FULL DETAIL Formula 1 McLaren MP4-19B Race Car

hey guys I'm super excited it is 4:30 in the morning and I am packing up my car and we're gonna head up to Boston why because I'm doing an f1 car an actual f1 car now back when I threw the McLaren long tail out at Pebble Beach I really thought long and hard about how I was gonna approach it when I was gonna do and I said hey if I ever get the opportunity to do an f1 car I'm totally gonna do it but it's crazy early in the morning right now sighs playing whispering because I have a wife and child sleeping I don't want to wake them up and I'm getting nervous that I'm gonna do that because they're too excited but let's pack everything up let's head up there and we're going to detail today an f1 car I'm driving protected after a three and a half hour soggy trip to Norwell Massachusetts we arrived at McLaren Boston and met up with my longtime friend Billy Richmond head of service and parts this dealership is a candy store for all things exotic and after my quick tour of the showroom Billy took us back to a secret room behind the service area to get a glimpse of the owners latest acquisition this is a 2004 McLaren mp4 19 B with the last of the great 3 liter v10 s with over 900 horsepower and driven by David Coulthard until now so everything you see is from the 2004 season this model year was considered to be the golden era for Formula One due to the incredible sound and power these engines produced now being a McLaren Mercedes delivery is the classic Silver Arrow but it can use a healthy polish due to the squirrels and love marks from constant trackside wipe downs however the trick today is navigating these notoriously thin paints while still removing the swirls without burning through delivery as a retired racecar it'll spend most of its life on display at the dealership or in the owners living room so one final but very careful polish is well worth the effort likewise at the end of the video we'll chat with Colin ash law an automotive mass her technician for Aston Martin Lotus motorsports and McLaren as well as an f1 historian to better understand what makes this particular car so special but first we needed a bit of working space for the detail which required the sentence to be put in the corner of the garage these two MacLaren's are named after the Brazilian Ayrton Senna honoring his success as a McLaren Formula One driver the Senna's themselves are largely based on McLaren 720's platform with a modified version of the carbon-fiber monocoque and tweaked twin-turbo v8 producing 789 horsepower pushing the car from zero to 62 in 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 211 miles an hour with a starting price of about a million dollars now with the f1 on gojaks we easily pushed it sideways in the garage to start our paint assessment this weekend the McLaren dealership is having a big event in honor of the new acquisition so the owner wants it to look perfect okay at this point step number one of course is to clean the paint clearly it's an open-cockpit f1 car so it's not exactly you know two buckets and power washing that kind of thing will ruin the car so I'm using a bit of frothy here just lifting up the dirt and all the tight spots and then once we're done there you will be able to see what's really going on in the paint and just from looking at it from this angle I'm not sure if you can see it on camera there's a lot of deep scratches over here I'm guessing you know the driver getting into the car and there's some cracks here and there because the material itself is very thin so thinking you know while I'm doing this I'm like hey how am I going to approach it I think we're gonna do a lot by hand first again it is extremely thin I can see very very thin areas where they just kind of sprayed the paint just barely enough paint to put the you know the symbols and the livery and all that kind of stuff on there for the sponsor so this is gonna be a bit of an intense slow sort of like digging a hole with a spoon just barely touching the paint to kind of remove as much as I can sort of in this preservation mindset to kind of bring it back for this weekend with that Dan and I frothy of the paint and used compressed air for the tight spots that held tons of trackside pebbles and grass while we were hoes 'less washing the intricate suspension in arrow I noticed what looked like gold tinfoil ish sheets wrapped around both rear suspension wishbones this is done to protect the carbon fiber from the intense engine and exhaust heat the thin gold foil is used because it's malleable and is an incredibly efficient heat insulator it can be found on most racecars that encounter extreme temperature requirements during use once the dust and dirt is removed it's obvious the paint has heavy squirrels and a lackluster appearance which can be expected on a driven racecar normally this is easy enough to remove on any street card but absolutely terrifying to do on an f1 racecar and that can't be measured with common paint depth gauges so first is a hand test spot to get a feel for just how thin the paint is all right when I'm doing a test panel on a car that has very thin or a finicky paint the first thing I'd like to do is use something like this which is a microfiber pad and in particular it's white so if something were to go wrong as I'm wiping it and as I'm rubbing the the paint I can quickly look up it so wait a second did I that I blow through it or you know the pad itself is very soft so it's kind of like the analogy I like to use this sort of Archaeology if you're trying to you know uncover this dinosaur or whatever you basically just kind of brush it real quick step back Oh is everything okay reassess and then go back in maybe brush a little bit more and brush a little bit more so this would be the first kind of wipe let's say of something so sensitive but you don't want to ruin anything and I'm kind of just barely rubbing it right now using a one of my special concoctions here of a compound that's got a bit of lubrication in it making sure look there's nothing coming off I'll come in real quick wipe I'll use my light and sort of reassess and right off the bat just a little bit of that back and forth with this compound is showing improvement so I'll slowly move on and if I can go stronger and stronger meaning if I can use a tool or a machine I'll gladly do it because there are some flat spaces here but overall I think most of this will be done by hand but as we're