SRT-8 Daytona Clone

So time for some wet sanding and some polishing. I asked everyone I knew who has done this and got plenty of conflicting advice but I boiled it down to this. I bought the Meguires 1500 grit wet sand paper because I had read that the difference between it and lower cost papers was that it had garnet or abrasive on it that was uniform in height. Seems that on some of the cheaper papers the abrasive can have peaks and valleys and the peaks can cause some deep scratches. The stuff is great though and cut pretty nicely. Some people told me to go right into buffing from the 1500 but I was also advised to get the 3000 hook it pads for the DA. The thinking is that after the hand sanding the random orbital would even out the surface and act almost as a first buff. It did cut down on the buffing time for sure. It was pricey at $8.00 a pad but definitely worth it. Next there were a number of finishing buffing compounds to choose from but the one that came the most highly recommended was the 3M Perfect It system which came with three compounds and three dedicated buffing pads. I can say it was worth the money. Finally I gave in and bought a decent buffer as the one I had was a little jinky.