealous...it's still snowing here on the east coast

Gotta get something out here for the rest of the country

my viper IS my daily driver. i've put 24k miles on it since jan 2005. i only kept it pristine for the first few months. after you own it for a while, you don't worry about it getting dirty.

its a very rugged and comfortable car and you can drive it over potholes, drive it in the rain etc...

once you get one, you'll wonder what all the hype is about though.


(Edited, see rule #1 and #3- The Meguiar's Online Team)

-Jake

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by FE VIPER GTS
Thanks Mike for everything! I Had a great time.

Hi Laurence,

It's all courtesy of Meguiar's, Barry and the entire team of people that work here at Meguiar's, often times these people are behind the scenes and the world never sees them, but the role they play here at Meguiar's is vital to the success of all segments of Meguiar's including this discussion forum.

Just a comment for everyone that will ever read this thread, Laurence, aka FE VIPER GTS, has been to our Saturday Detailing Class 3 times now and at the point in time of his first visit here, he was using a competitor's product, then he switched to Meguiar's, then he upgraded to using the G100 Dual Action Polisher and then to the Rotary Buffer.

Not only is his journey over this time-frame a testimony to his passion for perfection, but the results he's achieved on the finish of his Viper are a testimony to his skill as craftsman in the art of polishing paint.

While he was here today, I snagged some shots of his Viper's finish in the sun to show everyone what a high gloss, swirl free finish looks like, check it out...

First, here's Laurence and his red Viper...





Below you'll see two framing shots and then the sun reflection portion cropped out and in full size as well as original and un-touched.













I also made you an Avatar for use on this forum, check it out...

[Newport Viper]

Thanks for the great pic Mike!

Still looks pretty outrageous for an 11 year old car!

[Mike Phillips]

Hi David,

Yes is does, actually all of the Vipers at this class looked great. I still have more pictures to upload to this thread so hang tight...

[Newport Viper]

Talk about a quick detail!

Looking forward to more pics Mike!

[Mike Phillips]

After the classroom portion was over it was time to put into practice the things we learned, starting off with picking Jim's viper as it needed to be clayed and would work well for demonstrating techniques for removing swirls by hand or machine.

Although Jim's Viper was fairly clean, we went a head and used Meguiar's Quik Detailer to remove any accumulated dust and other loose contaminants.




One member grabbed our NXT Generation Glass Cleaner to see how well it works for cleaning glass.

[Mike Phillips]

After we wiped the car clean, the next thing we did was ask everyone to feel the paint with the palm of their clean hands to inspect for above surface bonded contaminants.




When inspecting your car's finish for above surface bonded contaminants, you want always first wash the car or wipe it down with a quick detailer to insure the surface is clean and free of any loose dirt. Then, using the palm of your clean hand, (not your ring hand), draw your hand across the horizontal surfaces to feel the paint.




Paint in great condition will feel smooth like brand new glass, if you feel any kind of texture, or little bumps on the finish, this is a sure sign you need to clay your car's finish.

Out of curiosity we did feel the sides of Jim's car and we found the sides also had a textured feel to them so we clayed them also.

[Mike Phillips]

Before using a clay bar, you must first knead the clay bar into a small pattie or wafer, somewhat like a small pancake.




After watching the technique of flattening the clay out between the palms of your hands and then further kneading the clay into a wafer with your fingers, club members gave it a try...






After you've kneaded your clay bar into a pattie, next you want to mist a spray lubricant like Quik Detailer onto one side of the clay pattie





Then you want to mist some Quik Detailer onto the paint in the area you're going to clay...




Next you simply move the clay bar back and forth over the finish with light pressure and allow the clay bar to remove the above surface bonded contaminants. Usually when you first start out you'll feel the clay bar begin to grab a little as you move it over the finish, as it removes the contaminants the clay bar will begin to glide over the paint effortlessly, this is an indicator that this area is clean and you can wipe of any excess Quik Detailer residue and move on to a new section.








After demonstrating the technique, everyone was encouraged to join in and help clay Jim's Viper.





Just look at all the gunk that has been building up on paint of Jim's Viper!




It's important to remember that it is this kind of gunk that builds-up on your car's paint that must be removed in order for any wax to stick to the paint. Not only do above surface bonded contaminants interfere with your wax sticking to the paint, but they also diminish gloss by reducing smoothness and they cloud the clear coat hiding the true color and beauty of the color coat underneath the clear coat from your eyes ability to see the color coat.

[Mike Phillips]

After claying the finish, the next thing we're going to do is to show how to work with your hands since everybody usually has two of these... by the way we're going to be following the steps outlined here Meguiar's 5-Step Paint Care Cycle , which is what we cover in the classroom portion.

After claying, the next step is to remove Below Surface Defects, like swirls, scratches, oxidation and etchings. To do this we use ScratchX applied with a foam applicator pad.






We'll be following the steps outlined here for remove an etching in the paint for removing the swirls in the the paint of Jim's Viper.

