Not Just an Ordinary Waja

Spotted this in Mid Valley last Friday. Not just an ordinary Waja mind you, back then it was the 'ultimate' one with factory fitted 6A12 engine. :)

Grooming Session

Due to acidic liquids coming from un-sacred trees and birds, it seems that I've to send the Pocong for detailing at least 4 times a year ... sigh

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

Nissan Silvia S15

While I’ve checked in Pocong to FA Racing for suspension setup, I managed to drive this Nissan Silvia S15 for half a day. It’s actually one of the cars I’m hunting for in 08 and ended up with the Pocong. I like the more ‘feminine version’ of Skyline, white colour, spot-on driving position and the steering feels meaty enough given it’s still running stock. Hmmmm….pretty much a good platform to venture into rwd :)

Awesomepowered.com T-Shirt

On top of all the bills for Pocong, luckily there's something for me from awesomepowered.com :)

The H&R Monotube is IN!

The coilovers have been installed last Saturday by my regular mechanic, Auto World Car Service in Wangsa Melawati. It wasn't a straight forward installation as the coilover casing has slightly bigger diameter than the original; and we've forgotten to slot in 'freeplay bearing' in between new front top mount and coilover. This has caused irritating noise during turning when vehicle was stationary also known as "coil-bind" problem. Luckily we realised this soon and redo the front installation again. Applying WD40 on the spring plates also helps fortunately :)

And yesterday, I've sent the car for its overdued tyre rotation & balancing at MPS Auto .... and I've actually met up with Faidzil Alang of FA Racing to seek his chassis setup service. Based on his enormous experience as a official test driver & racing driver for R3, I'm quite confident he'll setup my Pocong just as what I wanted: to be competent sunday drive tool with fluidity ride than outright harshness. The car will be in by this Saturday. So stay tune :)

With bigger casing, it's troublesome to install this H&R coilovers

Purposely set the ride height heigher a bit until FA Racing says otherwise hehe

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