Cheekymonkeyman

Children have it so tough these days

Zohan

so your wife is having a baby and so did you, and will have one more bmw baby soon. I say you're doing most of the labor in this relationship

ps. I got my 991 when my wife was 9m pregnant

Ceepe

I got mine 7 days before finding out a baby was on the way. The car gods gave me a big victory on that one.

Zohan

My future so bright I got to wear shades

Money2536

My E92 M3 was my present for our first born. I figured it's fair. My wife got a son, and I got an M3. It's a Blue E92 for Boy and White F80 for Girl. The math works according to my calculations.

perretar

Just started reading this thread, been thru the 1st 6 pages so far. Early on you said: "There was quite a bit of iron on/in the paint. I Nanoskin Autoscrubbed after IronX. It was border-line needing a compounding. After testing an area I decided to do it."
How does iron get on or in the paint, what is the source ?
How do you detect the presence of the iron?
Assuming the IronX & Nanoskin Autoscrub was to remove the iron, what was the need for compounding, orange peel ?

LexVan

Mainly during transport, shipping, and pre delivery storage. Airborne pollutants. More commonly seen on cars that get rail transportation, which our USA cars don't.

Money2536

You can't see the iron in the paint. You can tell after spaying an Iron removing spray. If it turns purple, then you know their is some iron in the paint.

You can use something like this.

http://www.autogeek.net/carpro-iron-x-cleaner.html

I don't think it really matters what brand you use. Wash the car. I usually blow the excess water off the car to make sure the Iron Out can do it's job. Spray it on and watch the paint turn purple. If it doesn't turn purple, then you don't have any iron on the paint.

The AutoScrub is then used afterwards with a detail spray to get the rest of the contaminants off the paint.

The compound, Menzerna FG 400/Microfiber Cutting pad, was used to get the scratches out of the clear that were there from who knows what. It wasn't bad, but a finishing polish wasn't going to get the paint flawless.

The paint has a bit of orange peel. I don't have depth gauge, but I'm guessing the paint is way to thin to wet sand and polish enough to get the peel out. Wet sanding is usually only good for paints with multiple coats of clear. Our cars have a super thin and super hard layer that is baked on quickly to keep production moving. A high-end aftermarket paint ship would put a whole lot more paint on the car allowing you to wet sand out the orange peel.

BlackBeauty

Matt, I was thinking of getting the Rupes yellow MF pad and hitting it with the FG400, but am concerned about taking too much of the clear off. Any thoughts? My normal detail would be clay (or now thanks to your advice Autoscrub) Menzerna SI 1500 (green pad) , then SF 4500 ( yellow pad) , then Menzerna Polysealant, then Color Lock (both with white pads) followed up by the occasional P21S carnuba (by hand) for maintenance. The problem is I just bought a Brinkmann light and now can see what l can only describe as someone taking a 3M scrubbing pad to the paint - so my options are to either fix it or throw out the Brinkman light. I don't want to get the blue pad as I'm afraid it'll be too aggressive. Any thoughts as always are greatly appreciated!!!

Money2536

I don't use the Rupes pads. Not enough people use them for me to steal their ideas on what works well. If you want the swirls and scratches out and you can't get them out with Menzerna SIP, then I'd do a Meguiar's MF Cutting Pad and FG400. You could also test an area with a MF Pad and SIP 1500 first. Since FG400 came out, I haven't even cracked the SIP 1500 open.

I wouldn't worry much about taking off too much clear. Just don't compound it every year. I'd bet most of your scratches are coming from a combo of toweling and the touch-ups with the carnuba without cleaning the paint and polishing first. I don't envy that black. It's so much work.

Money2536

Update Video

Sorry for the lackluster commentary. I'm no Nick Murray.

BlackBeauty

Matt thanks so much. I've been using the foam cannon (non-pressure washer), 3 buckets (one for wheels, one wash, one rinse ) with lambs wool mitt for the car, Adams car wash, followed by cordless Mekitia Blower, then special MF towels from Detailers Domain that I spritz with Menzerna Paint Protection, which I also apply to the car as I'm drying - which again, thanks to you is producing great results. I think the swirls are just in there from delivery and since the Rupes was brand new to me I probably needed more practice with it. Rupes seems to discourage using non-Rupes pads and they just came out with their own MF so I'll give it a try - I'll start less aggressive and work backwards. I really appreciate the advice - this will be my next project - thanks again!!

Money2536

I would most certainly do a full correction with MF pad and FG400. If you haven't done so already, take a black marker and make a thick black line on the top of the backing plate. That way, you'll know the pad is rotating when applying pressure during polishing. You won't hurt the paint. The randomness of the Rupes will protect you.

RichardC

Good video Matt. Nick set the bar high, but your video was informative, which I think helps the community. The exhaust is sounding good.

YouTube has a feature where they anti-shake or stabilize the video for you. If you click on edit, it's one of the options, and can smooth out the video for you.

Richard

Money2536

I got inspired after my crappy in-garage video to go out and make a video of the car moving. I'm about to lose my exhaust video making spot. There were people driving around the community staring at me, so I had to make it quick before some called the police. I didn't get as many passes as usual.

I probably have about 50 miles on the car since installing the exhaust. As I mentioned in my other video, I actually lost one of the tips on my second trip out. On this third trip, all stayed put. I sanded and scuffed the inside of the tip and the exit pipe to help make sure I had a clean connection before tightening the clamp. I'll keep you posted on it. Zach from AWE already got back to me on his holiday weekend to let me know it won't be a problem getting another tip.

So what are my thoughts after such short seat time? I really like it. I've seen Serge's videos, TAG's, and AWE's. I'm usually not very worried about taking a leap on an exhaust as you could always sell and only lose a few hundred bucks. That being said, I think this one will be a keeper.

I didn't dislike the factory PSE, but I wanted something a bit more aggressive. Well, watching the videos of others doesn't prepare you as much as you might think. This is much, much more aggressive than PSE. I was assuming it would be a minor change, but it is a very drastic difference. If you aren't to keen on loud, I would caution you that you will be in quiet mode most of the time. For me, I'm a valves open not matter what guy, so I like it. Again, it's actually much louder than I expected, but I like it.

The exhaust is also lower pitched than I thought it would be, which is a very good thing. I tend to dislike Akrapovic and other titanium exhausts because of their higher pitched sound reproduction. At wide-open-throttle the AWE screams much more Ferrari like, but is deeper/bassier under normal driving RPMs from 1,000-5,000.

One negative is that it vibrates my dash when you initially get on the throttle hard from about 1,500 to 2,500. Once above that it seems to settle into the normal wake the neighbors violence with a bit more smoothness. Under light load, I didn't have the resonance.

Another interesting note is, despite being much louder under load, there is considerably less drone than OEM PSE. I haven't been on the highway yet, but I think it is going to be less annoying with the valves open than PSE.

I don't care much about valves closed, so I don't have much to say about it. It sounds similar to stock.

Would I recommend it? YES. I'm a sucker for high-quality engineering. This is well designed and is rather easy to install. I will say to a more reserved gentlemen, you may want to consider getting a ride or hearing in person as it may be too aggressive for more civilized individuals. Luckily, I'm still a kid at heart and this isn't my daily driver.

OEM PSE


AWE SwitchPath