Friday, December 31, 2010

Myth BUSTED!

It’s very much unfortunate that due to work commitments, I had to neglect this blog for quite some time now. But this Pocong is darn good at cunningly and intentionally all in the same body language grabs me back in with its new set of TLC requests!

It was last Monday after my wife taking a pot shot at this fella that it idles like a mesin tebu due to the ECS Stg1 clutch kit fitted, and to my surprise this Pocong taking it very personal. Few minutes after, it went on to becoming notoriously extra vocal in whistling upon spooling at WOT and idles coarsely loud and rough like a mad truck.

On a perpetual disturbed mind, I went to start thinking whether the turbo bolts gotten themselves loose or boost leaks or downpipe/exhaust leaks or is it the first sign the K03S is doing a harakiri etc. The next morning after tiring thinking about it even during my wet dream, I went to drop the car at Alex’s Ever Auto to check it up. That’s where I was basically carless for 3 solid days as they’ve got ½ of dozen of backlog Audis to clear first.

Two days went by and upon calling Alex, the problem myth is BUSTED. It turns out that turbo metal gasket was torn to pieces, specifically the one from the K03S turbo outflow to intercooler needs replacing. This made absolute sense because upon diagnostic checks during 60k kms service we encountered "17705 - Pressure Drop between Turbo and Throttle Valve (check D.V.!)". The original gasket itself is not expensive which is about RM50 but the labour charge is 3 times more as Alex’s right hand man needs about 3 solid hours in getting the job done courtesy of very space constraint engine bay.

But at the end of the day, you know what, to me it’s worth every penny. It now spools stealthier with very very timid whistling with very smooth delivery throughout the rev range. And I’m very certain the car feels punchier now as I can have much more mental torque steer at 3rd gear. The idiocy is BACK!

And while waiting for SuperSport dampers to reach Frank’s place sometime now, I just have a pretty good idea of how my ideal cheap & cheerful FMIC would works great in giving cooling consistency and reasonable response. All I need is a good condition used aluminium intercooler like Evo3, new piping route from turbo-intercooler-manifold with ~2” diameter and Ah Heng’s magic hands. Clues are available below :)

Oh yes, I suppose to rant my thoughts of the new Fiesta 1.6S and how well it cope with the uphill & downhill curves at Ulu Yam but unfortunately my brother who just gotten the delivery of it keeping his keys miles away for me to grabs it. Nevertheless, I’m still going to try HARD to give it a go hehehe

The troublemaker ...

Original VW 1.8T intercooler flow...

This is what I have in mind...unfortunately Ah Heng is pretty tight up :(

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Heart Breaking Dyno Dynamics at Millennium...

Just got back from Dyno Rev Party at Millennium Motorsport Sunway organised by a good friend of Satria GTi Club. At first I wasn’t too keen at letting the Pocong let loose on Joshua’s new ‘heart breaker’ Dyno Dynamics treadmill because 1) 99.99% chances some of the horsies will be MIA 2) 50-60% chances it could be more than 10-20 hp 3) I was flat broke with settling summons, SuperSport dampers and 100cc kart test.

True enough, lots of 4G93s registering well below 110hp and another friend who dyno-ed at the same place I’ve gone registered 139hp but at this ‘heart breaker’ dyno merely 119hp, that’s 20 horsies gone! But considering my unbearable curiosity, I went for this Russian Roulette at the very last minute.

The end result is expectedly lower than before but not by much …. 174.6hp/213ftlb(288.7nm) which got me smiled all the way home. ~4hp MIA but gain ~35nm! I suppose much of this down to the value for money ECS Clutch Kit Stg 1 complimented by the DV and cheap & cheerful BKR7E copper plugs.

Having said that, the power delivery wasn’t as linear as before and Pocong is suffering from heat soak as subsequent runs netted 10hp less which means FMIC is inevitable!

I was kind of happy actually but power delivery needs to be more linear

This was done in two years ago

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Not bad against the Clio 197 F1 (The Chase Car)

Autosport Polo Chasing the Bull...

Autosport Australia is certainly serious in breaking their non-modded engine Polo GTI into 1min10s barrier at Wakefield as this video certainly giving it a very good encouragement. Can't be said to that Lambo driver though...


