Ibo's Garage - TTRS3GTR

[Ibonibo]

2 days of spring cleaning. Half way through
Whole car clayed, compounded, polished, sealed (numberous times), wax
All by hand.

 

[motortrend]

more pictures! car looks great, can't wait to get mine detailed

 

[Ibonibo]

Thanks man.
Well worth it, though I really need a dualaction polisher(Rupes or Flex). It's doable with man power, but man does it need elbow grease.

Over here it is so expensive, and I want to know what happens with my paint, so I rather do it myself. There are a lot of rubbish detailers.

Budget doesn't need to be big. It's only timeconsuming and a lot of work. And buying big saves a LOT. Buying gallons of product instead of a small bottle saves you so much money.

The car is now completely compounded and polished. 60% are sealed. Numberous times (hood has already 5 layers)
Tomorrow the rest will be sealed. Engine room, sills,.. will be sealed.
Then sealed off with a hybrid for black paint.
Finished off by a few layers of wax.
Windows, plastic, ...
Shiny toy

 

[motortrend]

And I thought I had some OCD... why do you compound it if the paint is still so new? I'm getting mine polished by a good detailer here that has his own line of products with a Rupes 21. should yield some good results hopefully.

 

[Ibonibo]

OCD and detailing go hand in hand It helps getting the perfect finish

My coumpound is from Maguiars and is rather a hybrid between polish and compound, not abrasive at all. Takes out small scratches, but gives a finish like a polish. The paint had some minor scratches. Most are out now, a few are still in, but I need a machine to take them out properly. (from what I seen, I have after a year around 5 paint chippings (dust corn sized) and around 3-5 bigger scratches(barely visible))

You will fall in love with your paint after a good detailing. A cleaned out blue paint is marvellous.

This is my youtube detailling mentor, same guy as /drive clean

(and chemical guys have also a pretty youtube channel with lots of advice)

 

[motortrend]

Yeah Larry is great, he's doing some cool stuff to his 964s engine now.

 

[Ibonibo]

On the GTR, I should get a letter tomorrow to wire the money to get the car out. When the money is in their account I can go fetch my car. So probably beginning next week.

On the RS:

Coating: The bottle was full when I started, I stopped counting the coats at 5 Coated every painted part accessible

Exaust dirty (one year neglegted):

Cleaned:

Looks so good without a lisence plate, damn law

Shiny paint:

Smiley face, not only on mazdas:

Not great weather, but what the hell, clean cars are meant to get dirty

 

[motortrend]

That's some show car level stuff right there 👍 I said it and I say it again, the interior looks gorgeous. Euro spec amber corners definitely look better than US spec reds in this car.

 

[Ibonibo]

Thanks mate. Likewise . Detailer Hi5

Though mine is still a few stretches away from perfect, it still has some scratches in it. But barely visibile. I continue to collect some more, and if I have enough I will really compound it.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Thanks for sharing all the pics. I love the attention to detail and how clean this car is. Truly stunning.

 

[Ibonibo]

Thanks man, I appreciate 👍 . I just can't bring myself to just tease people with one pic. And if, I could never decide which one to post

 

[Crash]

I've been meaning to say, wow, your TT-RS looks fantastic. Also, excellent shots of the car! 👍

 

[TheBook]

You missed a spot.

One detail fanatic to another, that is a great job, especially since it was all done by hand.

 

[Ibonibo]

Thanks guys.

Was visiting my S3 today. My cousin finishes a Triumph till tomorrow, then mine is next.
I should really start making a choice for my colour soon

I know, it all takes longer than planned, but keeping 3 cars really eats budget away really fast .Especially since the GTR ****ed up so badly. But we are getting there

I think next year I can make my group shot with all 3 cars in impeccable condition

 

[Hayden]

All the colours you posted earlier would look fantastic but these three are freaking glorious!

Black cherry:

Turquoise Mica:

Emeraldgreen/Smaragdgrün Pearl :

I'm not sure what i'm looking forward to most. The post where we see the S3 in it's new colour, the one where the GTR makes it home or the completed family photo. 👍

Oh and one more thing...

