Dreaded Damping Deficiency

After querying myself in my previous post on my automotive year that was 2009, it seems my dampers will again need to be revised in order for me to improve and advance. Why do I mention this? Well, allow me to elaborate...

Of late, I keep feeling a loss of traction when powering out of corners and initially, I thought that a better set of tires would be a good upgrade to keep traction in check. However, as I am now running a set of Eagle RS on loan from Fer, I'm still experienceing traction loss when powering out. I had to delve deeper into the recesses of my driving style and instead found that my entry speed is too slow resulting in me powering out of corners well before the apex.

I enter late into corners and at speeds much less than I can afford. This sort of driving is safe for the street as entering late allows me to see much more of the road ahead and lower entry speeds means much more room for error if any were to arise. I guess my driving is a result of self-cultivation in keeping a broad safety margins that are well within my limitations. Why risk anything during touge right? After all, I am supposed to be enjoying myself.

That having been said and resolved as an issue with my driving style, another pending issue that needs to be dealt with is that my suspension is bottoming out at certain corners. Now bottoming out is not a good thing as it promotes massive loss of control over vehicular dynamics. I've delved into this topic a couple of times myself and every answer I come up with requires me to uprate my suspension damping rates.
However, I feel adamant at increasing damping rates as my car is a daily driver and I'm quite comfortable as it is now. But on the other hand, one cannot improve unless changes are made, and I for one understands that changes are imminent, just a matter of "when"? With this future increment in damping, braking will also be improved as energy is not lost to vehicle dive. Not to mention that with this increase in damping rate, I'll also save up on revising the anti roll bar upgrade and bushings replacement I was having planned this year. So I'll be killing two birds with one stone innit?

Having said a whole lot in this post, I will still be touge-ing with this setup as it feels like these dampers are still going strong (congrats on the good job Fer) with plenty of life left in them and are still plenty adequate for the fun drives up touge!

p.s. All pics are for illustration only. Dun try this at home kids :P

Wed night, wet run

My main man (mech) Chris called me up at work yesterday, asking me to leave the Silver Banana with him as he wanted to do up the absorbers. As usual, I'll meet him for lunch and leave the car with him and I never know what he wants to do or how he does it. No matter, as long as the function suits me, I'm fine :P


Anxious as a kid a day before visiting Disneyland, I invited Daniel (Civic) and Ah Ti (Kenari) to join me for the touge and of course Chris came along to see the results of his tuning. Daniel for one never says no to a touge run.

We all met up at the Shell station at the base of the touge and sadly, Daniel was en route from a party and without his trusty steed so he rode with me while Chris and Ah Ti pursued in the Kenari. We took it relatively slow seeing that we just had torrential rain.

We went for a non-stop run from Jalan tun Sardon all the way till the Teluk Bahang dam gates where we stopped by for some photos and some chit-chat.

I have to say that Chris' damper settings were fantastic and body roll had been minimized greatly. The front bump and rebound was good for the way I drive. Although I felt that the rear rebound was a bit too harsh but it was in fact great for the twisties. Good job Chris!

Here are some slick photography by Ah Ti in amber lighting using his Nokia N80. Sweet!

touge.com.my/forum - A great bunch of guys and a team I'd back anyday. Miss you fellas! Will see you guys soon at TT or in the touge ;)
As Daniel was getting a lesson from Chris in the ways of the audiophile, Ah Ti and myself were puffing ourselves silly on Marlboro lights. It was getting VERY late and so we hurried down past Batu Feringghi and arrived safely home around 3.30a.m.