Eekay schmeekay... The Power of Dreams

I recently came across pics of this interesting looking Civic (EK model) which had an interestingly HUGE chunk of metal under its bonnet.
After some searching and endless scurrying around the entangled worldwide web of uploaded digital crap. I finally zero-ed in that this is a supercharged 3.2-litre V6 VTEC engine!!!

I got bored looking at Hondas with their plethora of K20 transplants and buzzing B-series revvers, this indeed is a refreshing and much welcomed oxymoron, albeit unorthodox mod.

I'm sure it'll handle like a piece of butter on a hot pan on track, but with that beautiful bodywork, and pulsating heart, I'll just kick back and smoke teens in their "rice rockets"~!!!

Northern Touge... Central Chapter :P

Our Central (Malaysia) Chapter members (che wah!) called up and told us they were coming up to Northern Touge HQ (Pg la of course) so Daniel (Touge Monk) made a few short calls to the fellows and we had a TT organized in no time.
As we were going to meet up, The Monk called up and relayed to us that Shaz (Blue Imp) was running on a steel to rotor brake setup. So Fer and I went on over to Northern Garage to get a set of pads for him and we met up to install these.
Fer, being his usual helpful self, installing the brake pads onto those beeautiful Brembo calipers with Shaz and better half looking on. Awesome! I want my brakes to grow up like those :P

This dude is what you call a driver... He's ran the paint off those rims! Check out the discoloration!!!

A couple of drinks and a simple photo shoot was in order as it was getting late and it was a weekday. Great times! We should definitely do it again.

(L-R): ScAvEnGeR, Raj (Yup.. He's the Merc!), The Monk (Civic EK), Blue Imp (DC5) and Short Fart (L200)

Great to see you again Shaz and sorry I didn't get a pic of you, Dinesh. And to Shaz, I hope you brought Aliaa for her beloved Cendol, you know there ain't nothin' like it is in Penang!

Cheers!

Lee's New Donuts~!!!

After a tedious and sweaty trip up North, scrounged and scavenged (pun intended) for a perfectly new set of donuts for Lee's (of Kiong Lee Exhaust) pristine B-series EK~!
Upon return, the excited bugger immediately took to installing these reknown track oriented tires and thus warranted a test drive! The dry handling was commendable (as expected) with superb road holding at the cost of noise and wet performance.
But the wear rate was just horrible, after just one run, the corner threads had started to wear towards the sidewall. Time for some extra camber methinks~! *evil thoughts*I can't wait to test them up my favourite bit of the uphill! Oooh... ~!!! The last time I tested with partially-worn AD07's up front, and balding ones in the rear, I managed to clock 120km/h uphill before braking hard into the tight right hander leading to the dam.

I wonder how these gumballs will improve that? Or will the retard in acceleration outweigh it's cornering advantage? *Grimace* I may get faster times, but slower clocked speeds.

Of stiff sticks and soft bounces!

It was on the 7th day of CNY and I was just having a lazy rested day in preparation for the working year ahead. I'm sure we'll all have to be as tough, hardworking and persevere as the Ox to survive the current financial plight :(

I got a call from Fer some time after lunch time and the Norther Touge fellows all met up at Tommax for a cock-and-bull session :) During which, Daniel had wanted to re-adjust his damping for some time now and I'd needed to take a look at some of the wirings on the Silver Banana. So we decided to grab the keys to RPM Autoworks and have a little DIY session with our guru Fer on the watch.

We arrived to a brimming workshop full of cars so since Daniel had the hardest task, his car was fully parked inside, and the Silver Banana was parked halfway rearwards in since I only had to look in the rear half. The supervisor-for-the-day of course, had his monster machine parked just outside.
Low and it's all show, no go! I was parked on a ramp... Just took the pic to check out how it looks if I invested in a set of pneumatic shocks.

Daniel set off to work on removing his dampers slowly but surely seeing that this would be his technical debut! He never DIY'd on his mechanicals before. Great effort bro!

As with all learners or first timers, supervision is warranted and I was only there to prop things up and to aid installation :P *I'm also the inpromptu camera-man mah!* (self redemption rocks!)

After a lengthy process and Fer working his magic on the new settings the car was lowered off the tripods and lo and behold! The Civic is a whole new machine...

Getting low is the theme of the day. If you're thinking wheel to fender clearance, its non-existant!

Of course, this warranted a touge run, so we proceeded to meet at a fav car wash since Daniel wanted to ge this car washed (to look clean and mean) where seatings were allocated and Fer was riding with Daniel to get feedback on the new settings whilst Mark sat with me for a little Touge 101. We blasted up the touge full on (since we'd been MIA since before the CNY) without a worry in mind and its enlightening how the drive through Penang's fav touge route clears ones mind!

I had a fantastic run, and Daniel was extremely happy with the new damper settings. His new settings were stiff enough to avoid unnecessary roll whilst keeping the bumps and dips in check. Mark had also improved a lot in the past few months, he was even able to point out to me the 2 mistakes I made on the way up!

Watch out world, Northern Touge is coming out yo!

Dan's new facade!

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon as we were all still super sleepy on account that we arrived home around 6a.m. and a couple of us had work that very morning. I on the other hand did not have work, but due to force of habit, I woke up by nine and was watching Transformers The Movie with a bowl of cereal.

Then off I went to get my car checked and to have lunch with Fer Fer (my mech). After which, Daniel had gotten off work and come by to hang out and Eujin came by to get his Kancil tinted. We were chatting away when Mansion II's boss called Daniel up to inform him that his EK's bumper had arrived.

Eujin hopped into my ride and we convoyed with Daniel to see his much awaited new facade. I use facade as his EK had a gentle front for the monster within! But now, all that is going to change... He's getting a meaner look to match its bite!

The new bumper matched up to the old frontage.
After much discussion and debate on how the rump was going to look, the ugly ass spoiler was removed and here's Dan taping up the holes for "waterproofing".Daniel was still unappeased by the proposals and were looking East to Japan and Taiwan for inspiration.
Lookit the level of concentration, matching picture to actual feature (pun intended!).
Soon always had great ideas and after a few proposals, brother Dan was happy and went merrily on his way to rest for another night of un-sleep!

Tuesday night touge.

I was extremely distracted at work yesterday because I did not get my weekly touge fix as I had matters to attend to last weekend. I went to Tommax Stickers after work and met up with Daniel and we immediately made an appointment with the TB route. While we chatted, the heavens decided to pour on us but not enough to dampen our exhilaration.


It was eleven p.m. and Daniel and I met up at the Tun Sardon lookout point for a smoke whilse we wait for Patrick and Raj whom have also decided to join us for touge.


Everyone had arrived and warming up for the touge.
From left - right: Daniel (EK), ScAv (Perdana), Patrick (Satria), and Raj (Satria R3).



We had a fairly good run through the reverse course and we all stopped by the dam gates to cool off the drivers and their machines. I had some icy cool menthols to share around... Nice...



It was getting late and we all had things to be attended to early morning so we took leave shortly and most of us did the forward course below 10mins. Not bad on a damp course! We'll try to hit under 9.30mins next time :)


Cheers guys and thanks for the company!

p.s. Here's Patrick's blog : patricksohai.blogspot.com