# DetailMyCar - VXR8 Caliper re-colour, Engine bay & Exterior show prep Detail!



## DetailMyCar (Apr 19, 2010)

I've done a few cars for this customer before, and have actually did this VXR8 around 12 months ago so I was looking forward to seeing it again, the noise alone is always something to savour as it pulls up!

A 6.0l with a large supercharger on top as this is a converted Bathurst S edition running a healthy 630bhp..... not bad then for a family saloon?? Gotta love the Aussies at times 

Anyway, the car was booked in for:


External Protection Detail 
Caliper paint from Silver to Black with new AP Decals
Engine bay clean, degrease and dress
Alloys cleaned inside / out and sealed










As it was looking 




































Starting on Friday night I got the car on the ramp and got the front wheels off, cleaned and degreased the calipers.





































Meg's APC and Degreaser were used, before getting a 3M mask on before attacking them with the wire brush










Wire brushes then used to scrub away all loose brake dust, surface rust and contamination that has built up.














































After this they were again cleaned with IPA to remove any traces of dust or dirt and then masked up ready for painting. Obviously taking calipers off and taking them apart would be ideal but for the time given this is a pretty effective way at changing their appearance and freshening up the look of any car.

Hammerite smooth Black was used and as you can see from the first layer it was pretty thin so going to take a good few coats to get decent coverage.

1st coat




































Small artist brushes needed for intricate parts









2nd layer starting to look better


















As this was left to dry I started work on the opposite side and went through the exact same process.

After 3 layers they calipers were looking good but as time was pushing on I had to put the wheels back on (while carefully avoiding touching the calipers) and bolt them back up before I could put the decals on in the morning. This was done so I could get on and do the rears.

The exact same process was followed and again took a few layers to get them this glossy, I also painted the hubs / disc bells while I was there.

As the rears were drying I took the opportunity to polish and seal the exhausts up.

Before:




































Surf City's absolutely aluminium, wire wool and a MF cloth used


















Sealed with Klasse AIO




































Rear brakes and hubs looking better


















I finished around 1am on Friday night and got back down there for 8am on Saturday to firstly get the rear decals on the calipers




































Fronts



























Wheels were then taken outside to be thoroughly cleaned with AS Smart wheels, IronX and Tardis with various brushes














































Tyres with G101 and then rinsed off and dried indoors before a layer of FK1000p was added.

After this the Wheels were each fitted and torqued up as per manufacturers recommendation at 170nm 









The car was then taken outside for the external cleaning






















































Foamed with Chemical Guys no touch



























The car was then ironx'd, de-tarred and clayed before taking inside.

It was towel dried off and hand polished with Zaino ZAIO 









Engine bay was to be cleaned using Meg's APC and Degreaser but also a Tornador from Autosmart.

Here's the before pics




































Engine after:
































































Tyres dressed with Pinnacle









The car was then treated with Zaino Z5 and followed later by Z8 to leave a really nice crisp finish









Finally the after shots!































































































































Thanks for reading my write-up, always much appreciated and I hope it was interesting!

Next up another Focus RS, a Megane F1, a Golf R32, New Focus estate!

Nick.


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## MLAM (Jan 21, 2009)

Lovely finish as always Nick, nice job on the callipers too 

I might have to try some of the Pinnacle tyre dressing when I run out of Meg's Endurance Gel as it looks really good on that VXR8 tyre.


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## Chrissyronald (Jan 15, 2012)

Looks stunning mate!!


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## Caameronn (Nov 8, 2010)

Lovely looking motor!


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## Mr Face (Jan 22, 2009)

Nice work fella :thumb: looks very sweet indeed


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## Neil_G (Nov 22, 2010)

Car looks absolutely incredible! I am desperate for you to do my calipers, hubs and wheels now! I need this in my life!


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## ronwash (Mar 26, 2011)

Car looks great!
thats what i call a shine:argie:


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## Kerr (Mar 27, 2012)

Lovely car. 

Preferred the calipers in their original colour though.


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## martin_46 (Aug 7, 2012)

Nice work, wheels look great :thumb: - and the rest of the car!


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## -Raven- (Aug 26, 2010)

Nice one Nick! Glad to see you guys loving the Aussie muscle! 

Nice job on the brakes mate, they came up nice!


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## scotty76 (Nov 12, 2011)

Great work as always Nick.

How are you finding the No Touch snow foam?


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## Deacon Hays (Jul 25, 2012)

Great Job:thumb:
The VXR8 looks fantastic. 
I like the pics of the brakes, in black they really look better


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## v8soarer_1991 (May 31, 2009)

wow supercharged aussie taxi


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## Hunty (May 21, 2009)

Nice work. Love that!


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## murat (Feb 13, 2010)

good job


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## DetailMyCar (Apr 19, 2010)

MLAM said:


> Lovely finish as always Nick, nice job on the callipers too
> 
> I might have to try some of the Pinnacle tyre dressing when I run out of Meg's Endurance Gel as it looks really good on that VXR8 tyre.


Thanks Michael, have to say I really love the Pinnacle stuff, £20 makes it fairly expensive but if you don't use it much it will last forever as a tiny bit goes a long way, it's quite thin in consistency compared to endurance gel.



Chrissyronald said:


> Looks stunning mate!!


Thanks mate!



Caameronn said:


> Lovely looking motor!


Thanks mate!



Mr Face said:


> Nice work fella :thumb: looks very sweet indeed


Thanks Mike, I will reply to your PM this week and hopefully meet up for that coffee!



