Ya Would If Ya Could

As I'd promised, further updates are in order after the month long slow down in my blogging. Without further ado, I'll kick off our list of activities that you know ya would if ya could!

Leng got us a sweet deal to celebrate in a VIP room at a friend's joint. The place was huge with awesome facilities. Everyone was hyped up for the celebration... But who's that in the background?
Being the ever dedicated mech and workaholic, Fer was using the free internet access to search out some tech specs whilst we partied outside.

Kai Xing was having a ball on stage along with our dancer for the night...

Mr. Daniel "the horny" Civic!Cake cutting is always warranted no matter the location, and being the dedicated people us Northern Touge kakis are, we even included our sponsors list in this pic.

Leng was our silvertongue for the night... This dude could belt it out all night and still keep his voice! Kudos buddy!

During the CNY holidays, Soon had already opened shop to kit an Innova as his initial customer depsite the festivities.

Beautiful job done... Note the red crackers still on the ground as part of the Chinese festive tradition.

A spoiler was later added to complete the look.

Soon was still doing final checks on fit and finish as we were closing up. Diligence ultimate!

On the fourth day a bunch of us decided to have an auspicious touge + makan2 trip in the afternoon. As usual, we met up at Relau Shell, whom graciously allowed us to park and pose for some pics.

We then pushed off for the first stop at the peak of Jln Tun Sardon where we met up with an old friend from Balik Pulau (Blue KE70) and to get some refreshments and "jeruk" (pickled fruits).

We then traversed Balik Pulau and on to Teluk Bahang, through all the beautiful scenery and ending up at the Tropical Fruit Farm for some ice kacang and rojak. Plus, the scene there was awesome and the atmosphere serene.

After a refreshingly relaxed pit stop, the gang continued downward to the Teluk Bahang dam for a photo op.

It was a bright and sunny day out so I thought WTH, why not take a silhouette pic with all the beaut water and scenery surrounding us.

We ended the trip with Daniel (Civic), Soon (Wira GSR), Ewejin (Satria GSR), and Kenny (Wira 4G91) going for a cooling dip in the beach just down the road. Leng (KE70) and Pin (Wira 4G91) traversing back through the Balik Pulau way, and Fer, Joven (Wira GSR), and myself going for a light dinner before leaving for home.

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An awesome end to an awesome Chinese New Year. I'm now back in the office... So happy working all! Cheers!

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!

Fly like an Eagle!

I'd experienced massive undulations and a whole lot of vibrations the past couple of weeks since I got my car and something was just not right. However, I soldiered on until the instability of the tire got quite dangerous, especially in light of current weather conditions (Malaysia has its monsoon season during its third quarter, or July to September)

So I drove on over to Fer's place (Chian Soon Tires right behind Kayu Nasi Kandar and Kiong Lee at Bukit Jambul) to have my tires checked. Tire pressures were all spot on... but upon removal, the threads were worn all the way through and I was already driving on the thread markers and my tires were already bulging (the worst condition). Fer got me an excellent deal for the Goodyear Eagle F1's, his shop is one of the largest Goodyear dealers in Penang. As the Eagle F1's have been rated and reviewed to be the best wet handling tire on the market, and our current weather, I grabbed at them hot off the bench.

I was just observing the difference in thread depth between the two, and the disadvantages of running a heavy car rears its (figurative) ugly, rubber consuming head. I just love the aggresive thread design... Dang, the thread looks awesome!
After driving around a while, I found that these tires are indeed a great all rounder with excellent grip in the dry and unbelievable grip in the wet, very progressive loss of traction, not as much road noise as my Kumhos and fantastic high speed stability (110km/h in a straight line of course).

Plus line tracking (tracing) and all round stability was up from the Kumhos.There's no doubt as to why it outranked all other tires as an all round performer on multiple independant tire tests.

Two thumbs up from me!!!

Silver gone Black!

I woke up to a gloomy, rainy Saturday morning and I just sat by Silver with a good cup of java for company. Under the incandescent lighting, with the droning sound of rain splatter, and caffeine early in the morning, the play of light on Silver's pearly paint just struck me that the wheels are too dang shiny in all its hyper-silver glory. A re-paint then!

Off I went to RPM, paint and masking tape in one hand, and sandpaper in the other, we were going to initiate the re-paint. Here's a picture of the all shiny rims in hyper silver.
And this is after a mild scrub using the industrial grade paper my buddy hooked me up with. Super efficient with water, the abrasives keep going on and on. I only used a 3"x6" strip to finish off scrubbing all 4 rims.

This is a close up of the scrub marks. Check out the spokes, all the lacquer and paint is gone!!!

Scrubbed down, scratched up and cleaned with Fab.

Then air dried to void contaminants and particles from the surface.

I did the masking job to prevent overspray and to maintain the perfectly polished lip.

Front rims were sprayed and proceeding to mask and spray the rears.
Fer doing all the spraying. He has amazing control of the spray cans in small areas. I swear he could be a graffiti artist in some past life.
The painter double checking all his fine work then the finishing touches will be layered on.

Fer doing the second layer of black which is also the third layer of paint if you count the undercoat.
Finally, the fruit of our 2 hour labor was a super shiny finish and all this was done in rainy weather! Sweet!

I then met up with Soon to see how he was doing with his project Scooby. He's doing all the re-wiring and minor adjustments on his own during free time. R-E-S-T-E-C-P.

We finished off a wonderful day of cooling weather, DIY projects and wonderful company with a Teochew dinner at Sunway Tunas.