All Categories - Aaron's Speed Shop

New Bride/GReddy Seats for the MR-S

7/24/2019

Well, finally here after a 6 month wait, are my Greddy/Bride Zeta 3 seats for the project MR-S. They fit pretty well being as they’re sized for Japanese-waisted people (I.e. not American sized), but luckily I defy the average here in America, and have a small waist. They fit well although I’m not excited with the bracket/slider system. I’m working on putting together a video on my impressions of the install for YouTube. Will update as soon as it is posted. For now, here’s a few pictures.

OPT Tire Protection Coating TPC Review

4/22/2019

Hey Folks, I finally got around to getting my hands on some of these Optimum Polymer Technologies products and figured I'd give you my thoughts as I got a chance to use each one. This first review is of their "semi permanent" tire coating. Now wait a minute. WTF is "semi permanent"?? If I remember right...and it has indeed been a while since I was in my public school english classes, but does "semi permanent" not mean the same thing as "temporary"? Well, advertising semantics aside, here is my review.

Overall impression:
This stuff is amazing. If this stuff is properly applied to the tires, it will last at least 3-4 months. I put this stuff on the high-profile tires of my Toyota Tacoma right before the winter, during my final full detail of the season. Throughout the winter, even during some pretty salty periods, every time I looked at my tires to "inspect" the tire coating, I was impressed.

Application & Details:
I want to make something immediately clear here. This IS NOT a wet-look high gloss shine. Its more of a deep, black lustre best described as semi-gloss. If you over apply this or attempt to apply too many coats, it will not properly bond to the tire causing it to spider crack throughout. This I know....can you guess why? PREP So basically more or less, this is a straight forward product to apply. Clean tires thoroughly, wipe on, let dry, enjoy! Oh My! But the truth is, you need to THOROUGHLY clean your tires, The cleaner, the better, If your tires are brand new, you're off to a good start, but those pesky colored dots suggesting where to place the valve stem and such on the tire, need to be removed or they will be highlighted by the new lustre on the sidewall. Also make sure that if your tires are older and have had any sort of tire shine applied in the past, they will have a very difficult brown coating on them. This should be thoroughly cleansed off with a very aggressive degreaser like Black Magic BlecheWite (which used to be Westley's and was way f*cking better IMO) or Purple Power to remove all of the brown residue before applying the coating. APPLY Use a microfiber cloth folded to give you a surface the size of the tire sidewall. You do not want to use anything that can absorb or hold onto large amounts of the liquid, as you will surely over apply and as I said, thats bad. Just apply a 10-15 good size drops/drips of TPC onto the folded microfiber and thoroughly wipe the tire sidewall taking specific care to not apply to the rims/wheels. The tire will take on a blue sheen where the TPC has been applied allowing you to clearly see coverage. Try to rub in well enough to avoid large bubbly/aerated patches. FINISH Let dry and enjoy! Yes, thats really it. You wipe on one even coat, let it dry, and enjoy your deep black tires. Love your car.

Have a great day!

Aaron Botelho
~Aaron's Speed Shop

Aaron's Speed Shop Detail Bay V3.0

4/22/2019

Hey all, spent the weekend redoing my wash bay setup yet again. I'm continually finding little ways to improve it and have decided to keep as much stuff off the floor as possible. I was originally using these 4 section laundry bins for both clean and dirty towels. Initially I thought they were a great idea and they worked okay. Each section was removable and having a dedicated unit for clean and dirty was nice, but these took up a lot of room and seriously limited my capacity to see what rags I actually had clean or dirty, because I have way more than 4 different types. So over the last few months, I kept trying to come up with a better solution and finally settled on what may or may not be pretty industry standard. Sterilite 3 drawer plastic cabinets, commonly available at local big box stores. Now I want to recommend you look for as many different places to buy these online and compare prices, here in NH they were more than $5 cheaper each at walmart @$18.00ea. So when buying 4 of them like I did, thats as good as getting one free. I will post some pictures of the new setup soon.

I Finally Tried P&S Beadmaker!!!

11/30/2018

Hello Everyone!

It was finally time for the truck to get some protection from the elements, as winter had finally rolled in. Salt, sand, and whatever other raw elements of hell were about to be beating my paint into submission, and I wasn’t about to stand idly by. As a bit of an “old school” detailer of sorts, I am pretty skeptical about today’s (and yesterday’s) miracle coatings. I prefer nothing than spending a nice overcast afternoon in the driveway, rubbing on a nice heavy layer of carnuba wax. It’s like therapy to me. HOWEVER, even I can’t resist progress. So I decided I would give one of today’s modern coatings a try.
My truck is a 2018 Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport in cement Grey, with 5,900 miles on it. The entire nose, headlights, front of the mirrors, door edges, and tailgate edge are covered in Paint Protection Film. I put a coating of Chemical Guys Jet Seal on the truck back in May of this year, when I purchased the truck. As I expected, the Jet Seal didn’t hold up to the hype. It is an industry standard very basic, synthetic sealant. It is nothing like the avaiation industry sealants that are actually tested to be so slick, they can increase the efficiency of a jetliner. By this point, 6 months later, there was absolutely no sealant remaining in the truck. For all intents and purposes, the paint was bare. I washed the truck with Chemical Guys Stripper Suds because well, everyone loves the classic scent of Stipper. Then I wiped the car down with my own panel wipe mixture of IPA, Dawn, and Water. The paint was in very good condition with no visible flaws, chips, scratches, or other contaminants.

