dsms detail - 2009 Nissan GT-R w/Gloss It 85pics+Video

[dsms]

This was an enjoyable detail. Until last week when the owner brought this car by for me to look at I have had never seen the GT-R up close in person but after I did it changed my whole perspective on how I felt about its styling. At first I though the pictures looked terrible, which is funny because the owner originally though the same and had little interest in buying the car. In person this car really jumps at you, very masculine, bold styling but its not overdone. Before working on this one the owner, a good friend btw insisted he take me for a ride. With the car only have 360miles on it and the original fluids the owner didnt push it at all but still this thing blew me away. I have never felt grip like that in my life and the shifts were seamless.

This car just had a clear bra installed earlier on the first day before I got to working on it. All of the lower nose panels, half the hood and fenders and the lower side panels were all clear bra'd. I saw how clean the edges were and how the installer wrapped the bra into the gaps perfectly, this was by far the best bra job I have seen. He even removed the rubber strip between the gap on the front end and hood so he could cleanly wrap the bra inside and later he replaced the rubber strip, you cant tell where the hoods bra ends and the front nose piece begins.

As usual theres my lengthy intro, now onto the good stuff...icture:

Here is car when I got it, not bad upon arrival but it needed more work than I though and I was gald to hear it was NOT DEALER PREPPED! I saw al the tape lines and there was still some plastic on the interior.

The car only had 360 or so "break in" miles on it, so in general it was pretty clean but the paint wasnt very deep nor did it really glow like it should. The owner wanted the finish to be as deep as possible and loaded up with protection



First things first as usual I started with the wheels, for only 360miles or so they were suprisingly dirty, I guess a little extra brake dust is the price you pay for having 15" 6piston Brembos to stop you from getting into trouble at Watkins Glen:headbang:





Here is what I used to clean the wheels. I quickly grabbed the P21s gel instead of anything else in my arsenal because I wanted to ensure no damage was done to the wheel finish, and more importantly the braking system.





Here is the P21s gel dwelling, I let it sit for about 10minutes to further breakdown some of that tougher brake dust before agitating it



Swissvax brush was used to clean the wheel face



The DD spoke brush was used to clean the wheel inners, to help get behind the spokes better and in between the brakes I used the more flexible EZ brush



Tires were scrubbed with the Kleenol APC and an OXO brush, the wheel wells were also scrubbed via long handle brush



Brakes were scrubbed in every crack and crevice as well



Brakes after



Inners after



Finished product (front passenger)



Rinsing rears until water ran clean of suds






Now onto the wash process, knowing the GT-R's paint has a very soft clear coat I was very careful during the wash process as to not induce more swirls than were already on the car

After a thorough rinse I saw the car was beading pretty well, which was odd because there was no supposed to be no dealer prep done. My guess is a quick spray wax was used just before delivering the car to spruce up the paint, I know for sure the owner applied no LSP in the time since he took delivery because he was just waiting to give the car to me.

After seeing some light beading I choose to add an extra soap to my wash mix. I used Gloss It Gloss Shampoo for its suds, slickness and finish and then I added a small amount of CG's citrus wash and gloss to the bucket to help strip off any protection on the paint.



The two buckets, I used 2 white foam shmitts to wash the car, I added almost 2x the amount of Gloss Shampoo to give a very slick wash because I didnt want to induce any more swirls



I started on the roof and squeezed out the soap onto the paint, letting it dwell on there for about 2 minutes as like a quick pre wash before actual agitation (my foam gun was on the fritz during the detail)





After gently drying the car w/ 2 CG miracle dryers I inspected the finish in sunlight

After a good wash the finish started to show imporvment already, the Gloss Shampoo I used always leaves a nice finish behind. That shampoo has 5% of the same polymer used in the Gloss It sealant. So not only does it add a bit of gloss after a wash but it leaves the paint with some protection as well.

After only the wash





I saw a bit more defect than I would have liked on such a new car, the worst area was the rear bumper showing both light RIDS and holograms (could just be from the owners wash routine hopefully and not from the dealer)





Swirls and tape lines



I then moved the car inside for claying, I used Sonus fine green clay for its softness, its only picks up light contaminants which is fine for a new car, especially one with soft paint as this one which can easily be marred and scartched.

I used Megs Last touch QD 1:1 as lube for the clay







I then wiped the car down with IPA soltuion in preperation for polishing, I also taped off the neccesary areas and all the panels which were clear bra'd.

As I said before I got this car right after being clear bra'd , Half the hood, fenders and bottom portion of the lower panels were clear bra'd, every part of the front nose had be cleared as well. The installer told me to be cautious of the clear bra as it hasnt had enough time for the adhesives to settle on the paint yet.



I placed my tape about 1 inch off where the clear bra ended because didnt want the adhesives in the tape to screw up the adhesives in the clear bra, its only been on for about 12hrs. I also made sure not to polish the newly protected areas ( I had poished out the paint underneath those areas last week as per the owners reuqest)



Before polishing I took some paint readings, I was using a cyclo for all of my polishing work so I dont worry about strike through all that often, well never actually but I took some PTG readings for good measure anyway



Hood averaged about 160microns, suprisingly the PTG readings on most all areas of the hood were all within about 7-10microns. A few areas exceeded 180 however.