Neil_G said:


> Car looks absolutely incredible! I am desperate for you to do my calipers, hubs and wheels now! I need this in my life!


Thanks mate, I look forward to getting hold of the Focus again to give it some TLC - We just need to discuss colour options as I've got quite a few to pick from haha.



ronwash said:


> Car looks great!
> thats what i call a shine:argie:


Thanks 



Kerr said:


> Lovely car.
> 
> Preferred the calipers in their original colour though.


Haha you can't please everyone, happy to say I let the owner make his own decision and after seeing it I think he was right, they now look more OEM if anything but pick up the wheels nicely I think.



martin_46 said:


> Nice work, wheels look great :thumb: - and the rest of the car!


Thanks Martin!



-Raven- said:


> Nice one Nick! Glad to see you guys loving the Aussie muscle!
> 
> Nice job on the brakes mate, they came up nice!


It's amazing, he said the new one is going to have a 7L lump too!!! Nice to see the Aussies doing something mad/fun while everyone else is going smaller engines haha.



scotty76 said:


> Great work as always Nick.
> 
> How are you finding the No Touch snow foam?


Thanks mate, it's good to be honest - definitely more effective then the usual generic snow foams I've used before, give me a shout and you can take some to try.



Deacon Hays said:


> Great Job:thumb:
> The VXR8 looks fantastic.
> I like the pics of the brakes, in black they really look better


Thanks mate, glad you agree - I think it made a huge improvement!



v8soarer_1991 said:


> wow supercharged aussie taxi


Indeed haha



Hunty said:


> Nice work. Love that!





murat said:


> good job


Thanks again guys, much appreciated!!


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## MLAM (Jan 21, 2009)

DetailMyCar said:


> Thanks Michael, have to say I really love the Pinnacle stuff, £20 makes it fairly expensive but if you don't use it much it will last forever as a tiny bit goes a long way, it's quite thin in consistency compared to endurance gel.


 I saw it on Elite the day and the price tag did strike me, my bottle of endurance gel has lasted me a long while mind you.

Do you find Pinnacle lasts any longer than endurance? Given its double the price of endurance gel it has to be pretty good.

A bit subjective this one but do you find the finish to be nicer than endurance gel?

On a side note I preferred the silver callipers (though I am biased), this is not to take away the effort on your work though


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## AS_Dene (May 2, 2010)

Looks great, always fancied one of these!


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## scotty76 (Nov 12, 2011)

DetailMyCar said:


> Thanks mate, it's good to be honest - definitely more effective then the usual generic snow foams I've used before, give me a shout and you can take some to try.


Very generous of you Nick. I actually bought a litre to try but was curious to see what you had made of it.  It does seem to work unlike the others I have had. I was about ready to put the snow foam lance on Fleabay and just stick to rinsing the car.


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## DetailMyCar (Apr 19, 2010)

scotty76 said:


> Very generous of you Nick. I actually bought a litre to try but was curious to see what you had made of it.  It does seem to work unlike the others I have had. I was about ready to put the snow foam lance on Fleabay and just stick to rinsing the car.


Excellent, wait until you get to try it on a really dirty car then you'll definitely see the difference! Generally most of the cars I start with aren't properly caked in Mud - I usually end up letting my own get to that stage though these days


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## Cambelt (Jul 4, 2012)

Lovely car and looks really nice and clean. 

That said, I think the finish on the calipers was better before, is it possible to flat back and get the calipers looking coated rather than brushed?


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## DetailMyCar (Apr 19, 2010)

Cambelt said:


> Lovely car and looks really nice and clean.
> 
> That said, I think the finish on the calipers was better before, is it possible to flat back and get the calipers looking coated rather than brushed?


I think it's as much to do with the fact they're now Glossy as much as anything, the finish will never be as smooth as if it were sprayed but yeah you could flatten them and polish but it would be pretty time consuming and tricky to get into all the little areas as there aren't huge flat sections on most calipers. I think once the wheels are on you'd do well to spot any brush marks, only up very close to be honest and as they're only calipers it's not like it has to be as good as paintwork for instance.


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## xJay1337 (Jul 20, 2012)

Good job.
Wanna see the R32 write up.  lol


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## Cambelt (Jul 4, 2012)

DetailMyCar said:


> I think it's as much to do with the fact they're now Glossy as much as anything, the finish will never be as smooth as if it were sprayed but yeah you could flatten them and polish but it would be pretty time consuming and tricky to get into all the little areas as there aren't huge flat sections on most calipers. I think once the wheels are on you'd do well to spot any brush marks, only up very close to be honest and as they're only calipers it's not like it has to be as good as paintwork for instance.


Sounds pretty reasonable, I was just intrigued. 
Could you spray them instead or is this also difficult?


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## Marky-G-66 (May 31, 2012)

Brilliant job... love these cars:thumb:


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## DetailMyCar (Apr 19, 2010)

Cambelt said:


> Sounds pretty reasonable, I was just intrigued.
> Could you spray them instead or is this also difficult?


Yeah you could spray, but only really if you took them apart and removed them from the car which I don't really want to start doing without being a mechanic  I could get one of the mechanics to do it for me but then I'd have to charge for their time too, plus you'd be waiting for them to dry before putting them back together again so as a 1 or 2 day Detail this wouldn't really be practical.


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## Dele Z. (Feb 7, 2011)

Got a lot of love for this car, well done, great work


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## DMH-01 (Mar 29, 2011)

Great work there mate :thumb:


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## scratcher (Jul 20, 2010)

Great job. The calipers came out really well. Another top read


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