moving I guess the point of the story is just start slowly and you can use something like a pad like this and then move up to machines if possible after our various tests and a 50/50 spot the microfiber pad and compound by hand I felt enough confidence in the strength of the paint at this point to move to machines foam pads and a light polish to accomplish the preservation in less time and without excessive hand and shoulder fatigue with the test spots done and the plan of attack set Dan and I laid out all the tools and sizes based on the extremely tight spots and narrow openings found on this particular vehicle to efficiently work on race cars or voluptuous supercars with lots of tight spots you need to be aware of two major factors the size of the pad and the size of the machines stroke for this project we're using three inch orbitals with a 12 millimeter throw all the way down to a quarter inch pad with no throw otherwise known as a rotary and everything in between the width depth and location of the area you're polishing dictates the type of tool and pad most suited for the job here's a good example these are the air scoops on either side of the cockpit they're deep narrow and skinny obviously any common machine with a large throw wouldn't work in these tight spots because it would bang against the sides this is what we call karate-chopping an edge instead I used a one-inch rotary and extension with no throw or side-to-side movement so I can polish right up to the edge of the scoop without banging into the sides and damaging it however on the large spaces we used a three-inch machine with a 12 millimeter stroke or a side-to-side action because the paint's landscape would allow it typically the larger the throw the more work or paint correction is being done in a given area in other words it can be more efficient to use a larger stroke machine when it's not confined in a tight spot for more nerdy information on this specific point click the link above to check out the differences between the rotary large stroke and forced rotation machines in the ammo training academy 204 series where we put the machines on a piece of glass with LEDs attached to see each pads unique orbit to consistently clean our pads and capture the residue we soaked a five-gallon bucket with water and pointed the compressed air and pad towards the bottom of the bucket so that the dust would get stuck to the water and not fly around the room keeping all the cars in the room clean the irony is here there isn't actually a whole lot of paint to polish on an f1 car but getting access and reaching to those areas was by far the trickiest I've ever worked on in my career especially because it's so low to the ground and delicate I also found multiple places on the paint with what seemed to be overspray this one in particular is at the very highest point of a car on top of the air scoop do you see the mark right there after closer inspection these marks were in the paint and not on top of the paint so clang was not effective here it required a Polish to be removed so to keep the repair as focused as possible again I used a one-inch rotary and my polish to ensure the area would stay as cool as possible on this very thin inflexible material after polishing for a few hours with one two and three inch pads which sort of feels like shoveling a snow-covered driveway with a spoon we managed to restore the paint and remove all the squirrels without any issues next we focused on the bolts screws and other locking hardware to polish them we cut a one-inch pad down to a quarter inch pad and did the same thing for the backing plate so that it would fit in or on top of the screw head and bring back its original luster I also asked the owner if I should leatherhead rest as a few helmets cuffs could be seen from previous racing with the okay given I applied lather and scrubbed with an interior brush then quickly dried with a microfiber towel to remove the blemishes now at this point in the project the owner of the car stopped by for a visit to look at his baby and check out the before and after of the paint in particular his mission was to have us preserve the exterior so that he could put it on display at various shows for others to enjoy and admire as he does now he's a pretty cool laid-back guy but he did dare me to try to squeeze into the cockpit and I couldn't turn down my chance to sit in a real f1 racecar or the very least try to wedge myself in first the collar is removed and the steering wheel is unzipped I'd now it's a zip tied to ensure that it doesn't you know disappear as an f1 steering wheel can cost up to fifty to sixty thousand dollars to replace once off i jus my way into or should I say onto the seat now f1 cockpits are not normal seats and that's pretty obvious but what isn't obvious to me is that these guys are basically laying down in the car where your feet are higher than your butt no human being can fit in that right I'm about as skinny as it gets and it's half the size of my so with me being all legs my but couldn't get low enough to fit into David's non-existent waist size seat because my legs were too long pushing my body further back and out of the seat anyways while everyone was enjoying my struggles and suggesting my head should be sucked into the intake I was off on a race track in my mind playing with the fuel buttons and wondering what six G's actually feels like and afterwards I cleaned the steering wheel on the workbench to get a better feel for all the buttons and spend five more minutes with something I've always wanted to see and hold up close once playtime was over dan and I preserved the paint with two coats of ammo skin and one coat of Jala on the wheels afterwards we applied a very light layer of cream for a natural glow before spending two hours inspecting the finished product for leftover compound polished sealant or wax to do this we used several detailing brushes and picks to get into the bolts and other hardware that selected polishing residue now the most important yet most overlooked aspect of any detailing washing or cleaning is the final inspection people who gravitate towards detailing and appreciate the subtlety tend to focus on the one thing that's wrong with the job instead of the thousand things that went right like it or not that's just a fact of our industry which is why most Concord judges write down or critique what's missing dirty or imperfect on a car not what's done right in light of that the