Apprehensible anxiety and amiable angst

I'm hyped for the coming road trip tomorrow... It's always exciting going out in groups and visiting hometowns of the company we keep and getting to know their local fare. Awesome... This time we, the Northern Touge group, will be visiting Cameron Highlands (first time for me) and having a weekend vacation there. We hope to visit members' hometowns and to check out the roads along the way.

This'll be the first time Silver would be up to such a high altitude.

I'm feeling so anxious and pumped or this trip... Can't wait to start taking pics of the trip :)

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!

Auto City Carnival (part2)

Finally, the piece de resistance, Soon's masterfully crafted DTM lookalike Alfa Romeo 156 which looked every bit the part along with Dekra stickers and the works! In the pic also is the man himself... Mr. Hyper Custom... Ah Soon~! Look at him beaming all over... But dun ask me why he's grabbing his balls :P

The ever supportive Toms Stickers were present and helped install some eleventh hour decals.

Even the lovely beauties were attracted by the winking Alfa that they couldn't resist raring their rears to it. Soon got some lovely pics of them and some with him as well. Lucky b@stard!

The Alfa clinched the first prize and Soon returned home with the Champion trophy that night. Congratulations and all the best with the next project Soon~!!!

Cheers~!!!

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!

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!

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.

Refreshed, Revised, and Reeeally Fun

"R3?", you read??? I could only imagine Proton's "heffer-of-a-car", the Perdana, being improved by Proton's R3 division. But heck, I just couldn't resist using this title/connotation, with all the "R" abbreviations in our daily automotive banter. A summary and continuation from my Cuore Sostituzione posting, Silver (as the Silver Banana will now be known) has been refreshed with a new breath of life, running on a revised heart and it truly is much more fun to drive.


The old heart sitting at RPM, tired and weary.
With a failing crank and trouble breathing, Silver was refreshed by RPM with a 4G63 DOHC that promises gains in more ways than one. The initial "drop-in" was completed in a hardly believable day (since everything is plug and play), with the wiring taking just another day to complete.

Here's Chun and Joe checking out the head after opening it up in god knows how long.
It still looks "ponna" clean with no residue or gunk to be seen anywhere.

I'm not one for painted valve covers... So I got down to stripping the paint with some paint stripper and Joe did the finer crevices.

The valve cover all shiny and.. er... blank!

I got this awesome Mitsubishi strut bar from a buddy in Sg. Petani. Fits like a glove, and I ain't seen anything like it before.

Engine hoisted up and locked down.

An original Mitsubishi oil cooler came with the engine, so heck, anything that comes with, goes with right? So Joe hooked it up without a single hitch.

The DOHC sits in nicely with loads of room for them to work, still.

Here's Chun doing some final inspections and prepping for the initial crank. Some simple maintenance was done to ensure everything was running smoothly and off we were for tuning!

This is my first experience going for an on road tune and Fer (my mech) offered to drive whilst Mael (my tuner) did all the fiddling on his device. I just sat back and enjoyed as they pulled gear through gear en route. First round of rough tuning were completed and I was told to putter around to feel and feedback on lacking areas.

Finally, here's a pic of Silver at Kiong Lee to revise the piping diameter as the engine is suffocating from the stock exhaust system from 14yrs ago. Honest! I'm not really one for changing pipes. Kiong removed a restrictive resonator and retained the stainless steel reflective one (yes, I run 2 for noise reduction), and a new 2.2" pipe was installed in its place up front. Bring the noise!
Touge sessions were inevitable to test out Silver's new and hefty heart and how it would affect handling and control. After just an initial session, I found that acceleration has been much improved and I needed to increase the amount of steps in my throttle control to reign in the wheelspin mid-corner.
After 3 weeks of driving Silver, I can't wait to book Mael for my next tuning session with him for fine tuning and hopefully improved driveability and fuel efficiency. Not that I'm complaining though, I'm getting gobs more power (esp. torque) and only 2cents more per kilometre. I guess hitting 2 out of 3 of my initial targets (referring to the Cuore Sostituzione post) ain't that bad. Now I just gotta wait it out to see how the durability of this lump holds out.

I'm just loving this new lump of metal right now as its a whole new bag of tricks and I just can't perform enough to match it. Time to tighten up my lines and increase the level of pedal control.

Cuore Sostituzione

I had the title inspired by Alfa Romeo's "Cuore Sportivo", because a 155 drove by just as I was cracking my head for the title. It means, replacement heart, if you were just to wonder.

Anyway, the Silver Banana had been having heart problems since last year and it was just financially unfeasible to do anything at then until things eventually got worst and its now failing on me. Sadly, the SOHC 4G63 in the Silver Banana is a faithful and strong workhorse that lugged me to and through many places and faces that its sad replacing it.

But on the other hand, change, like death is just imminent and inevitable and I guess I'll just have to embrace it for what it is. My Silver Steed will no longer be the same once the transplant is complete, but like every change, I can only hope for the better and hope all's well.

If you're wondering, initially I planned on dumping a 4G63 DOHC "kosong" into Silver's bay. Targets and aims for this little project will be durability, efficiency (in hopes of fuel conservation - I know y'all need more, so I'm saving up :P) and improved driveability.

I'm hoping to hit at least 2 out of 3 of these targets. Wish me luck!

Clearvue - A screen replacement story

My old and battered windscreen (as much as I'd loved it) was just too beaten and had finally given way to the forces of granite impacts. I called up my agent and had him arrange the paperwork for a speedy replacement.
So Scav paid a visit to Yan Kee in Jln P. Ramlee for the works, they're the most acclaimed (super fast and clean install) "glass people" (they deal in any automotive glass replacement) there is in Penang.

A look at the shop with contact details clearly written on the signboard. I was the first one there and since there was not many customers around, the boss had time to chat and clarify my doubts on windscreen care and other urban myths.

His well trained staff only took half an hour to remove and re-install my windscreen. As seen in pic, work was done with care and precaution.

The new windscreen looks awesome. I have no words to explain how much the night driving experience has improved.

Since I got a new windscreen and all, I went all out to replace the old (never replaced since I got the car, but still working fine) wipers for a smashing new set of silicone blades. These babies need to be give a couple of dry wipes to coat your glass in a thin layer of silicone and all else is history.