Ok, now I’m going to get this out of the way now. I did not correct the finish prior to applying Beadmaker. Yes, proper procedure would be to fully correct or at the very least, hit the paint with my Rupes and a OneStep polish of some sort to assure a clean surface, but I wanted this to be more realistic. Not everyone has a shop full of detailing tools at their disposal and I wanted this to be a little more of an honest review.

Application Method:

First step is to assure that you have 2 separate, good quality microfiber towels handy. One is going to need to be quite wet/saturated with Beadmaker, meaning you’ll need a fresh, dry towel to do the buff. Working one panel at a time, I sprayed a liberal amount of Beadmaker on my folded microfiber, then sprayed enough Beadmaker on the panel to get maybe, one or two runs down the panel. You don’t need to soak the panel, but don’t be shy, specially if this is your first application. Rub out (hehe) the Beadmaker and work it onto the panel in straight lines, making damn sure to cover the entire area you’re working with, wiping over it at least 5-10 times. No big pressure, no huffing and puffing. Just wipe back and forth over the whole panel 5-10 times. Let it sit for a minute or a little less to tooth and start to ‘cross link’ then wipe off. As easy as that. I will say this, for the first 10-15 minutes, my truck had a bit of a weird feel. Not quite tacky, not quite smooth. But being as how it was only 50 degrees in my shop, I feel this delay in the initial cure was my fault, not the product’s.

Initial Impression:

I will say this, after initial curing, the P&S Beadmaker is very slick. No, it’s not some new and never before felt texture. It doesn’t feel much different that when you first wipe off Meguiars Sythetic Sealant 2.0. BUT, what does seem to have happened over the first 12 hours is that it somehow got slicker. When I was done applying it last night, it felt good, but pretty ‘average’ for a standard sealant. This morning, it feels pretty nice. Like, the best sealant I’ve felt. Again, not like we’re rubbing a polished sheet of Teflon here. It just feels like really nice smooth, well protected paint.

Lets see see how it performs in the weather! Updates to come soon.

The Midship Rally, Site Updates, New Podcast and More.

6/19/2018

Welcome, welcome, AND welcome. Settle in. Lots of stuff to talk about.

Lets start this off with the First Annual Midship Rally on 08/05/20018. This is an ALL-MR2 rally and barbecue starting and ending in Concord, NH and our gracious host, Chris Wood's house. We will be meeting at Chris's place at 08:00 in the morning and going on approximately a 2 hour cruise through the NH mountains back to Chris's place for a barbecue and pool party. We are really hoping to get the MR2 community together every year, so lets have some fun!!

We've updated the photo's section to focus on cars we see at car shows and out and about. We also, added "The Projects" for somewhere to keep all of our own cars. Make sure to check back from time to time to see all the progress.

ANNOUNCEMENT : New podcast coming soon. Check for "The Car World" coming soon to iTunes and youtube soon!!

Track Day was a success

5/8/2018

Check out the latest pictures from last saturday's track day at Thompson speedway in Connecticut. More pictures and more updates to come soon.

Its a unicorn!! My new car!!

3/21/2018

This is my new to me 1993 Signal Yellow Toyota MR2 Turbo. I'm HYPED!!! Keep tuned to the youtube channel for the video of me picking it up in LA and driving it to Monterey to ship it home!!!

Holy Shit, a whole new direction and look!!

2/19/2018

Hey everyone, if there is anyone paying attention.
We've started to transition from being focused solely on skateboarding to being more heavily focused on performance arts and music. Don't worry, there will still be new skate videos here and there, BUT, music will definitely be our focus for the foreseeable future.

Aaron

Making New Progress

11/25/2016

Hey Folks,

Its the day after Thanksgiving and progress has started again here at #SkateFiction. I'm planning to edit several videos today including a Hadley Park highlights reel from the summer/fall of this year and a years end Red Alert Skateshop and Park edit. I have 40 shirts and sweatshirts to print and will be bringing out a new design along with a fully functional webstore for the 1st of the year. Keep your eyes peeled as I have added the first rider to our flow team and will be keeping my eye to the local parks to fill out the crew.

thanks for all your support!!!

Aaron B.
#SkateFiction

headed to boston for skatepark tours 10-15-16

10/15/2016