`03 Honda S2000 detail

**1 Clean WS6** · 07-18-2005, 08:12 PM

Hey all!!

In all years of my business this was the first S2000 I have had the pleasure of detailing. These cars are a lot smaller than I had imagined. Even with my vertically challenged 5`8" frame I felt claustrophobic in this car!! When you get behind the wheel one really feels like you are "strapping" the car on. With a few mods I bet these car would make killer SCCA rides.

This particular S2000 was purchased used by its current owner. It has about 23K on the odo and definitely led a neglected life. The paint was simply trashed (at least by my standards). For one it had buffer burn covering at least 90% of the vehicle. It looked like a dealer rotary jockey had attacked the paint with a wool pad or aggressive polish (or both) and not followed up with anything else. The owner had told me over the phone that he thought the paint was oxidized it was so bad!! Aside from that it had numerous random isolated scratches that appeared to me to be from one of those coin operated wash brushes with vertical marks on the horizontal surfaces and horizontal marks on the vertical surfaces. One weird thing that stuck me about this car was that both mirror housings were single stage while the rest of the paint seemed to be a basecoat/clearcoat!! Below are pics and my description of the detail.

Enjoy,
Mike

The detail:

Wash with Meg`s Gold Class shampoo

Clay with Clay Magic`s clay bar using Meg`s #34 as a lube.

Polish with Poorboy`s SSR 2.5 using a Meg`s 8006 pad with my PC set at 6 (x2 on the entire car).

Polish with Poorboy`s SSR 1 using a Meg`s 8006 pad and my PC set at 6. I know that a lot of talented guys on this site can go straight from 2.5 to an LSP but I am not one of them!! I always get some degree of hazing when using 2.5. I also noticed that SSR 1 finished down much different than 2.5 on this paint. It produced a much brighter and much glossier look than the 2.5 by itself.

Seal with Poorboy`s EX (old formula) using a Meg`s 9006 pad and my PC set at 5. I let the EX set on the paint for approximately 30 minutes before removal.

**1 Clean WS6** · 07-18-2005, 08:14 PM

**1 Clean WS6** · 07-18-2005, 08:15 PM

Last one`s...

**G35stilez** · 07-18-2005, 08:44 PM

Looks outstanding Mike!!!

How did you like working on the soft Honda clear?

**1 Clean WS6** · 07-18-2005, 08:53 PM

THANK GAWD it was soft Sean or it never would have recovered! What is the deal with the single stage mirror housings??

**Racer** · 07-19-2005, 03:40 AM

Great work, i did the same car last saturday and i feel the same way about the paint.
Did ur pads turned red???

Akele abraÃ§o

**klnyc** · 07-19-2005, 07:22 AM

Mike,

Did you dress the fake fog light housing(little black grill on the bumper)?
That red color?..... single stage color?

**1 Clean WS6** · 07-19-2005, 04:19 PM

Racer the car was BC/CC with no paint transfer, however, I did get paint transfer from the mirror housings. For some reason they were single stage.

klnyc all the trim was dressed with a 50/50 diluted mix of Meg`s #40 and then wiped down with a MF.

**SilverLexus** · 07-19-2005, 05:02 PM

Great work Luca.

**Craigster** · 07-20-2005, 06:28 AM

Beautiful work. Honda paints can be a bear to work with, you did a great job!

**bsdsys_x86** · 07-20-2005, 07:12 AM

Looks good man! :headbang

**mtodde** · 07-20-2005, 11:17 AM

That looks great Mike...basically like the car is new! :drool

Thanks for sharing your process with us.

**AZ Ferrari Man** · 07-25-2005, 08:05 PM

Mike what did you use on the carpets? Extractor or what the look great!

Andrew

**Clean Dean** · 07-25-2005, 08:13 PM

Awesome job !!! That paint looks fabulous !!! I would not expect less from you !!!

**1 Clean WS6** · 07-26-2005, 05:05 AM

THANK YOU all for the kind words!!! :headbang

Andrew that carpets were vacuumed, treated with Meg`s APC at 10:1 then hot water extracted. I patterned the mats and brushed the rest of the carpet/