A quick guide to race car detailing

Determining how and where to begin can be challenging with automobile detailing, especially if you’re a newbie having a do-it-yourself (DIY) project. But it’ll be much simpler if a professional does it for you. However, if you decide to take the DIY way, it may be a pleasant experience.

Detailing is crucial, especially for race cars, since they’re typically used for showcases and races. However, it’d help if you ensure that its details are spotless regardless of what you want to use the car for. You could think of detailing as an important vehicle maintenance procedure for your race car.

Thankfully, if you want to go the DIY route, there’s generally no need to dive into complex detailing because the fundamentals should suffice. Remember that you can employ various techniques to get the desired results. The following guide will touch on the fundamentals you need to know to do the detailing job.

Clean The Wheels

Since car wheels or tires have high usage rates, it’s generally recommended to start with them. Plus, they get worn out fast. However, the wheels are usually simple to clean up if you have the proper chemicals.

You must first pre-soak your wheels for a while. This doesn’t simply mean submerging your wheels in the water. You must use a specific wheel cleaner to remove the gunk from your wheels. For the most excellent results, make sure you purchase a high-quality one. You might need to use a brush to clean the difficult-to-reach areas. This process will also require a wash mitt.

Apply Snow Foam

You can remove any last traces of resistant dirt on your car with the use of snow foam. The aim is to eliminate as much dirt as possible before the contact wash. If there’s any dirt left, you run the danger of leaving marks on the car during the contact cleaning stage. Therefore, ensure that the snow foam gun has sufficient pressure and it doesn’t remain on the vehicle for too long. 

In short, you simply need to buy equipment and products for the best results. This site offers a variety of quality products you can check out.

Use Pre-Cleaner

You must always use a pre-cleaner to get tough dirt and bugs off your race car. Road grime isn’t always easy to displace. However, the first step to reducing the amount of road grime on your vehicle’s body is to use a pre-cleaner. It’s also crucial to use pre-cleaner on the lower portions of your vehicle as this is where bugs tend to congregate. 

Don’t always count on your eye test because bugs could collect under your car, and you may not even notice a thing. In any case, use a pre-cleaner.

Contact Washing

For this step, you should have two buckets: one filled with normal water and the other with wash liquid. Before applying the solution to the car, thoroughly rinse your mitt in the bucket of plain water. The reason for this is to ensure that your solution isn’t contaminated.

Professional detailing car in car studio, hands with orbital polisher, scratching remover, vehicle care concept.

 Decontaminate

This is the stage at which you apply an iron dissolver to eliminate any ferrous contaminants that have become infused with your car’s paintwork. It’d be best if you also used solvent tar remover to remove potential tar residue on the paint. After that, you must thoroughly rewash the car to remove the solvent.

 Drying

After applying all these liquids and having rewashed the car, you have to dry it out. Ideally, it’d be best if you started from top to bottom. You need to be fast when drying your car because water spots could dry quickly, especially if it’s hot outside.

 Polishing

Now with this one, you could polish your car using your hands and cloth. However, it’d be best to use a machine polisher for the most pleasing results. It’d help if you used it correctly too. Prior experience is required, ideally. But if you don’t have experience, you can use your hands.

 Waxing

This is a critical phase. All your previous work is preserved by applying this last layer of wax or sealant. If you’re unsure about the type of wax to use on your paint, seek advice from reliable retailers or specialists.

 Cleaning Glass

Some people gloss over cleaning glass, but it’s essential for pleasing aesthetics and should be maintained if you want them to last. You only need to use a premium glass cleaner to get things done. Ideally, it’d be best to always have this in your garage or vehicle.

 Final Detailing

The next step is to use a detailer to complete your work. Any dirt or fingerprints that may have accumulated during the earlier phases should be removed entirely by the detailer. This is when you touch up and tidy up any loose ends from the previous phases. Every component of the car matters, especially if you plan to display your race car. As a result, this last stage is critical.

 Conclusion

The above basic steps for detailing your car are doable. However, it’s also okay if you’d like professional detailers to work on your car, especially if you’re afraid you could mess up your race car. Using these professionals is best if you want to do more complex detailing on your car. Nonetheless, detailing massively improves the aesthetic. So, the time and money you invest in it are usually worth it.