Detail Complete: 2004 Mazda RX-8 "Winning Blue Metallic"

[Nick@Adams]

Here's a write up from our team member Mook. Keep an eye out for a few glimpses of some new products that are nearing completion!



Good Morning!

I had the pleasure at the end of last week to start on this Ocean Blue Metallic RX-8. The objective here was to not only polish the car out the right way, but also to test many products in the process. This write up will be pretty picture heavy so I will break it up into parts as best I can. I would like to thank Dylan for helping me out during some of the polish process and also with his killer Camera work at the end.

Let's Get Started!

The Wash.
It was really difficult to gauge just what I had ahead of me, as the car was left with us at the Detail Clinic we had to kick the season off a couple weeks back. I could see through all the dirt, that there were areas of the car I would be spending a little more time on than I wanted to. The Exhaust Tips were scary, the last "detailer" to touch the car left more wax on the trim than he did on the paint, the Engine Bay hadn't been cleaned since it was swapped in well over a year ago, and I hadn't even touched the paint yet!

Dirty Car


As with anything I detail, I started with cleaning the engine bay and wheels and tires.

Products Used for Engine Bay, Wheels & Tires Cleaning:

• Adam's All Purpose Cleaner with Foaming Sprayer
• Adam's Boulder Blonde Boar's Hair Wheel Brush
• Adam's Deep Clean Tire Scrub Brush
• Adam's 20" Fender Brush
• Adam's Wheel Woolies Wheel Cleaning Tools

I started the Engine Bay by covering the air filter with a trash bag I had handy. I never realized this little rotary motor needed such a big filter! Looked like E.T.'s Head.



The next step was to grab the 36oz. Adam's All Purpose Cleaner with Foaming Sprayer, and get a little trigger happy all over the Engine Bay.



Grabbing the Adam's Boulder Blonde Boar's Hair Wheel Brush, I began to scrub, scrub, and scrub some more. I rinsed and then started over. This time I grabbed the smaller head and medium head Adam's Wheel Woolies, and began to knock out the tiny areas I couldn't reach with the big brush.



Satisfied with the level of clean I am pretty sure the Engine Bay had never seen before, I closed the hood and proceeded to the Wheels and Tires portion of my day. Upon closer examination of the wheels, I could see clear coat failure on all 4, and at least two of the tires had been curbed at least once.





My first real opportunity to use the Adam's Deep Clean Tire Scrub Brush, as I don't let my stuff get that filthy to ever need more than the Adam's 20" Fender Brush to clean my own tires, I was still more than impressed with it's ability to remove dirt from the surface with minimal effort. Adam's All Purpose Cleaner with Foaming Sprayer was used on all surfaces in the Wheel and Tire portion as the Cleaner.





Once I hit the four corners, it was time to have a little bit of fun with the Pressure Washer, the Foam Cannon, and a Mixture of Adam's Car Shampoo and Adam's Waterless Wash in the canister, for supreme foaming lather. Adam's Merino Wool Mit and Adam's Jumbo Wash Pad were used in conjunction with the Two Bucket Wash with Grit Guards, post-cannon-izing of the car.