The weekend started with Friday night spent at Upper Penang Road for my first world cup experience (I'm not much of a football fan) with Tiger FC and their super huge screen.
Let me tell you from a non-fan perspective, even I was pulled into the moment as you can literally feel the tension and excitement of all the attendees there. The crowd was awesome as was the Tiger FC crew whom entertained us with a short dance during half time.

After a night of fun and a good nights' sleep, it was Saturday morning when I found this HUGE bee wandering about my room right as I was hanging up my towel from my morning bath.

I took it out with my specialist equipment... See below for pic of insect mass murder weapon! Did loads of errands, then cooked dinner (yes I cook.. I know...), then took in a swim and some gym time, and spent a wonderful evening at home with my girlfriend (cost saving for me and lovey-dovey time for her).

I returned to my parents' home to spend some quality family time with them and coaxed dad into having an Indian lunch with me. Wasn't hard work since dad is also a banana leaf kaki! We live in Tanjung Bungah so naturally, being a lazy Sunday afternoon, we visited Ananda Bahwan for lunch. Food was authentic and awesome! It's been a long time since I last had banana leaf and eating without utensils.

I visited Hyper Racing after work since I'd not been there in quite a bit and yesterday I aced the ISO audit for my company, so I got to leave early :) I was just talking to Soon at the back alley and thought to myself, "kinda reminds me of horsepower road (Sunway) backalley", sans supercars. Anyway, Silver needs a check-up and tune-up... Need to service rear brakes too. Haih... The pains of car ownership... But nothing feels as rewarding as driving a well maintained car for a long weekend out, which coincidentally Northern Touge will be having this weekend! Yay!

I came home for some swimming and met this little friend just by my door. A wonderful specimen of a moth complete with fern-like antennae and camouflage. Nice!

Have a great week ahead readers and check back next week for our road trip write up!

Of weekends past

I know.. I know.. I've been neglecting my blog again, BUT with fair reason! The past couple of weeks have been fun filled with activties and charities that I lost track of time. Let's flashback to two weeks ago...

I came home from a terrible day at the office to a comforting home made dinner of "bak chang" which are rice dumplings filled with a variety of savory items. What makes this special is that my grandaunt made them and there's no other taste like the taste we grew up with aye?
I then dropped by Hyper Racing to see Fer (I haven't seen him much since kicked off my current job) for a change in engine lubricant and to finally personally test out the Ultrex Ultimate (red) high temp pads.

These bad boys are the second highest grade in Ultrex's range of brake pads and I have to say kudos to them for an awesome product at VERY competitive prices. The initial bite and progressive feel of the pads are awesome after a very tedious bed in process. Lots of smoke and heat involved... I shan't go into that.

Fast forward to the next morning.. Don't worry... Of course touge sessions were compulsory to test out Ultrex's ultimate street pad (thumbsup).. and I'm sitting under a shroud of trees with my gal waiting for our Pan Mee breakfast. We ordered some starters (nyonya otak-otak and a dish of dumplings)...

Before the main attraction arrived to be deliciously devoured.

You can see from the expression (or lack thereof) how contented she was with the meal :P

The following week was spent with Chew Kongsi members (yes I'm a Chew [surname] and my family is steeped in traditions) performing charity at Relau's old folks' home whilst celebrating a 105yrs old man!!! Imagine that... I misplaced my file and am sorry I can't share his pic :(

We were then off to the Penang Snake Temple (which was my first time there believe it or not) for some sightseeing and fooling around with our reptilian buddies.

That dude actually KISSED a king cobra.... And I had only found out that its called King Cobra because not only is it large in size, it is also immune to other snakes' venom~!!! Awesome innit? After the very chatty fellow's reptilian lovin' the Chews duely adjourned to Balik Pulau for some local Durian at a personal estate. Imagine living here with a personal orchard in your back yard. Awesome!

Soon, Pin, Daniel and myself had an ad hoc (albeit VERY short) touge session before having a drink to finish off my wonderful weekend. Daniel's tires were not so fortunate and we had a keepsake to prove it :P

The usual suspects...

And then some...

Oops... I missed out on my wonderful dinner that my dear girl had prepped for me. She cooked toufu in savory sauce, pan grilled mackerel, daikon radish soup, and some tauge before my touge :P

I went home to my parents' on Sunday and caught a glimpse of my treadmarks on the pavement and thought to myself... I wonder how it'd feel to drive something with tires that would make those wide marks!?!?!?

Monday night was when I finally removed my Federal sponsor sticker (this was the largest one mind you... at 44".. albeit slightly trimed) for a new sponsor.

Hope I kept you, my dear readers, up to date... I'll see you all in the exciting months ahead. Northern Touge is planning a road trip in the coming weeks... Check back for more details!

Cheers and have a wonderful week!

Of friction and rotten smells

I recently sniffed a thoroughly unpleasant.. kinda "rotten" smell through the air conditioning system and thought my clutch pumps were leaking again. So I went over to see Fer for a check up. It so happens that clutch fluid was indeed leaking, but not from the pumps. A hole was found in the gearbox housing and many many hours of welding later, all was well and patched.

