Many people might not know this but Satria Neo is the only
Proton that was fully developed in Lotus headquarters UK. It has achieved an exceptional
body rigidity along with fluid suspension setup making the car genuinely nice
to drive. Now, imagine it being turned up to eleven, that is what you will feel
driving this Satria Neo Clubsport. To me, this is closest thing we could have to
Proton GT3. And here I’m going to tell you why and how.
This car comes with considerably chequered history. I bought
it from my good friend who back then bought it from his friend. It wears number
18 out of 20 with total production of 18. Confusing? Yes, it is because they
skipped no. 4 and 13 avoiding unnecessary bad luck. All 18 of them did
participated in one make races for a year before hibernating in covered garages.
However as of today, I think there are only 6-8 being kept to road worthy
condition as the rest might have gone rouge chasing after perfection in Sepang.
To be honest with you, I did not plan to get this car at all.
Was looking at a car for my brother but I ended up test driving this instead of
him. A 10-minute test drive and 3 days of sleepless nights is enough for me to beg,
borrow and steel for it. My friend, no stranger in maintaining fleet of exotics
did a remarkable job in doing the restoration bits plus added much needed
performance boost with Sprintex supercharger kit, Haltech Sprint 500 ecu and
Mivec CK RS gearbox with 1-way full lock LSD.
If you can tolerate irritating clicking noise and occasion
tramlining from the LSD, this car is docile and fun enough for daily and
spirited driving. But, when the keys are with me, I subconsciously ended up
turning the volume even further. Everything we did centred around “responsive”
theme throughout the engine, steering, suspension and braking. And the end
result is a “road worthy” Satria Neo that does 2.45 consistently in Sepang
driven by novice driver like me. And if I can be even more honest, the car is
should do genuinely 2.42-2.43 given the right driver and conditions. That
ladies and gentlemen is the qualifying pace of average Satria Neo race cars.
I would like to start with the engine. We retained mostly stock
engine internals, gearbox and supercharger kit. Just to make it livelier, we
added in Matspeed 278 deg cams, Arospeed cam pulleys, Obuddy valve springs,
450cc injectors, DW200 fuel pump, Arospeed fuel regulator, K20 setup
coil-on-plug and drive by cable conversion with Works 70mm throttle body. R3
extractor also being retained but connected with a single mid box and 2.5”
piping mufflerless exhaust.
The drivability though is a little bit compromised as it
gets lumpy at low end. But Choman of DNT manages to push the power band upwards
and registers a healthy 178ps and 19kg of torque with maximum rev of 7.5k rpm. Looks
good on paper but even better when you drive it for real. The power delivery is
like a line that you can draw from nought till the rev limiter at 45 deg
straight. You will love the throttle response. The engine feels eager with raw
raspy exhaust note yet still feel true to its naturally aspirated roots. Just a
word of caution, you will definitely need a pair of noise cancelling earphone
to drive it on the street because it’s darn loud!
At 1,050 dry kerb weight, it is pretty light even with
non-chromoly 6-point roll cage. I went to Faidzil of Fawster to rebuild back
the R3 fitted D2 monotube coilovers with winning recipe. Spring rate is 10kg
front and 8kg rear. The front sits -4 deg (-0.5 toe) and rear -1.8 deg (+0.5
toe) where the ride height readjusted slightly for better crossing. I must also
add that the front lower arms were altered to accommodate in custom spherical bearings.
The power delivery is great but not the best thing about the
car. It is the driving dynamics. To begin with, you sit low and hugged like a
baby courtesy of the Recaro TSG and reworked seat mounting points. The lowest
of any Satria Neos. The combination from the steering, balance and impressive lateral
grip that makes you don’t want to stop driving it. With the spherical bearing on
the front lower arm, the steering is even more crisply weighted and gives you
almost millimetre response just after off-centre.
You could almost have the feel movement right down to the
steering’s tie rod end giving better understanding how much grip level you can
further extract from it. If you lift in the middle of the corner, the rear will
step out just like how performance front wheel drive should be. Going towards
T5 and T6 of Sepang, the car can go in at 130 and exit at 132-135 kmh gps. And
in the middle of it you might be touching 140 because you don’t lift, you rely
the dynamics of the chassis and suspension to rotate with minimal steering correction
at the exit. One of the places it shines the most.
Even the suspension is being setup focus for track application,
surprise-surprise the damping over our infamous roads is almost compliant. If
for some reason you “jump” over slight crest, the suspension able to control lift
and lands smoothly with single compression and rebound and regain back its composure
almost immediately. Something close to that you get from Ohlins DFV. It is
weird really because we never get the same feeling in my brother’s Satria GTi
with the same set of D2 coilovers. Perhaps the stiffer chassis in this Neo CS
works better with high spring rate than GTi.
Brakes. Ok, I went a little bit more crazy on this one. The
car initially comes with Ferrodo DS2500 pads which works well in all conditions,
but I needed a bit more bite and resistance against fade. I tried to make
custom order for Endless CCRG pads that works with stock calipers. But unfortunately,
I was left hanging for a month by both local dealer and maybe Endless
themselves. But it was Christmas comes early when another good friend offered
me brand new Endless 4 pot BBK at the price that I shouldn’t say no, and couldn’t
say no.
To get it to fit, we need to fabricate new brake brackets,
ARP wheel studs, 20mm wheel spacer and new wheels with larger inner barrel.
Sought help from GME Racing, well known fabricators for a pair of cool custom
brake ducts. Endless has awesome stopping power and consistent enough to cope
of 80m threshold braking for T1 every single time. But modulation feel needs
improving, I always struggle to put in as much pressure on it without locking
the front wheels. This is something I learn the dark side of BBK that many don’t
realized or be bothered. Aesthetically, Endless with RE030 replica, Yoko A050 and
flushed upfront is just aces.
It is coming to 3 years of ownership and I have been often
asked, how much have been spent and is it really worth it. Hmm you know I do
keep everything recorded in my spreadsheet and the numbers are scary and
dumfounded. Yes, beyond any doubt, this is my money pit. It is true, I could go
for latest and greatest and be miles ahead but there is something about driving
mechanical car in this digital world that gives you bundle of joy.
Perfection is a moving goal post. There is always something
to explore, something to try and something to improve. It is a keeper and
together with the right people, we plan to continue with development journey
with clear target in mind. 2.41 scorecard, immersive driving experience and comfortable
enough for commuting to office and business meetings. And like I said in the
beginning, this is the closest thing we could have to Proton GT3 and to stay
true to R3 motorsport roots.
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