The Chronicles of SneakySnake Vol III

[youngsnake]

how did you get the viper logo back on the calipers? black magic i'm assuming?

[One Viper Bite]

how did you get the viper logo back on the calipers? black magic i'm assuming?

dave-chappelle-rick-james-they-shoulda-never-black-magic-evil-darkness-mother-fucker.jpg

[viper04]

I understand, only asking. I did mine and they make the bake look complete to me. Some people who don't know will ask why is there two brake caliper. Here is a picture not a good one just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

Attachment 25579

[slowhatch]

The time has come to get this hunk of mopar scrap metal down on solid ground;



Curt was making progress on the X-Brace. Masked, hit with the "gts blue" match coat for the stryker emblem, cleared, and baked out.




Vector files created for the stryker emblems and vinyl cut for the mask. Thank god Curt has the dexterity for this as myself with my sausage links would have been there all day.



Applied;




Hit with satin black powder and baked out;




While the x-brace baked we turned our attention to bleeding the brakes. I had gotten a quart plus of fresh dot 4 as I figured they'd never been bled and I wanted fresh fluid throughout.

Connecting up the lines. Making sure not to get any fluid on the fresh calipers. We had a spray bottle full of water to hose the calipers down afterwards.



Started with drawing a vacuum to get rid of all the old fluid, and then switched to manual bleeding to finish them all off.




Brakes were finished up and before I reinstalled the wheels Curt turned me on to a tire clearcoat that I haven't heard of. I usually don't use tire shine for 2 reasons; Number 1, I hate sling, and no matter how conservatively I apply, I always end up having it all over the side of the car. Number 2, I hate greasy looking tires. Apparently this stuff is worth its weight in gold, it lasts through washes, doesn't sling, and goes on with a matte sheen. Sounds good on paper. I'll let you guys know if its the real deal or not.

De-greasing the sidewalls before application;



Applying product;




From left to right, degreased tire, then 1st application and air dry, then 2nd application and air dry. You can see on the right the tire has a nice oem "brand new" sheen to it. It looks very good;

[slowhatch]

Oh, and finally got my sponsorship deal finalized. I hear IKEA is also in the cards



Re-installed the wheels and got the car down on the ground. Finally! Re-installed the x-brace. Will have better pictures when I put the coil covers back on;




Just absolutely love how the calipers came out, exactly how I envisioned it;



Took the car for a drive and bedded the brakes to check for any fluid leaks. Came back looked into the barrels and everything was dry.

Time to prep the car for the paint correction and sealant;



First foam was with iron-x to remove any irons (particularly rail dust), you can see this stuff doesn't foam much;





Second the car was 2 bucket mitt washed to remove any contaminants;






Then the entire car was clay'd. Yellow clay for the clearcoat, and grey (softer) for the clear bra'd areas.




Clear bra spans the whole front half of the car, side sills, and behind the rear wheels on the back bumper. There was minimal contaminants pulled on the top 80% of the car (below), and a ton of tar and sap behind the wheels and on the lower bumper areas.



She was rinsed and air dried, and is now ready for paint correction.

[slowhatch]

I've wondered if this is worth it. They are definitely a pain to keep clean. I'm interested to hear if pressure washing those puppies is enough to clean them .... or if they still require a little soap/water/scrubbing. If you say pressure washing is enough to pass your standards .... mine are getting coated immediately. You are one meticulous rascal.

Properly coated, you should not have to do anything past hitting it with a pressure washer and then air drying with a blower.

how did you get the viper logo back on the calipers? black magic i'm assuming?

Vector file the logo, print on vinyl, apply, clear coat, bake.

[13COBRA]

Beautiful.

[One Viper Bite]

I went from 6 to mignight real quick.

Can't wait for some roller shots to see those yellow calipers float behind those wheels!

[KB Viper]

Slowhatch--not sure if someone else mentioned this or if you noticed it but for the rear wheel wells you can add the little plastic j pipe to your ducting which will point the cold air from the scoops directly to the brakes. It's a stock piece.

[Vipes]

Nice find on the tire clearcoat, I'm going to order some. Car looks great!

[98intrigue]

I went from 6 to mignight real quick.

Can't wait for some roller shots to see those yellow calipers float behind those wheels!

Superbad

[One Viper Bite]

Superbad

Close...right actor, wrong movie. Forgetting Sarah Marshall!

[98intrigue]

Close...right actor, wrong movie. Forgetting Sarah Marshall!

Ahhhh, fail! Another great one.