Sunday, November 28, 2010

SuperSport Dampers

There’s nothing much to write about on the Pocong nowadays as I’m pretty much ‘content’ with the current setup. It now has adequate juice to keep up with most cars and has reasonable feel for handling and grip on the twisties.

Yeah, I can wish a lot more but a lot more means more money which I can’t afford to unnecessary spend and make time out of my even busier schedule than before. Besides, the tuning effort might not be worthwhile because probably at the end of the day, if I want to get a focus driving horse, I’d be better off with RWD NA S2000 or yeah in my wildest dream … ahem pristine Duke 916!

That can only realize in some years to come and for Pocong now till then, what I can do is giving it good refreshment maintenance but not necessarily TLC kind. And that brings me to suspension dampers. As it clocks slightly shy of 61k kms now, the dampers are starting to show signs of softness. I remember vaguely that my old Waja stock dampers ran out of steams after 10k kms of usage, so at 60k kms is quite alright in my book of thoughts.

My original plans of getting a coilovers was almost dead set until I realised it’s going to set me back into broke warning signs in my head and nowadays I’m driving it in a very civilized aunty-like way as rempiting workout of the past has now transferred to gokart. Hence, coilovers is pretty much overkill really.

So finding the right dampers replacement is the way to go. I just found out that there’s a brand called SuperSport which is a sister company to Spax is offering sport dampers for Pocong. When they meant sport dampers, it’s the usual stuff - shortened and slightly larger piston rods, partially foreshortened housing for more suspension travel, 30% uprated damping than stock, gas assisted, heavy duty and 12 months warranty etc. And having read reviews coming from VW junkies in the states and UK, it’s the best bang for buck and rides well too. But what’s not usual is the price. Having looked at orangetuning.de, it retails at €128 for a set of four (inclusive 19% VAT)!

Having done the math, it should cost me €110 at most plus shipping another ~€50-60 which is still way cheaper than source original dampers locally and almost Proton like costing which is great. On another note, I seriously doubt it gives the same feel as the Bielstein B8 or H&R cup dampers but I’d be very satisfied if it can gives 70%-80% the same feel. That said, I buying one otherwise it’s going to be H&R cup dampers which is additional €100 up. Hmmm….

€110 is darn good value for money!

SuperSport PU Top Mount for paltry sum of €55

Plan B Option - H&R cup dampers. Going this route means no budget for Alpinestars Tech 1-K :(

Sunday, November 14, 2010

60k kms Service Done!

The Pocong just had her 60k kms major service done yesterday at Ever Auto which so happens accompanied by 2 Mk1 TT 225 and 2 Mk1 TT. Everything went very well except upon changing the ripped rr brake lights, it worked as dimmed as rear tail lamp something isn't right there. Oh well, got to do it next week then! Oh yes, if nobody was around, I could have sawed MTM muffler of one modded TT 225 and get it weld to Pocong but my luck wasn’t that bright haha…

Once done with that, sent the car for alignment & balancing at Mun Jee (MPS) Sunway. Tyres were flipped and rotated, toe calibrated to 0 and some other magic mojo and I'm happy to report the steering feels much more pointy than before!

Here’s the breakdown of the cost this time around:

Engine Oil: Castrol Edge 5W-40 4L RM205.00
Engine Oil: Castrol Edge 5W-40 1L RM51.25
Oil Filter: VW 1.8T (06A 115 561 B) RM35.00
Spark Plug: NGK Platinum V-Power BKR7E RM50.00
Coolant: G12+ RM40.00
Rear Bulb RM3.00
Labour RM80.00
Service Tax RM4.00
Alignment & Balancing RM84.0o0
Total RM468.25


Cun looking MTM muffler there!

Mun Jee's mojo rocks!


Saturday, October 30, 2010

Media Formula Plus 2010 Revisited

Pictures tell a thousands words right but which words?? Well some of the words in the last Media Formula Plus 2010 area these courtesy of 1Motor resident photographer....

Group photo...1Motor conquered rightist, leftist and centre!

Team discussion took place with Firman aiming for the TOP!

All smiles except him again hahaha

Satay

Firman

And yours truly

Kiki of Driven gave a thumbs up!

This is where you can see smiles widen so much so that the teeth are clearly visible from everyone especially us

Malay Mail successfully defended the title

And when it comes to us, the team manager says it all!