Had the extreme pleasure of working on an absolute monster created by one of the best Corvette/GM tuners out there. I spent two very full days at Wong's Performance Engineering in Vancouver, WA performing paint correction on the owner's pride and joy, a 2007 Corvette Z06 in black. Tom has done extensive work on this car, here is a list: From Tom: "2007 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Balanced and blueprinted 427 CID LS7 Extensive block mods include: Darton ductile iron sleeves Block and ladder mainline girdle to stabilize the bottom end Katech piston squirters Callies Magnum 4340 Crankshaft Oliver Billet 4340 steel connecting rods Custom Arias 9:1 compression ratio pistons Custom ground roller camshaft GM LS7 cylinder heads ported by Lingenfelter Performance Engineering Header by American Racing headers with 2" primary tubes with a full 3" exhaust system flowing through a Corsa performance exhaust system. Power adder: Magnusson TVS2300 Supercharger Custom 10 rib serpentine front drive Custom 50mm rear cogged belt drive Custom 1000hp fuel delivery system Drivetrain mods: Driveshaft shop 1000hp rated ZR1 propeller shaft RPM Transmission modified ZR1 TR6060 transmission RPM Transmission modified rear differential Chassis mods: Pfadt Racing coil over shocks GM Performance front and rear sway bars Stop Tech Trophy 380mm front brake kit Stop Tech Trophy 355mm rear brake kit Custom Wheels by Complete Custom Wheels C140 wheels in 19x12 rears with 345-30-19 Nitto Invo tires Fronts wheels are 19x10 with 285-35-19 Nitto Invo tires Initial break-in tuning with a very conservative engine calibration yielded 625 ft/lbs of torque @ 3200 RPM and 600 hp @ 4800 RPM. All of this power was accomplished with only 7 degrees of total timing at 14 PSI of boost measured at the intake manifold. Plans are to increase timing to about 18 degrees which should allow us to hit the target power levels of 750 rwhp" Beyond the joy of working on an amazing car, Tom, the owner, is extremely approachable and good-humored. He has customers that ship their cars to him from Canada, Utah and the southeastern USA, not to mention a massive loyal local following. Hanging around with him for a few days watching him work and interact with customers left no doubts as to why he is so well known. As I progressed through the decontamination and correction process, Tom's eyes were really open to the need for regular paint correction, even on a car that is not a daily driver and cared for at a high level. Swirls and RDS were everywhere on this vehicle, and the hard GM paint really made me earn my keep on every panel. To add to the difficulty, the hood had recently been repainted as well as the passenger door panel. In contrast to the rock hard OEM clear, these panels were much softer and extremely difficult to finish down without holograms or marring. Correction was achieved with Lake Country HT pads, cyan, tangerine and red, and M105, Menz SIP and 85rd were the compounds/polishes of choice. RO (Flex) to Rotary (Makita) ratio was about 80/20. In the end, the car came out brilliantly, and I broke out the Aquartz for a great finish. A single coat of Aquartz Premium and Titanium was applied. Everything was topped off with Reload. Comments and questions welcome as always. Pulled it out to wash. Car had Rejex on, which survived multiple soaks with Dawn, 1Z W99, and CG citrus wash. As well as wipe downs with IPA and the aforementioned soaps. Finally threw in the towel and decided this lsp would have to be polished off! Bit of oxidation on the Corsa exhaust but not bad. This was eventually cleaned up with Optimum metal polish Examples of the defects present Taped things up and got ready to polish Left side after initial compounding/polishing, right side of panel gap untouched All corrected, a few RDS left that were too deep Letting the Flex and cyan HT cut away at the defects. B-pillar 50/50 B-pillar after Passenger side on roof before Passenger side on roof after Driver side wheel arch area before Setting up for a 50/50 50/50 Some waterspotting and other defects on the hood corrected Condition of the hood (painted about 6mo. ago) ...and in different lighting I had one of those moments where the lightbulb goes off and I thought of a good way to save my back while polishing the hood out. Duh, open it up, dude! some 50/50s of the hood defects removed, various lighting A scratch/marr in the Venture shield, before After loading an orange pad up with power finish and some QD, working slowly Tom had ordered a special replacement for these badges, more to come later... Passenger side wheel arch before After Passenger side door, before (this had also been repainted over 6 months ago. Clear was soft and frustrating to finish down) After passenger side door panel break, left side not polished, right side polished Some muck and old residues in the Corvette engraving After hand polishing Before After Here are the finished shots with Aquartz & Reload on top. Sun was out but the angle was low and it was hard to catch it anywhere but the edges of panels. Enjoy! Here are the new badges with one key difference- repping the fact that this car can put down 800+ horsies! Here is the beastly powerplant Tom had the inside of the hood custom painted. It was treated to Reload. I love how you can see a strong reflection of the engine on it!
Thanks Dave, did not use the Dupray on this one. Thanks! It was 'medium' hard I would say. Below Audi or MB. Thanks Joey Thanks Ken ha ha, yup we've both done some time up there beast is right, I also have some video of the car running. Exhaust note and idle are amazingly beefy! thanks man
Shame on Mr. Wong...good on you Shane! Nice to see the save! I'm going to tell Tom there is more to it than HP! Home of the Black Vette's
Thanks Stingray! Thanks Dale! I'm going to get Tom a list of products to order and my wash technique tutorial that I gave to you. Hope you can get your car out of storage soon! Thanks Mr.Golf Hey Tom! glad to see you are on board. Don't mind Dale, he's just bitter because his city is tearing up the roadways for repairs and his car is still in storage.... :tiptoe:
floored....amazing job....i say that b/c i did a 08 black z06 and i thought the clearcoat was the hardest thing in the world...i was using a pc with cyan tangerine lc pads and uber yellows and oranges and the haze and minor swirls cleared up on 1 pass with 105 or sip but the deeper swirls i hardly touched. i only had the car for a few hours so no time to do a two step, so i skipped the surbufs. is the flex that much more powerful or should i have changed my technique?
Thanks. Yes the Flex is that much more powerful than a PC, even a PCXP. Pretty much every area required multiple passes with the flex/cyan HT/M105 combo for cutting. Some areas even needed multiple passes with Flex/tangerine HT/SIP polishing stage. I spent roughly 13 hours polishing. Thanks vinsanity!