final inspection can get you one percent closer to that elusive and unobtainable perfect detail so don't skip the step once we were all done the car was moved into the main service department prior to the arrival of Colin Ashe law so we could better understand the historical significance and how the technology exercised on these earlier race cars has found its way onto modern street-legal supercars of today this car is special because this is really getting towards the last of the great v10 era cars b10 era started in 1995 placing this in 2004 2003 was the first year Formula one cars really breached handily 900 horsepower and over 19,000 rpm above 300 horsepower per litre these were monumentally fast cars another significant point is the weight of the paint this is a good example of how you can use weight to your advantage this is a carbon-fiber body all of this carbon fiber is naturally the color black so if you're using black or darker colors which McLaren was they can actually save on coats of paint likely all of these cars like any race car is going to be on the brink of the weight limit no matter what you do and you can use ballast to adjust for it but this is a good example of what you would do if you're going to use carbon fiber to your advantage with your color scheme a lot of that people tend to look at Formula One as this is the best that it can be this is the best of aerodynamics this is the best of chassis technology the reality is the formula is the rulebook so if you're in racing in a formula you have to abide by the restrictions of those rules so this wing this design shape everything that you see here is the best that this particular team can do the best of their ideas within that formula Road cars are not restricted you don't have to confer you have to conform to safety regulations but if you're in a modern supercar the aerodynamics are the limit of your creativity you use the lessons that you learned from racing which is restricted and apply it in a meaningful way with a road car this is a really good example of what a modern supercar and modern McLaren is like on the underside this is part that really you don't see too often you notice how flat the underbody is leads up to this point where you have this distinct fencing that answers one of the problems that a lot of people often answer well what about when you're going around a corner how do you still have downforce well this keeps rigid columns of air channeled so you still maintain that pressure gradient and you still have down for us while you're either cornering or in motion that's one of the keys highlights to this technology that would be directly taken from Formula One racing if you look here this was an era where exhaust flow and how it reacts with the rear wing and the back of the car is critical that hasn't gone away you have an aggressive flow coming out of this area and you'll notice how everything here is formed and shaped because everything from the front of the car to the side pods over the intake is channeling this rear wing that's the entire point to feed that airflow and then make it clean at the back end the worst thing you can do is create drag all of these aerodynamics are great unless they hold you back and if airflow isn't connecting into a stream line at the end then you're really creating a counterintuitive scenario and if you look at for instance the back of a McLaren you'll see the exhaust placement is that so that it connects with that airflow the rear wing the exhaust the diffuser they all have to work together there's no magic bullet there's no single component well we did it an f1 car I am so excited it's sort of white whale bucket list thing for me I know we did that McLaren GTR at Pebble Beach and that was a dream come true and I thought hey if we could do an f1 car that is a McLaren that is like the ultimate so I finally did it and I am so excited so one of the things that I've learned here is I chatted with the owner of the vehicle and he said hey when I got the car this was the and is the only f1 McLaren in the United States in fact they only released five of them altogether from the factory so this is a very special and extremely rare car from a detailing angle when I first got here or I was driving up in like boom I'm probably got to do this by hand because there's no paint with the speed and the weight that whole thing when I started working it we could get it by hand no problem but I said you know what it's really strong this paints solid when we boost it up a little bit and use a little bit more aggressive behavior meaning instead of hand we're gonna go with a machine use some polish and a foam pad which on the street in the world were a real world with a normal car that's wildly safe right on this one I was getting a little bit nervous but it turned out absolutely perfect so we could speed up and do bigger sections with the machine so I was pretty pleased with that overall I am really excited the car looks spectacular the owner is thrilled this is going to be on display like I said earlier and I think people are gonna freak out just as much as I did so as always I want to thank Colin and Dan for helping me out on the detail but this has been a big moment in my career so thanks for watching and I hope you guys enjoy [Music] [Music]

Channel: AMMO NYC

Views: 501,611

Rating: 4.9217548 out of 5

Keywords: Scratch removal, Top Detailing Tips, Larry Kosilla Detailing, AMMO Detailing Products, AMMO Products, AMMO Detailing, How to remove a scratch, AMMOnyc, AMMONYC.con, AMMO Car Care Products, formula 1, mclaren formula 1 team, lewis hamilton, formula one (sport), mclaren f1 sound, ayrton senna, david coulthard michael schumacher, formula one racing 2019, polishing car paint by hand, most expensive car detailing, world's best car detailer, Mclaren MP4, McLaren Larry Kosilla

Id: kZK6SDP-DkE

Length: 19min 1sec (1141 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/garr1s0n]

This guy's passion and dedication to auto detailing is hard to match. His channel is full of great videos where he talks about - in great detail - the process by which he restores and details the finish to all types of cars. If you enjoyed this video, you'll enjoy his video where he shows the process behind a 138 hour detail on a McLaren F1 GTR LT Racecar in preparation for Pebble Beach. His channel also has a whole bunch of great tutorials on auto detailing if you're interested in learning how to do that for your own car.