A sunny afternoon gathering

Pic 1: Some of the guys....

Last Sunday instead of doing an early morning drive to my favorite hill roads, we've decided to hold a small gathering among enthusiasts for a chit chat/get together session. The turnout was pretty decent although a couple of guys can't make it last minute.

There were:-

7 Nissan Skyline GTT
1 Nissan Silvia S15
1 Nissan Silvia S13
1 Toyota Supra
1 VolksWagen Golf GTi

Pic 2: Amir's Supra. Love the clean look.

It was good to meet up with some of the guys again; and some of the newer guys/owner. There were some really cool rides that day. I'll leave the pictures to do most of the talking. Suffice to say, we have the big whp guys, the widebody chaps and everything else in between. :P

It's good finally to see the alter ego of my white ER34. Alan came with his recently kitted black IMPUL 534S ER34. Now we have 2 units of the same kit roaming the roads of Klang Valley. One white, the other black. One angel, the other devil. Hehehehe :P

Here's some pictures of the day. Enjoy.

Pic 3: The angel IMPUL 534S


Pic 4: ... and the devil IMPUL 534S


Pic 5: Zul's sleepy eyes RPS13


Pic 6: Alvin's widebody ER34. Massive work done on this beast.


Pic 7: Arun's S15. It goes as fast at it looks.


Pic 8: AlvinT's faithful touge ER34


Pic 9: Steve's ER34. Lovely NISMO wheels there...


Pic 10: This is what 400whp looks like


Pic 11: Azmir's newly purchased ER34. Welcome to the club bro. :)


Pic 12: George's widebody ER34. Check out those massive offset wheels. :O

Labuan, Pearl of Borneo

One of my work assignments brought me to Labuan. Since this little island of only 95sq. km is one of rarest place one would go to in Malaysia, I've decided to write about it a little bit.

With a small population of only 85,000 people, this is certainly not one of the more densely populated area in Malaysia. In fact only 56% of the island is actually developed. The rest are still lush forests. What is there in Labuan? Well, after driving around half of the day, there is nothing! Hahaha

Pic 1: Front view of the Ford Everest XLT

Pic 2: Ford Everest XLT can be driven right onto the beachside!

Pic 3: The heart of the Ford truck

I drove around the island via the network of inland roads and also costal roads in a 2,500 cc turbo diesel Ford Everest XLT. This car's interior reminded me of my old trusty 1994 Proton Wira 1.5GL. The dashboard looked exactly the same! On ride and handling, this has got to be one of the most uncomfortable car ever to be driven by me. You'll be bouncing everywhere even on nicely paved roads in this huge bulk of a car/truck. I find the gear ratios a bit whacked out too. 2nd gear going uphill is too low while 3rd gear is too high. Sigh....maybe I'm just not cut out for trucks.

Pic 4: The dashboard looked just like the dash from Proton Wira!

Ship building and oil and gas is the main activities in this island. Everywhere I go I see people from Schlumberger, Scomi, Shell or Petronas. What about the car scene here? Well to sum it up, there is none! I did see a unit each of the Toyota Caldina GT4, Nissan 350Z and a Nissan Silvia S15. They are probably brought in from the mainland by those oil and gas folks.

Pic 5: Spotted this S15 waiting to be serviced in Tan Chong Motor

Other than that are the run of the mill cars. There's quite a number of old skool cars around, saw a number of Toyota KE70, Toyota Corolla DX fastbacks and wagons (No AE86 tho). By the way, Labuan is a duty free island, therefore cars here are a lot cheaper compared to the rest of Malaysia (except Langkawi Island which is also duty free). Examples of OTR (on the road) car costs as below:-

Cherry QQ (clone of Chevy Spark) at RM 18,888
Ford Focus 2.0 at RM 74,000
Honda Civic Type R at RM 128,800
Honda Jazz at RM 62,800
Honda Civic 1.8 at RM 74,800
Nissan X-Trail 2.0 at RM 93,742
Nissan Sylphy 2.0 at RM 75,330

In the hotel where I stayed, they have a prsitine black S140 Toyota Crown 3.0 (produced from 1991 - 1995). Manificient car that is. Would be really cool to potter around Kuala Lumpur in this. Oh roadtax here is really cheap too, this 3.0 fuel guzzler only has a roadtax cost of RM25.00. :O

Seafood is cheap here without a doubt. I went to Mawilla Yacht Club Restaurant to savour the delights from the sea. Funny though as they serve frozen green lobster. I wonder why it needs to be frozen since green lobsters are caught off the Sabah waters. Weird...

Pic 6: Mawilla Yacht Club Restaurant

Beaches here are total crap. No regrets for forgetting to bring my swimming shorts. There are however three diving spots on islands (Kuraman, Rusukan Besar & Rusukan Kecil) in the Labuan Marine Park down south of Labuan island.

The island is literally flooded with Filipino and Indonesians. They are everywhere! Sometimes I feel like I was in Manila. Hahaha

Will I come again? Most definitely, will be here again sometime this year to sort out some work related matters but not before I do my rounds on the other Borneo destinations. :)

Here are some pictures I managed to snap.

Pic 7: Rubbish strewn in the waters around Labuan Marina Centre

Pic 8: Nice S140 Toyota Crown 3.0 - front view

Pic 9: Nice S140 Toyota Crown 3.0 - rear view

Pic 10: Uprooted tree along the beach. Must have been a huge wave?