After doing a test spot I found the best combo to get rid of the swirls and finish out the paint nicely was this:

Gloss It 1 step machine polish via cyclo and green light polishing pads
Gloss It evolution polish via cyclo and blue finishing pads

Before polishing I washed out my Grit Guard pad washer and re-filled it with fresh water and some Snappy Clean pad cleaning solution



I started with the Gloss It 1 step polish and green double sided pads



You can see the paint under the Infratech pretty well, here are some fine swirls and haze

[dsms]

Hood before



During




Hood after



Here is the rear wing showing some fine scratches and hard water spots under the halogens



Better shot of the water spots



I used the Gloss It one step 2x on the wing and trunk area to fully remove the defects before moving onto the finishing polish.

After correction, no finishing polish yet

Here are the blue finishing pads working the Gloss It Evolution polish, this step really brought out a nice gloss after correction even after the IPA wipedown



The finished wing area



Now onto the very annoying area to polish, trunk section:shead:

Here is a close up of the defects, again fine scratches and hard water spots, you can see the tape line from when the car was shipped over and how one side has about 1/2 the defect compared to the other





Working the polishes until clear



After correction with the Gloss It 1 step and green pads



After finishing out the paint with the Evolution Polish, nice depth restored




Before



After polishing



Rear section before, this area had swirls, RIDS and holograms. Again the Gloss It 1 step was used to polish out the defects




After polishing, the paint got a bit deeper and the clarity imporves, note the green color of the trees is more visible







I used the Gloss It evolution polish with green pads to polish out the swirls on the plastic pillars

before



after



Some paints look only marginally better after polishing, assuming that not a ton of correction work needs to be done. This GT-R had some very soft paint to work with but in the end polishing really brough out its true potential

[dsms]

Here is my favorite before and after polishing photos

passenger door before, notice the sterile, unclear reflections of me and my equipment




after, although the orange peel is still pretty bad you can see a dramaitc difference polishing makes





After all the polishing was done I wiped down the car with 50/50 IPA once again to ensure no oils were left on the paint. I found on this soft paint that the Eurow shag MF towels were great to use. The deep plush pile I always finds helps on soft paints to ensure no marring when doing wipedowns and such.

There was some polishing dust on the car so I decided to bring it back outsuide and re-wash it but before I did I sprayed the car with a thorugh coating of Gloss It Gloss Enhancer QD spray and wiped it off. The QD also has some of the polymer that is in the Gloss It sealant so I basically used it as a quick coat of protection to put on the paint before rewashing it so I wouldnt induce any more swirls on the perfected finish

Re-washing the car using Gloss Shampoo



After drying, no LSP is applied yet



No LSP again, just the deep red all polished out



Now onto the final touches including what I like to call the LSP super stack

For a great look and great protection I used 3 Gloss It products

First I applied 1 coat of the Signature Gloss sealant via cyclo and white final finishing pads

Let it cure for about 10minutes and buffed off.

Here is the car wearing just the 1 coat of Signature Gloss Sealant (At this point im losing daylight by the second)



When the Signature gloss was curing I went and applied the Signature tire dressing from gloss it as well. I let it sit on the tires for about 5 mins before rubbing it in, IMO it leaves the perfect deep shine, not greasy at all and dry to the touch!



Here is a nice shot of the rear tire wearing the signature tire dressing



I then went and applied another coat of sealant, this time it was Gloss It Gloss Finish, this is there flagship consumer sealant which is similar to Zainos Z2pro, the only difference is that Gloss Finish is much deeper and has more of a glow like a carnauba would. Plus you dont need an additive to apply multiple coats. I did this coat in 5 minutes by hand and buffed it off about 8 mins later.

After gloss finish




After the gloss finish was buffed off I added one last "bling" product. Gloss It Concourso polish! This is mostly for looks and it really does bring out that last bit of shine and glow to the paint.

Here is the car all finished OF COURSE THERE IS LITTLE SUN LEFT!





I polished the exhaust with Adams metal polish 1 and 2 btw








I then pulled the car in the garage for the final wipedown using Gloss Enhancer QD. The owner came by at this time with his son to pick up the car, as usual he did his thorough inspection and looked over my work. I saw his eyes light up when I flicked on my garage lighting and he saw the paint pop.

I also applied the Gloss Finish sealant to the face and inner part of the wheels



The thing about the GT-R is that in first gear the throttle is super responsive, almost to responsive in times when you need to carefully modulate it. So as I did for the 2 days I worked on the car I once again switched over to manual mode and selected 2nd gear so I could control the power when pulling into my tight garage.



BTW here is the built in G meter, every car should have one I think







The owner and his son




















My personal favorite







I will leave you with a video... the engine sound is a bit distorted but you get the idea of how the car look all finished up






Hope you enjoyed, this was a fun car to do.

[zxpwr]

godzilla barely fits in you garage! great work!

[weekendwarrior]

Great Job!!!

[Pats300zx]

Amazing job and great pics

[tdekany]

Fantastic!!!!

[Kmhawaiidh]

Nice work! That red is awesome!

[MBenz]

Sweet detail. That red looked amazing.

[nasdaq]

Very nice job. Love the pics.

[BigAl3]

nice write-up and pics, thanks for sharing!

p.s. did i see a green mf towel on the ground?

[dsms]

Originally Posted by BigAl3

nice write-up and pics, thanks for sharing!

p.s. did i see a green mf towel on the ground?

Thanks Al!

Yes you did Those are my old cobra MF's that I use for wiping down wheel wells and such. I never thought they were good enough to touch paint so I sanctioned them for wheel well cleaning