Shakedown Drive on H&R Monotube Coilovers

I’ve got the car from FA Racing last Tuesday and this morning was the best time to conduct little bit of shakedown drive from Ampang – Hulu Langat – Kuala Kelawang – Pertang – Manchis – Karak – Gombak which roughly amounts to 250kms.

Putting aside that it was raining in the early morning that resulted the asphalt surface kinda icy slippery, I was definitely grinning from ear-to-ear revisiting old awesome roads with finally an almost well sorted Pocong. Here’s some excerpt I can give-away for the moment:-

• FA Racing has setup the car to be easy to drive hard and pretty much planted throughout hundreds of turns.
• Quicker and crispier turn-in with much much tighter steering feel allowing almost alienating or masking the chubby front engine’s weight.
• Virtually extremely small roll angle at turns but in it’s there nevertheless just only being delayed making it nippy like a supermini should.
• If I got too gung-ho into corner entry or mid, a mild lift-off is all it takes to get it tightens like a good FWD car should…talk about throttle steering at corners :)
• Because of sorted geometries, ride height and corner weighted; the tyres require less psi and that resulted in much much compliant ride …. and I dare say feels better than stock!

Of course, the suspension setup would be ‘work in progress’ as I’m gathering some requests to address my driving preference to be factored in but all in all I see RM700ish of expenditure to FA Racing as bang-for-buck investment, after all suspension tuning know-how is a “black-art” to me at least :)

The route...

Motorists kindly give-way, shakedown in progress lol

Some rough patches but the car rides just fine

Some straight stretches allowing Pocong to stretch its legs

Nice flowing turns after another

I see you..

Gotchaaa!!

Throttle-steering is pretty wicked

Because of lacked of cars, both ways are at my disposals hehe

Roll angle is there nevertheless just only being delayed making it nippy like a supermini should

H&R Monotube Coilovers

As you know, the current SuperSport dampers has reached its EOL and replacement is inevitable. Instead of going through the same route of short stroke dampers again and again, I've decided to bite bigger bullet for this H&R Monotube Coilovers and it's finally here courtesy of Speedzone. The price offered by them is well almost the same offered by most of my regular online websites, and yeah it's no brainer really not to go for it. And I'm still banging my head that I should have gone for this in the first place years back!

Part Number: 29379-2 (9N3 GTI)
Dampers Construction: Inverted Monotube.
Damping Adjustable: No. 30% stiffer fixed damping from factory. No mentioned of spring rates.
Ride height adjustable: Yes. As much as 20-50mm front and 20-60mm rear.
Rebuildable: Officially not serviceable in here.
Front Spring Rate: Not known, Rear Spring Rate: Not known.
Top Mounts: Use back the stock rubber top mounts.
Price: RM4k landed

Finally after a month of waiting :)

The package with ever willing non-payable model lol

It's inverted monotube alright

Unofficially, the dampers made by Koni

90k kms service

With the car’s mileage approaching 90k kms, another major service is imminent. This time around, the refreshment job was ‘contracted out’ to two of my regular workshops 1) Auto World Service & Repair; and 2) Ever Auto. Both are good in their own way and among the very few that I can leave Pocong without worries. Here’re the breakdowns of my bitter pills:

Engine Oil: Liqui Moly Top Tech 5w40 RM275.00
Oil Filter: VW 1.8T (06A 115 561 B) RM35.00
Labour: Engine Oil, Oil Filter & Spark Plugs RM80.00
Bushing: ECS Rear Axle Bushing Kit RM252.64
Brake Pads: ECS Red Stuff (Front) RM0.00
Brake Pads: ECS Red Stuff (Rear) RM205.91
Spark Plug: NGK Platinum V-Power BKR7E RM50.00
Coolant: Redline Water Wetter RM55.00
Brake Fluid: Motul Dot 4 RM44.00
Thermostat: Wahle 82 Deg Thermostat RM61.59
Labour: Axle Bushing Pump RM25.00
Labour: Installing Radiator Thermostat RM45.00
Labour: Skimming Brake Rotors RM50.00
Labour: Installing Rear Axle Bushings RM280.00
Labour: Installing Brake Pads & Brake Bleeding RM80.00

Total RM1,585.06

And that’s going to be the end because I’ve found out that the SuperSport dampers are getting weaker by the day. So coilovers are inevitable and now I’m at cross road between BC V1 or H&R Monotube Coilovers. Come to think of it, I should have went for it in the first place back then….sigh…oh well

Mild mods performance stats and new POISONS

It’s been a while since I’ve been actively blabbering about things in here, well the very lame and cliché reason I can say is ‘career’ related. My attention has been glued to it since few months back particularly when I’m in the midst of heading to different paddy field to kais pagi makan petang and also doings lots of catching up on database and geodatabase technologies.

I’m happy to report that the new SQL Server 2008 is twilight years ahead of SQL Server 2000 which I’m certified for; plenty of administrative controls over database schema, impressive TDE and of course almost seamlessly able to accommodate direct injection of spatial data without middleware while performance tuning points largely remained unchanged. Of course, it doesn’t mean it will outcast the tried and tested Esri ArcSDE anytime soon because I can’t see how the SQL Server able to manage geoversioning without much customization.

Well none of that now because it’s not what I’m going blog about anyway. I’ve received two screenshots of Azdilizan’s Polo GTI PocketDyno result. Looking at it, there’s nothing not to be pleased about it. 0-100kmh in 6.85 secs, 0-150km/h in 12.93, ¼ mile in 15.03secs! Quite similar performance figures of a stocker DC5 ITR which is still a very rapid machine. Should he improves on his RT, I definitely think low 6secs in 0-100km/h and mid 14s in ¼ mile is on the cards.

Another thing that caught my eyes is, there’s a possibility of PnP a pair of Porsche Boxter’s 4 potter calipers into the Pocong while still retaining 16” rims as both using the same 312mm rotors. Hmmm I like that! And also for the umpteenth times, I’m still contemplating on getting coilovers and at the moment I know just the right brand, model and at a price that won’t nuke my pocket and of course it’s a landed price. What I can tell you right now is the brand starts with H…

But these two won’t be happening any time soon as I’ve got a novel to write about which is called job handover, it is now eating up the pages akin to a script of Indonesian Sinetron which you can never can say it will be completely finished as branches suddenly keep on expanding like no tomorrow. But having said that, there’s not a day goes by without me thinking of getting these two so stay tuned :)

This reminds of doing frequent 'visits' to route E6 in the wee wee hours with a buddy and G tech gadget glued on the windscreen and floor all the way till the engine went to heaven, that was a loong time ago....

I'm at loss for words here .....

K-Sport GT Pro Coilovers

I've got an offer for this. Supposedly, it's the same thing as the D2 but at cost price which way below any other on the market (published £526.81) and yet I just don't know whether to bit the bullet or not. Spec wise is pretty impressive but ride will not be soothing to my spine as the spring rate circa 7kg fr and 5.3kg rr. Key features of this coilovers:

-Inverted steel shock absorber for durability
-Lower center of gravity and higher chassis rigidity
-Designed to reduce friction for cooler shock oil temperature
-Inverted design like vehicles in WRC and all JGTC cars
-36-way adjustable dampening
-Made from high quality 6061 Aluminum with T6 for increased hardness
-Compression/Rebound adjustable
-Adjustable spring perch for height adjustment
-Adjustable body allowing maximum suspension travel
-Pillow Ball Top Mount w/ adjustable camber (not available for some models)
-Monotube High Pressure Design reduces oil leakage
-Electroplated body for protection from corrosion and rust

Arrrgghhh!