Bigpower

OK, I have christened the car the FQ550 but I'll come to that later

Following a referral from Facebook the owner requested that we allocate a full day to sort out the 'tired paint' and I was briefed that I would almost certainly need to clay the whole car. When I arrived and saw the car parked up in a barn, my heart sank as typically cars in barns are covered in bird bombs! Fortunately this one wasn't that bad but I still had a few gremlins to safely remove

Inspection photos first










So, although there are plenty of areas that need attention the fundamental standard of the cars condition shines through (or at least it did to my eyes). The next post will summarise the procedures used and show some of the action shots!

OK, time to explain the FQ550 reference, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it out This car belongs to a guy that has come from high power Cosworths in the past and when he bought this he got Gary at APT to put one of his forged engines in, tuned with a Power FC and now pushing out a very healthy 550hp! With K-Sports all around and uprated springs on standard dampers, the owner reckons that it's the perfect road car package!
With the car inspected, areas of note discussed with the owner and a schedule agreed it was time to get a wiggle on as I had around 6-7 hours worth of work to do.

The wheels, tyres and arches were first followed by the exhaust so they were all degreased, cleaned and rinsed thoroughly before the rest of the bodywork, shuts and glass were thoroughly shampoo'd and rinsed again. I used three buckets for this; two for the bodywork to rinse and wash, and another for the wheels with a washmitt for each one.

Time to get started with the removal of tar and iron fallout on the paintwork. I always use properly formulated chemicals to do this first before going onto clay if it's necessary as it is just so much safer.



With the obvious surface contaminants dealt with it was time to use the clay on all panels. The roof, lower door panels and skirts were pretty bad but even the roof and A-pillars showed significant roughness to touch. This was the state of two pieces of clay after some of the work

The dark marks in it are embedded contaminants that were still present after over two hours of careful cleaning!
So with the claying complete, the bodywork needed to be shampoo'd again and rinsed before it could be towel dried ready for further inspection. The inspection showed a couple of areas that needed scratches removing or blemishes taken out.

An example of one of the scratches

After using a polishing compound with a sponge this was the result


Not perfect but certainly a big improvement and safe too.

The inspection and spot polishing completed, it was time to polish all of the exterior panels, door shuts, bonnet underside and all of the carbon fibre trim as this is prone to delamination. The tyres and arches were treated, the exhaust and metalwork under the bonnet was cleaned as well as all of the silicone hoses.

The next post will show the finished shots and explain the processes leading up this

To wrap up, I wanted to seal and protect the paintwork's condition so it time to get a good quality sealant or wax on there. I chose the K-wax @ 40% Carnauba as it's durable and provides great results. This was applied and whilst it was drying I tackled the headlights and taillights, and started cleaning and treating the glass. Wax off, finished the glass and then set about the interior


This car has a wonderful leather Recaro interior leaving no-one in any doubt about just how special this special edition is!

As a final thing I went around the paintwork, inch by inch, with a clean microfibre and some detailing spray and these were the finished results after seven hours








The owner was very pleased with the work and has booked me to work on his new boat! That should be a really interesting challenge and a whole new level of effort required on that beast.........it's enormous by car standards!

Thanks for reading if you got this far

Damn, Stu, amazing job!!! .. what a difference.

very nice "barn find"

Yeah, it still had dust and bird bombs, but nothing like my Ride-on when that came out of my shed!

Looks like a different car!!
Good effort.

Looks greats.

It's a Evo 7 Stu not an 8 as i said earlier.

very nice job once again

Wow Stu, I'm particularly impressed with the lights. Awesome job !!

550bhp in an Evo is definitely a weapon !! Love the lip and rear bumper canards. One of the best Evo 7s I have ever seen (excluding Logans and Garys obviously !!)