I know, it all takes longer than planned, but keeping 3 cars really eats budget away really fast

 

[Ibonibo]

Thanks Hayden
I'm still very hot for the emerald green. But who knows I need to make a background slideshow for the PC, so I am constantly thinking about it.

The GTR gets home last, as it will stay in the new shop for this year, so the guy can work on it slowly in order to not eat my whole budget in a week (that is possible, so many cool parts for the GTR (N1 block, Billet crank, strokker kit = 15K gone ))
and yeah I did my research this time of the guy and the shop:
https://www.facebook.com/CustomImportArts

Reputation : THE shop in Belgium for everything JDM

Plus the CEO is really a nice guy. He helped me so much to get my car back.

Only drawback (or the reason why I chose the crook last time) is he doesn't do the homologation for my country. But he prepares it all, so I should pass it.

 

[Ibonibo]

Haha, who fell for the Tesla
A friend let me try a Tesla S, from a filming point it's rather unspectacular but I took the best moment out:



Didn't took any pics, only filmed while he drove, and later was the choice between me driving or taking pics. Splitsecond agreed on driving

I edited the 1st pic of the page a bit:

Then my mom had a little accident a couple of months ago when backing out, grinding against a pointy object,
as it's an old car and she soon changes it, I gave it a try to improve myself:

The red shows the dents (a few inches in) The Line was one big crest. Took the metal to the original shape as much as it was possible and then bondo'd the crap out of it (sanded everything like it should)
Pretty pleased with the result. With the hand it feels 99% perfect. Tomorrow the paint and we'll see on the reflection how good I did.

The "paint" on it is the filler that is not yet sanded down.


And Thursday night I leave for the dutch border, sleep there, morning fetch my ducking GTR and take it back to the tuners shop.

 

[motortrend]

I have yet to ride in a tesla, bet it's an interesting experience when accelerating from a standstill. Nice job on the fix 👍

 

[Ibonibo]

Yeah the acceleration is the most impressive between 0-70km/h.

So I went to visit my new Skyline Garage yesterday and today. But sadly <i had to leave a bit sooner than anticipated, didn't sleep a lot during the night and didn't want to drag on to long and be really tired when driving home (300km). Not worth damaging the TT.
But the CEO is an awesome guy. He showed me everything, and it's insane.
So many cars, so many awesome cars in one place.
They are building a new racecar made in Belgium with a VQ engine with around 500hp and a tubular chassis and carbon body weighting in at 800kg.
He's prepping an GT3 R34. Insane. Drift Silvia's. Wide Body R32,.... everything
He made his dyno himself to not blow up withthe big outputs. He changed the bearings and all that stuff. Dyno can hold 3000hp! But the software can't handle that (and finding a car with 3000hp is not everyday business.)
He had most of the famous japanese Tuners at his place already (Doluck, HKS, Mine's CEO,...) and they all love his place because it's so japanese (quite a small garage, but he has soo much place, he has around 50 cars in his sheds) Crazy.

I had such an awesome thursday evening. 2 hours long show of the garage 👍
It was so awesome that I forgot to take my dslr out and only took pics with the S2. And really not enough to show the awesomeness. But I will return up there in the next months after he worked a bit on my car.
One shed:

GTR35 with over 35k of HKS parts and custom programming done by him. Change of boost in the original software and buttons. Awesome. Sounded so mean. I have a few second clip of it starting. Will look to upload it.

Then today the Skyline.
Well the curator stole my steering wheel. The only part that they found. Asshole!! But not worth fighting over a few hundert bucks with a lawyer. The Ceo phone me later, he went to the cops again for me and complaint about it. Also cops have found all my paper work. Lot of hassle eliminated (taxes, japanese papers+ conversion in english 👍 ) Cops were awesome all along the time (rare that I say something like this)

Some nice Recaro in it, some conserving the undercarriage, a bit of love and it will be awesome

 

[Ibonibo]

Woke up this morning
A new message: " Engine is running"

He checked the compression and looked that everything is sorted out before starting. So I have a Sky with a working engine. Great (an other dude, had a cool red R33, whole bottom end shredded)

 

[Ibonibo]

(metalizer copper/ blue/ green 5Liter + Earlex Plasti Dip Gun)

The thinner from Plasti Dip is too expensive. I bought some high quality synthetic thinner with nearly the same indregidents as PlatiDip

Also not on the pic is a can of Smoke Dip. Which I will use on the RS. First the Chrome lettering, maybe fuel cap and mirrors. Maybe even rear lights. Need to see how far you come with one can

 

[motortrend]

Nice! It's very forgiving but be careful because if you apply it wrong it might be a pain to take off afterwards, as I've seen a few times. Also, be careful with new-ish or low quality paint as just like a wrap it has potential to remove the clear coat.