How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX


One thing I would like to note is that before we started the ScratchX step, we re-capped what we talked about in the classroom about some paints being soft and some paints being hard and the harder the paint, the more difficult it will be to remove swirls and scratches out of it by hand or machine but especially by hand. I added that my personal experience from working on the factory paint on Vipers are that I've found the paint on these cars to be on the very hard side and while I know we can improve the finish by hand, chances are good we wouldn't be able to get as good as results as the G100 Dual Action Polisher is going to produce.

We applied dollop of ScratchX to the applicator itself,




Next, you spread the product out over the area you're going to work,



Then you begin to work the product against the finish putting a little passion behind the pad.




We applied ScratchX three times and after each application we removed the excess residue as we learned in the classroom, paint cleaners don't have to dry before removing them, this only applies to Meguiar's waxes.

[Mike Phillips]

The next step according to Meguiar's 5-Step Paint Care Cycle , is to apply a pure polish. This is an optional step as we discussed in the classroom, but if you're really car crazy about your car's finish then it's a step you'll want to do especially if your car is black or dark in color as it will deep the reflectivity while helping to create gloss and clarity. For this we'll use Deep Crystal Polish.







Because we already did the work step, (removing the defects), when you apply a pure polish all you need to do is to apply a thin coat and work it into the paint well. We showed making three passes over each square inch of the area we were working on.

Then, after applying it, we simply removed it as a polish, like a paint cleaner, doesn't have to dry, simply apply and remove using a clean, soft microfiber polishing cloth like our Supreme Shine Microfiber.


After removing the polish the next step is to lock in the beauty with a protective coating of wax, for this we're going to show how to apply a paste wax like NXT Tech Wax Paste and when we do the machine process we'll show how to use a liquid.




The correct way to remove a paste wax out of the can is to spin your applicator over the top of the wax in the can and thus the heat and friction caused by this action will help to liquefy the wax so that it will seep into the foam, thus correctly used, a paste wax is a liquid.




Then like the polish, you want to spread out a uniform coating of wax over the area you're working on, going over each square inch with 2-3 passes working the wax over and into the wax.





After applying the wax, now you want to let it fully dry before removing it. To know when the wax has fully dried and can then be removed, we teach everyone that attends these classes to use The Swipe Test as this is an accurate indicator as to if the wax is ready to wipe off.

[Mike Phillips]

While we waited for the wax to dry, we moved on to learning the proper techniques for using the G100 Dual Action Polisher. We basically followed all the steps outlined here picking up at the M80 Speed Glaze step.

Using the G-100 to remove swirls with the Professional Line
Recommended Products - G100a Dual Action Polisher

We covered all the basics for using the G100 Dual Action Polisher in the classroom and the recapped in the training room the proper techniques such as placing a strip of product either around the outside edge, or in an X pattern on the face of the pad like this,







We then talked about the correct ergonomic stance so that you don't hurt your back and the importance of throwing the electrical cord over your shoulder so that you don't drag it back and forth over the paint potentially instilling scratches in the paint or scuffing or marring the paint.




Next we covered arm speed, downward pressure, overlapping passes, overlapping sections and the importance of not turning the machine on until the face of the pad is in contact with the paint and also to not lift the polisher off the paint until you've turned the machine off.




Just like a paint cleaner or a pure polish, a cleaner/polish like M80 Speed Glaze does not need to dry, therefor after you've applied and worked the product against the finish, simply remove any excess using a clean, soft microfiber polishing cloth or a 100% cotton, terry cloth towel.



We then applied some NXT Tech Wax using the G100 Dual Action Polisher using a W-9006 foam finishing pad on the 3.0 speed setting. While we waited for this to dry, we performed the Swipe Test on the section we worked on by hand using NXT Tech Wax Paste. The wax was dry so we removed it by hand.




Then in a few more minutes, the wax we applied by machine had dried so we showed how to use the G100 Dual Action Polisher to remove dried wax using one of our Gold Class Clear Coat Safe Microfiber Bonnets over a clean, dry W-7006 foam cutting pads on the 5.0 setting.






Next we'll back Jim's Viper out into the sun so we can see the results of our work!

[Mike Phillips]

Well we backed Jim's Viper out into the bright light and then asked everyone to move around until they could place the sun reflection on the hood and move around so that they could see the sun's reflection in the three different areas on the hood.

• * The control section - How Jim's Viper finish started out
  * The Hand section - Where we applied ScratchX, DCP and Tech Wax
  * The Machine section - Where we used the G100

The smiles say they're seeing something to smile about!






Just to note, at all of these classes like this one, some people don't understand you have to position yourself where you can see the sun reflecting off the paint and for this reason, they never see the results everyone else is seeing.

[Mike Phillips]

Here are the results, keep in mind this time of year the sun is pretty low in the sky by the time we start taking pictures and the results are much more dramatic in-person.

Before - Framing shot



Cropped out section





Before - Framing shot




Cropped out section




G100 Section




G100 Section Cropped out




G100 Section




G100 Section Cropped out





Hand Section




Hand Section Cropped out





Hand Section




Hand Section Cropped out




It's easy to see from the pictures as it was in person that the G100 Dual Action Polisher achieved the best results with the least amount of time and effort.

[Mike Phillips]

Side by side...

Before


The Hand Section


The G100 Section