Since it was in the shop and gearbox was dismantled, I thought it wise to replace the almost-2-year-old clutch (which was soaked in fluid by the way) and repair my synchro whilst Fer was at it. Another dismantling of the gearbox for those reasons would've been costly.

Sadly, I've been sooo busy with work these past weeks that I've no photos (more lost memories) of the welding, clutch that went in and synchro repair :(

Just an update for the sake of updating. Cheers all!

Vios - Refurbished!

Soon has completed another "salivacious" car and its the ever popular Toyota Vios brought in by Joven's buddy. The car came kitted with a horrendous bumper and the full of gaps.

Soon brought upon himself to resolve the gap issues and satisfy his customer's requirements.

The bumper was re-made and most panels were remolded to close up all the "in-between" gaps.

Soon put in the final piece, the number plate, and the Vios was good to go. All this was of course brought to you by Hyper Racing with Soon's ever diligent craftsmanship.
After resolving most outstanding jobs, we were relieved and refreshed to take on a night's partying. It being Soon's birthday and all... We went to Khun Thai for wonderful thai delights.
Where the three stooges celebrated their birthdays together. The cake was specially made for us by our Northern Touge baker buddy, Sean.

Although stuffed, the festivities had to go on. So we continued at our usual drinking spot, d'Oasis. A few calls were made and all our buddies arrived... With Kenny being tardy, which he duely paid for the party!
Soon was feeling awefully artistic and decided to garble us a few tunes. Tall, dark and hairy Soon quickly gathered a flock of beautiful fans.

With an exceptionally affectionate individual taking to his broad shoulders! Hahaha...
An awesome end to a beautiful day. Cheers all!

I got Stiffer...

Adjustables that is... What were you dirty lot thinking? Believe it or not, these are my first set of proper shock & spring combo. I've always ran on cut springs, aftermarket springs and chopped absorbers, although I advise all others not to do so (I'm too cheap not to!).
Anyways, regards to Hyper Racing and HWL for kitting Silver with these awesome uprights!Fer fitted them in with the initial settings at mediocre everything and I went for a drive, but came back unappeased... So we (actually Fer did all the work whilst I blabbed away) readjusted and went for another test.

Was I satisfied? Look at the pic below and tell me what you think...

Off it all came and readjustments were warranted... We must've done this same process at least a billion times, bringing the system lower, higher, stiffer and softer... I know... I'm a real pain when it comes to stiffies but what else is there in a car?

I finally settled on what I felt is the best compromise for muar, and it was already late into the night so we bade farewell... And more adjustments after work today! Yay for me!

Soon Soon Bodykits

Ah Soon is officially in business and taking names... He'll be operating out of Hyper Racing located at Sunway Tunas in the Bayan Baru area. Here's pics of some of his handiwork...

Pak Li's Perdana widebody conversion.
Philip's beaut Toyota Corolla LE...

Along with all round skirts.

Daniel's low down monster.. Custom fabricated with some creativitiy and loads of passion.

Here's some earlier work which is a massive... and I do mean Massive Fiat.

Fer's Evo III with monster I/C mod fitting.

Soon's personal ride going through a mid-life crisis. Changing from Evo to Scooby.

And the man himself at work. Check out the diligence.

And if you're thinking this dude is outta touch, check out his latest project car. An Alfa Romeo 166 widebody with full bumper conversions.
And trust me, those tailpipes not only look great but sound awesome.

Feel free to ring him up at 012-5731161 for free consultation on your next autoshow exotica.

Wading through some CRD Multigrade

It's the festive season and activities (especially automotive induced ones) have ground down to almost a halt with everyone beautifying and keeping their rides in check for the festive season.

I've multiple parties asking about the sudden slowing down in my blog, and I'm glad to say that nothing much has changed, only that upgrading works have been going on and everyone is still progressing in their careers and automotive wise.

One such tale is that Hyper Racing has incorporated and providing bodykit services. From skirts to wings, bumpers to aero installs, and minor modification jobs to full fibre fantasy project cars. All fibre works will be done by Ah Soon (formerly from RABK, then at Mansion II), whom is already reknown for his craftsmanship and dedication to completing kits to your fulfilment.

There will be some more changes, so watch this spot for highlights after the Chinese New Year.

Silver banana goes stag!

Staggered fitments look great especially with some fat rubber and kickin' up some dust in the touge.

Looks like a kindergartener's asymmetrical drawing but I kid you not, these tires are just awesome! Sidewall is stiff as heck (should grip like mad when corner carving) and on road manners (noise) is completely bearable.

I got these awesome pups courtesy of the guys over at Hyper Racing. These are the rare Bridgestone Potenza RE070s (standard kit on the R35 and FD2R).This is the maximum size that'll fit under Silver's fenders. All geometrical movement is unhindered.

I'm still pending a set of suspension components then off I go for the tire test... Read back here for the report.