High Times 071008 ... Decisions... Decision...

Despite Daniel still being full of alcohol from drinking 4 days in a row (his b'day ma, and he gots lots of VERY persistent friends), Ah Soon being busy with work, and Mark was feeling a little under the weather (prob. from anziety... Bitch!), High Times had to be conducted without fail, miss, or delay!

So after a simple dinner, we all met up at Mansion II, where Soon now works, as he is still busy introducing customers' cars to his hand-held grinder! (What-a-job erh? Scratch up cars and still get recognition for it)

Seated at the "customers' lounge" :P
With our "poison" for the night...
Daniel was just hungry for a lickin'!
Samurai prepping his katana embedding stance!
Soon being "hard-at-work" :P After a couple of drinks, Chris arrived and we detoured to the nearby "Golden Ore" coffee shop so that Soon could have his din-din.
The, by now, very relaxed group.
Definitely very relaxed... Except that his eyes are still "roving"! One's got to keep a lookout right?... Right?

It was also on this fine night that our bro Mark had decided to start his project car after only two trips up the Teluk Bahang touge! I made some calls and had a sweet catch for him shortly. Watch for updates :D

I tell ya, that route is just intoxicating!!! I've not met anyone that has not been enthralled by it thus far... Let's go for a run! ;)

Chris has got massive new pipes!

Recently, Chris had been complaining and lamenting on how his turbo'd engine sounds so dreary and silent. This is so as there's a turbine (duh!) blocking the exhaust flow and it acts as the largest resonator (sound dampener) in the entire exhaust system.

We tried to install the muffler I used on my Pooh previously, but to no avail... His VR4 was still silent as night. So I was just running this idea through my head and I concluded that sounds are essentially vibrations, and the more vibrations there are, the more sound there'll be! So I went shopping around for a length of 3" stainless steel pipes as Chris' engine flows a lotta gas outta its ass! It's super difficult to find these as normal exhaust shops do not carry these as they're expensive to stock and even steel gate fabricators hardly work with such a large size.

Ah Kiong from Kiong Lee and I had quietly taken his car away whilst he was working and started the install without him knowing :)

Here are some pics after the install... We'd given him a stainless steel (SST) plate to go along with the new SST pipes :)

Sweet lookin' huh?

Once he got off work, Chris came by Tommy's place where we'd parked his car. As usual, he walked around and started smoking... Being impatient, I went to start his engine but to no avail... Then he realised that his VR4 was actually making loud bangs and growls!

Here's the man checking out his beaut twin 3" stainless steel pipes!

Top view:
Rear - straight on:
Side view:
However, we had a little trouble finding placement for the plate and Kiong had to go back to his shop to attend to business... So we waited a while for me to finish off my "Gaya.Mutu.Keunggulan" and off we went to Kiong's shop for him to decide.

A final position was decided upon and the plate was stuck there with 3M double sided tape.

It required the name plate to be bent slightly along the curvature of the bumper. But it still looks great!

Watch out for this NA sounding turbo monster at a street near you! *blek* (I enjoy superlatives)

Water bane and soggy pistons

In these times of erratic weather, I'm glad that our fair land is blessed with a monsoon season every third quarter. There are those however that dread this season of heavenly cool and shower. One such person is Tommy of Tommax stickers.

You see, Tommy had mounted a direct cold air intake from his throttle body right down to the bumper. So you can imagine the catastrophe when monsoon comes and he runs over a puddle! This exact scenario was enacted last Tuesday and Tommy had successfully blown/drowned his 4G15 :(
However, not one to be discouraged, he gave the thumbs-up for a rebuild by Wednesday and work commenced throughout the weekend with much sweat and grime.
Yesterday was the unveiling of his new, improved and super clean engine. Chris (Fer Fer) as usual, did some final adjustments to the tappets (rocker arms for you automotive types out there) and we were ready to rumble... But it poured on us, so we went for a slow drive and eventual dinner.

Check out his super-duper clean engine, the engine oil had been running in (whilst testing) for 2 days and it still looks crystal clear!
Close-up pic of the rocker arms.

Congrats Tommy on the great rebuild and we'll see you at the touge soon ;)

p.s. Readers : Chinese 7th month almost over liao! Can't bear my excitement~!!!

Audio and gearknobs.

I had an impromptu TT with the 4GTuner community yesterday evening. I arrived at Tommy's shop to find that Kong (Super_White) had already arrived and was at Chris' place to fix up some alignment woes on his Wira MIVEC. We chatted a bit and Kong had to meet up with a friend before the TT, so he'd left and I went to pick up my pal's audio car from his shop for some listening pleasure and further tuning (Chris can tune anything that's on a car).

