Presidential Detailed: 1991 Acura NSX - KBM

After a very fun weekend at Autogeeks Detail Fest, and a very informational class with Mike Phillips at the Meguiars training class it was time to get back to work on Monday morning. I had a beautiful black NSX waiting for me! I had just received my new G110 polisher earlier last week and was dying to give it a shot with the KBM and M105 and M205 as well! As with almost every other NSX I have seen, it had super soft paint so one or two passes with M105 on a 8207 Polishing Pad using the G110 on speed setting 5 with moderate pressure for the first couple passes and then lightening up for 1-2 more passes was good for full defect removal to my surprise, but who am I kidding, I used the KBM!! :chuckle:

I have never had anything but great results using M105 no matter what method or machine I used and I was eager to try out M205. I used this with Megs 9207 Finishing Pad. It did a great job at clearing up any marring from the previous polishing step and left a pretty good finish, but I wasnt convinced it was the best finish I could get. I could pull the car into the sun, shine the halogens and there was no signs of holograms or swirls, but I noticed by using the flash on my camera the finish just seemed a bit hazy to me. This was later confirmed with one more pass using 3m Ultrafina on a 3m Finishing pad using the G110 as well, this left the finish unbelievably deep and glossy and the haziness I saw was no longer apparent. I am not by any means knocking on M205, as I believe it would be a great finishing product on maybe a little harder clear. The NSX has one of the softest clears out there, and M205 may have been just a little too aggressive to finish down completely on this particular car. Who knows, it could have been my technique being it was my first car to ever use a DA on! :waxing:

Process:
M105/Megs 8207 Polishing Pad KBM
M205/Megs 9207 Finishing Pad MPM(Thats right, Mike Phillips method, a little something we learned last weekend )
3m UF/3m UK Finishing Pad

LSP:
Optimum Opti-Seal left to cure overnight
Dodo Juice Supernatural x2

As soon as I pulled the car out it started to rain so I pulled out the EZ-UP tent and proceeded to prep the car for polishing.


This did reveal one thing to me though, this car had a TON of wax on it as it was beading quite well.


I ended up washing the car three times with Dawn Soap, twice before clay, and once after to ensure the surface was completely clean. The car was no longer beading at this point so I was happy.


I removed the spare tire so that I could better access the front compartment..




AFTER:




The engine was cleaned up as well..

Before:




After:


It was sprinkling still, which is why the airbox looks uneven, it was later touched up.

The car was pretty rough after removing all the oils from the previous waxes, etc.
I started with a test spot on the hood to see how much work this thing would need, and pleasantly it only took a few passes with M105/8207 to correct.

I decided this area would be best to start with..


After M105/205..the lighting makes it look worse than it really was.


As you could see here, the finish is good, but not good enough!


But after 3m UF, it looked MUCH better! You can notice the flash is more contained to itself.


So now that I had my process down, I could begin my way around the car.
Headlight Before..


After 105/205..


After 3m UF..


The center of the hood..


After 105/205..looks good right?




My camera flash tells me otherwise, I need one of those handy brinkman lights!




After 3m UF..

I thought this area would be difficult but found it to be rather easy using the G110.
Before..


You can see the haze pretty good in this one..


After 3m UF..


Door Before..


After M105/205..I didnt manage to get a picture after UF here.




The rest of these I forgot to get pictures after UF..




I also taped off all the painted moldings to make sure they were corrected as well.

I removed the wing to get further access to the trunk panel..those empty Autogeek boxes sure come in handy!


As you can see here, its had its days of hand polishing.




After the 105/205/UF trio.


Camera flash says its good, well see what the sun says in a bit..


Coming to an end here, my workspace.


Oh yeah, whats this thing called again?? :grinno:


Polishing finally finished, letting the Opti-Seal cure overnight.

Out in the beautiful FL sun!
These pictures were taken before the final UF finishing step. Yeah, i still wasnt happy even at this point..its a weakness.














The following pictures were taken AFTER finishing with UF.

Some more..

My favorite shot..


Oh yeah, Supernatural looks nice!!!






After the removing the dust from all the cracks/crevices and giving the car a final wash, I did a little mini photo shoot on my street.

Awesome job you did on the car. Couple of those shots make it look like it visited Dubai and got the chrome job done lol.

Haha! Thanks! I like chrome cars.

Beautiful car, tough color, and great job:thumbsup:

Now, park it in my driveway, leave the keys and you'll be done

Say, what kind of tape do you use to mask off the trim areas? I really need to do that with my vette...

shakedown067 said:

Say, what kind of tape do you use to mask off the trim areas? I really need to do that with my vette...

Click to expand...

I actually found that walmart sells 3m green automotive masking tape. Pretty cheap too! Good luck!

Very nice thorough post and excellent craftmanship. :welcome: to the Forum. :thumbsup:

What would a job like this with all that attention to detail cost someone?

Z06 Rocket said:

What would a job like this with all that attention to detail cost someone?

Click to expand...

ditto:shrug01:

I'd like to know that too.

I dont want to get in trouble for posting pricing, but from most detailers you could expect to pay anywhere from $500-800 or more.

presidential_detail said:

I dont want to get in trouble for posting pricing, but from most detailers you could expect to pay anywhere from $500-800 or more.

Click to expand...

You'll find things a bit different here than most places on the net. AS you can see, you don't have to "pay" to play and if someone asks for pricing and you feel comfortable giving that out, then feel free to do so:thumbsup::thumbsup:

We have several detailers on board here so, again, welcome and excellent job:thumbsup:

Shadow said:

You'll find things a bit different here than most places on the net. AS you can see, you don't have to "pay" to play and if someone asks for pricing and you feel comfortable giving that out, then feel free to do so:thumbsup::thumbsup:

We have several detailers on board here so, again, welcome and excellent job:thumbsup:

Click to expand...

Awesome! Thats a relief..haha! I posted one thread on the corvette forums and was banned without ever mentioning anything about a business or anything..some sites are just way over moderated.

And in that case..this particular job was $600 and the customer dropped the car off for 3 days at my house.