 

[Ibonibo]

^Yeah I've been watching a lot of

Pain to take off : generally not enough coats. 4 coats should be minimum. THe more coats the better. And if you want to redip your car, you can actually respray on the old layer. After 4 Dips you should start peeling it off.

That with the paint I suspected but actually don't know much about it. Do you know how long a fresh paint needs to cure before you can dip it?? Days, weeks??

I started today with garden furniture that bleached completely out over the years. The finish is superbe at some spots (the others is where the plastic had structure itself). The green is a bit too green, but who cares
The paint gun is awesome. Best 99 bucks invested 👍

I take a pic tomorrow

 

[motortrend]

yeah people usually don't put enough coats on and then get desperate and start trying to take it off by sanding or other methods which just make it worse.

I have no idea how much you should wait but I'd personally wait a month at least since I've never seen a car get wrapped or dipped within less than a month of a repaint. Another thing to consider is the paint quality. I guess you can look and ask around people that have been doing this for a few years now and check from their experiences.

 

[Ibonibo]

Sanding
Thanks for the advice 👍

Before the weekend I gonna attack the RS with the smoke dip. Eager to see the result and a nearly complete black RS

 

[Ibonibo]

So I finished the Chrysler's paint today. tomorrow a polish and it should be fine (especially for a paintcan job in free air )

This is from last week. After paint and one coat of clear. Sanded with 1500 and cleared the edges.
Then a whole week rain... so I waited...

Today:

Fogging of the edges of the first coats and minor default I sanded out, with the few bits of paint that were left in the can. Then 2 cans of clear coat (3 passes. 1 dry - 2 wet)


Result:

For the first big job like this, especially painted by not the whole body panels, it turned out well. Circumstances pitched some faults in it, cans spouting, wind, dirt and flies all came in to piss me off.

 

[Ibonibo]

Wet sanded it a bit down to level the clear coat, took longer than expected. So I just tested the polish and will wait till my machine is delivered.

This spot is polished:

Platidip:

before:

After:

Even the render is good (well on the places were the plastic was still pristine)

 

[Ibonibo]

Starting off by covering, prep work is half the work

4 Layers of Smoke:

To show the difference, here the non dipped:

VS DIPPED

^over exposed!

Resumé of the dip:

1 can is barely enough. It didn't cut a proper enough line at the front Audi emblem. So it teared into the chrome. Maybe masked to close to the chrome.

Other than that, as I washed my car before, and didn't want to wait till tomorrow, too eager to try it out, the was still humidity in he mirrors. So it is kind of loose there.

It's one o'clock. Tomorrow I gonna shot a few pics in sunlight, after I washed the spraydust of the car. It worked really well. The mirrors were to be expected. And I would have added another 3 coats or so if the can didn't went empty all of the sudden


Really dig the rear in a smoke matte chrome. Looks awesome 👍

 

[motortrend]

The rings and logos look really nice 👍. Also, nice music

 

[Ibonibo]

Radio 👍


It does look good. Even the alu parts darkened nicely.
I took the platidip of the mirrors. Easy peacy. Even the parts that were not enough thick, just rubiing over with the fingers or a MF Towel is enough to get it all of. Cleaned the front grill of any leftovers. That was a picky job. Small 1 mm plastic,... patience is a virtue.

Now I am convinced. If I wouldn't have rushed the painting after the car wash, it would have been way better. Apart from laying layer to thin, humidity is a real foe for plsatidip.
My seal on the alu gas cover does not sit properly (really need to give a shout to the garage about that) so ther was some humidity left there too. So properly that comes off too. So it just stuck to the lettering and alu frame.

I know for next time, not to rush it.

But my standing stands. Plastidip is awesome.