Pic 11: This FD2 costs just RM 128,800

Pic 12: A Cherry QQ is yours for a mere RM 18,888

Pic 13: Liquor galore in duty free land

Pic 14: Anyone interested in alcohol made from Male Sikworm?

Drive It Like You Stole It #07 - Frasiers Hill & Genting Highlands

Pic 1: Charging up Frasiers Hill

Goodness! My last drive to Frasiers Hill was like 6 months ago. Been pretty busy with work and life to devote much of my time to pursue my driving fix. Sigh....:(

This drive is sort of like a last minute thing and together with Mun Kit in his SGTi and Arun in his S15, we blasted off to Frasiers Hill to cure our addiction to driving on touge routes. Bro Isma rode shotgun with me. :P

We took our usual route up and this time I'm noticeably rusty in my driving. Been a while since I really 'drove' the ER34. Heavy downpour the night before has dampened most parts of the route especially on The Gap and the way up to Frasiers Hill. The ER34's tail was a wee bit too happy for my liking. TCS being not 100% fail safe is not that reassuring especially on some corners whereby the car swung out more and longer than expected. Shudder.....

I tried running the ER34 on 0.6 bar and 0.7 bar of boost but the power cut is too erratic and thus the additional power does more harm than good. Boost even spiked to 0.8 bar and these sort of power cut is not something I want to encounter when powering in mid corners. Switching off the EVC fixes that problem but the reduction in power is a sad thing indeed. Oh well, that’s one thing I have to live for until I get it sorted out.

Pic 2: Stopped for a breather at The Gap

Upon reaching The Gap, I'm utterly surprised that they have reverted back to the old format of going up Frasiers Hill. The new road up was closed and we have to use the old way up and down based on a time schedule. Oh darn....looks like we will be stuck up in Frasiers Hill longer than expected. The road up Frasiers was really damp; from wet patches to wet leaves to all sort of fallen debris from overhanging trees. Surprisingly, instead of the super bikers, we have huge number of cyclist on our routes. Practising for the Tour De Langkawi perhaps??

Up in Frasiers Hill, we had our breakfast in our usual joint before heading back down. Arun just got his hands on the S15 and wanted to try some donuts with the car. Hmmm...where else?? This initiated a detour to Genting Highlands open air carpark!!! We have had fun here before in April '07 (write-up here). That was a fun drive indeed. Hehehehe

Pic 3: The group....

Genting Highlands it is....so we proceed back downhill and took the turnoff to Goh Tong Jaya via the old route before joining back the road up to Genting Highlands. I am not particularly fond of driving up Genting Highlands and this is no exception. Arun tried to do some donuts in the carpark but wasn't that successful. I gave it a shot and found that I too can't do donuts anymore. Horrors!!! Those darn 18 inch wheels and fat tyres are such a pain. Looks like there will be no more donut days for me. :(

After trying and failing a couple of rounds, we left Genting Highlands and headed back to Kuala Lumpur via Karak Highway. All in we clocked in about 220km of nice twisties. Can't wait to do this again. :P

Pic 4: At the Genting Highlands open air carpark

What's next after the PV6 ???

Well, with the departure of the ever faithful PV6, it's time to look at another replacement ride. Many sorts of vehicles have crossed my mind. Amongst them which are seriously considered are:-

1) Toyota MR-S (MK3)
This nimble little bugger is a 1,784cc, mid engined rear wheel driven runabout producing 138bhp @ 6,400rpm / 169Nm @ 4,400rpm. It's sub one tonne in weight and handles like a dream. In my mind, it would be a delight to power this car 'round autocross tracks. Yummy indeed!! It's beginning to look more and more like a "poor man's" Lotus Elise. Think about it, below 1,000kg in weight, 1.8 litres in capacity and about the same size too........Hmmmm…….

The only letdown is its just waaaayyy too small inside and the interior is kinda dated in design and feel. Furthermore, the more elusive MR-S with the more powerful 2ZZ-GE VVTLi (190hp @ 7800 rpm) engine six speeder are not to be found here.


2) Nissan Silvia Spec R (GF-S15)
This car is built to drift! The S15 is a wonderfully sleek looking car. I first set eyes on one real life back in 1999 in Perth, Australia. It has a feminine yet menacing stance to it. I have seen a couple of examples in the car yards and I loved the seating position (legs stretch out almost straight not unlike an Elise). Coupled with a six speeder, it's quite a dream machine.

The car punches out 250bhp @ 6,400rpm / 274Nm @ 4800rpm. Plentiful for stock standard! The only downside is that I doubt I can use this an a daily driver.......dunno why but just don't think I can live with a low slung car like the S15 day in day out.


3) Nissan Skyline R34 GTT (GF-ER34)
Now Skylines have always been my dream car, albeit more of the GT-R. I first set eyes and fell in love with the Skyline in 1995 when I saw the R33 GT-R in midnite purple colour. Simply a magnficant beast. But of course the GT-R is way out of reach.

However, the R34 GTT seems like an affordable alternative. It 2,498cc RB25DET pumps out 280bhp @ 6,400rpm / 343Nm @ 3,200rpm to the rear wheels. Yummy indeed. Tuning potential for the car is huge but unfortunatly, costs to upgrade is also on the high side. Nevertheless, it’s indeed an interesting preposition and I’m leaning towards this car…....heavily!