I walked opposite to Smart Tint to pick up the car and as Kiong handed me the keys, he told me to beware of hard-hitting bass! Dang! I was soooo excited...

This is Kiong's ride and soon-to-be Smart Tint audio car!

Vanity shot, but heck... It's my blog... So humor me :P

(L-R) Sanjev's red monster, old man's van, Kiong's Persona, Chris' Wira VR4, some unknown cars and at the bottom of the pic is Kong's Wira MIVEC.
(L-R) Audiophile, Touge-phile :P , and Wangan-phile... Bwahahaha... Just more vanity shots... Dang I love holding a camera.
Lookit what's peeping out from the trunk.
It's a rearward mounted monster sub.
The location and enclosure is still in the making, but we couldn't wait to fire it up!
Interior is well stripped to lay down wiring and controls.
The infamous Chris you'd all been hearing me rave about. This fella can tune anything related to cars! Suspension, engine, audio... You name it! *Thanks bro for all the help over the years*
Powering the speakers and subs are the trinity of amps located in the trunk space.
A monster Rodek amp to get the sub pumping.
Gold emblem... Oooh.... Shiny...And two Autocraft amps to run the speakers. One for front stage, and one for the rears.
Can't really see ler... I was using Kong's flash and my camera for combo effect :P
The owner Kiong (Left) with the tuner Chris (Right) in front of the would-be-demo-car. Sorry for the poor lighting, both of them wanted to stay "slightly anonymous".
All of us parted ways to bathe and freshen up. Then we met up again around 11p.m. at Tommy's shop for a gearknob TT. We were either changing, swapping, or polishing our knobs (pun not intended). We had much banter and eventually "yum cha" until 1a.m. I got sleepy and we all left for home.

Installed!

After much anticipation... My twin pot brakes are installed and running.

I'd decided to use it as it is, since Chris checked it out to be ok, and do without servicing. Ran in the brake pad-rotor contours and had a blast up the Batu Feringghi touge last night to test them out.

Performance thus far is still dull, I suppose they're still running in. But the pedal feel is getting better and better so I guess its not long to go before I can touge all out! I miss the touge indefinitely... Although, I have to say, the calipers stayed cool to the touch even after a hard drive. These buggers are the shiznit! (got the cliche off an old movie :P)

Here's how they compare to my old discs. Psst... The rusty ones are my "new" discs.

And this is how it looks installed within my 17". I have to say, I love the "fullness" it brings, about how it fills out the wheels.
Due to my excitement and bouncing around during installation and cracking stupid jokes with Tommy, I didn't get many pics. I hope these suffice.

This was a mod based on need rather than want... (My old discs cracked, and another set warped and FUBAR). Just sad that I had to spend so much on this item. I hope it'll be worthwhile. Will get to know this weekend... *sly smile*

Monday night excursion(s)!

Yesterday (Monday) evening, I'd met up with Tommy to have a short chat on my way back home. Then Chris (my mech) showed up and told me the twin pot brakes are ready to be transported, thing is, I've to be the transport :P

So I'd waited with Tommy at our usual yum cha place, Fantasi Nasi Kandar, whilst Chris got himself prepped and waiting for his contact to call us up. Outta the blue, Akihito-chan (Edison) showed up in his soupped up Satria to join us for drinks and a good laugh. Then Chris called me up to fetch him as its time to go across Pg bridge to get my brakes. Sanjev had arrived as I was leaving (sorry fella) so I'd said my goodbyes coz it was getting late and I was too excited for my 2-pots!

We took a relaxing cruise across Penang Bridge and met up with Chris' contact near 99 (huge auto accs. shop in BM) for a drink and dinner, then got my calipers and rotors off him. It was 11+p.m. by then so we bid him farewell and took leave.

I dropped Chris back for a good rest coz he's an installation to do tomorrow :P And I went home beaming with joy...

I was too excited... So here are some teaser pics from last night... Hmm... I wonder how they'll perform... Pads still look new... Cost saving! :P

The rotors still looked beee-yooo-ti-fulll under all that rust. It was very even with minor deep scratches.

Twin pot kommen!

Yay! My super mech Christopher had found me a good set of twin pots and am waiting anxiously for their delivery. Chris had promised to service whatever is necessary before the installation.

I hope they perform as good as I hear they do :P

Thanks to all my friends for all your effort in hunting down this item for me. The tedious search is finally over.

Hope to get them installed by this weekend and it'll be time to touge!!! I missed Teluk Bahang soooo much... I hadn't been up the touge in at least a month... Started to get calls this week di, lotsa friends kaki gatal liao! (You know who you are!)

Thanks again guys. Cheers!d

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.