[slowhatch]

Slowhatch--not sure if someone else mentioned this or if you noticed it but for the rear wheel wells you can add the little plastic j pipe to your ducting which will point the cold air from the scoops directly to the brakes. It's a stock piece.

Yeah there is ducting for the ACRs in the front and rear well locations correct? Anyone have part numbers for them?

[Jet Slicker]

Slowhatch--not sure if someone else mentioned this or if you noticed it but for the rear wheel wells you can add the little plastic j pipe to your ducting which will point the cold air from the scoops directly to the brakes. It's a stock piece.

Definitely interested in doing this.

[v10tt]

Cam out so nice and clean, I would feel bad driving it around and getting it dirty .

[slowhatch]

Sneaky one just waiting on its que to hit the light room and have Curt work his magic. Center-caps should be finished up today as well. Can't wait to see it all polished up;

[One Viper Bite]

Definitely interested in doing this.

This came standard on 2014+ cars so you should be fine. Only 2013s didn't have the ducting.

Yeah there is ducting for the ACRs in the front and rear well locations correct? Anyone have part numbers for them?

Part #s for rear brake duct extensions:
05043042AB
05043043AB

I was unable to find the part #s for the front ACR ducts Dan from specialtyperformanceteam.com was selling them. But please note, some people have had problems with 18inch wheels making contact with the ducts in the front when turning. Probably because they were designed to work with the ACRs 19 inch front wheels.

[slowhatch]

Before the paint correction process begins we decided to re-do the entire hood's ppf. The clear bra the first owner had put on was done sloppily, and even though doing it in 3 pieces is the efficient way to lay it down on this massive hood, leaving a wavering gap that grows up to an inch in certain locations, is not. We also noticed that while the front bumper, hood, sills, and rear bumper are wrapped, the headlights and mirrors were surprisingly omitted. We are rectifying this along with the hood. Lastly, we are doing a partial film on the leading edge of the roof. I got a nasty chip on the roof in my old car, and don't care to relive the experience.

The issue (running almost the length of the hood);



Getting started for removal. A little heat, to get the adhesive pliable. Any drunkard can rip the film off, but doing so without leaving hours worth of reside mess to clean up is the name of the game.




Some elbow grease and the right side is removed;



A little more heat and the center section is motivated to give up its grasp;





Really stubborn areas were additionally motivated;



Film is gone, the surface is ready to be decontaminated and recovered.

[CNU_Physics]

Damn your car is beautiful....

[serpent]

Alex, what was the point of washing the car if you were removing the clear wrap?

[slowhatch]

Alex, what was the point of washing the car if you were removing the clear wrap?

We are only removing the hood.

[Arizona Vipers]

Whose pitbull? Good lucking bully!

[The_Ruski_Driver]

This thread keeps on delivering!!! You have some patience! I barely have time to breath on my car, let alone drive it. Forget about cleaning it - twice a year! Then again, I put maybe 2k miles on the whole year. GTS blue is so awesome!

[slowhatch]

Home stretch.

Selecting and cutting templates for the film. The car is getting;

Full hood
Headlights
Mirrors
A-Pillars
Partial Roof
Rear brake inlets

The original film (which is in good shape) on the front bumper, side sills, and rear bumper is getting a polish to give it back some optics.



Making a few passes on the hood before the new film is laid;



New film going on;








Film is laid, and curing. It takes hours and hours for all of the moisture to evaporate from underneath the film, before any coatings can be applied. Curt did the film in 3 pieces on the hood as before, except where's before the 3 pieces were equal size in strips, his method was to lay a large center flanked by thinner outside pieces meeting at the vent recess. This makes the seam all but invisible when viewing off angle.




You can see the seam here running from the bottom right corner of the vent;



On the opposite side, the outer film is not yet laid, making seam pronounced and easy to see;



While waiting on the film to set, the center caps were finished up and re-installed. The center caps turned out to be a giant PITA. Try as we might, we could not get the inlay color to match the GTS blue with any sort of accuracy as we had to lay a base coat first and it was bleeding through and mixing with the blue and clear under bake-out. Masking and doing this process multiple times was ridiculously time intensive, so after a few attempts we decided to change directions. At first I thought about just installing them with the first satin coat;



That seemed a bit uninspired, so Curt suggested we clear just the in-lay to give it some contrast and pop. The end result was perfect, pictures don't really do it justice. Its very subtle, but from a distance the in-lay catches light and reflects, helping the centers not be "lost" on the wheels. It looks very oem+, which is how I like things.