Drive It Like You Stole It #08 - Frasiers Hill

Pic 1: The group.......

Frasiers again?? Didn't we just go to Frasiers Hill last weekend? Hehehe... Well, since I was pretty rusty last weekend and many of the guys can't make it last week, why not eh? :P

So guess Mun Kit and myself got our familiarisation done last week on DILYSI #07 and now we can push it a lil bit harder. LOL :D

We have an interesting mix of cars for the drive. There's 2 Nissan Skyline BNR34 V-Spec II, 1 Toyota MR2, 1 Nissan 350Z, 1 Subaru Impreza STi Ver. 8, 1 Satria GTi and myself in the ER34.

Pic 2: Russ and Nicole's Veilside kitted 350Z

It was a day after the Malaysian Election day, and seeing everyone so excited about the drive amidst fears of possible demonstrations was great. Politics aside, driving is such bliss after staying up the night before waiting for announcements of results from the telly and the internet for various constituencies, states seats, parliamentary seats, etc...

Anyway, we took the usual route to Frasiers and luckily for us, traffic was quite sparse that early morning. Just perfect for us to blast through the countryside and the twisties. Razlan in his monstrous BNR34 kept us in our toes to push harder in order to keep up with the beast. This car just pulls away from us effortlessly.

Pic 3: Razlan's monster BNR34 packing in huge horses under the hood....and big brakes too

As per last week, going up and down Frasiers Hill are still on the old format of time schedule based. I wonder when will the new road up are opened again, miss that crazy road with curbs on either side. :P

After breakfast up in Frasiers at our usual joint, we headed to the Jeriau Waterfalls. It has been a while since I've been here, many years ago in fact. Everything looks new to me, as if it's my first time here. :)

To get to the waterfalls, we had to drive our cars through a 4km treacherous single lane road to reach it. Quite scary if you're pushing the car too hard; the ravine doesn’t look too inviting to me.

Pic 4: The Jeriau waterfalls

The water at the falls were kinda murky, it wasn't like that a couple of years ago, wonder what happened to the water source. We did not trek all the way in to the bigger falls though. Instead we just hung out mid-way before we head back out from the falls to meet the 12:00pm timeline to head back downhill.

Traffic has begun to fill the roads on the way down, thus at some point or other we were stuck behind some slower traffic before opportunities came about for us to overtake. After the Gap, we made a pit stop at the Sg. Selangor Hydroelectric Dam for a quick breather before we head back to the urban jungle of Kuala Lumpur. Overall, this was an excellent drive coupled with great companies. I reached home dead tired but pleasently pleased with my morning spend on the twisties. :)

Pic 5: Pitstop at the Sg. Selangor hydroelectric dam

I’ve record a 10 minutes video footage of myself and Razlan’s monster BNR34 going up the Frasiers touge. Do take a look; the video is worth the download. :P

Comments welcomed. :)

Some other pics......

Pic 6: The group at The Gap. My bumper scooped a lot of leaves.....

Pic 7: Hanging out at the Jeriau waterfalls

Pic 8: Touge!!

Pic 9: Staring at the beast??

Pic 10: The 2 R34 GTR V-Spec II

Pic 11: Waits for regrouping.....

Pic 12: Someone runs out of fuel........hehehe

Nismo Carbon Pillar Garnish

Pic 1: The Nismo Carbon Pillar Garnish

I bought these Nismo Carbon Pillar Garnish (Part Number 99993-RNR40) exactly 11 months ago. Stashed it in my store room all this while until I took it out and decided to had it installed onto the ER34. The piller garnish is made of carbon fibre and glues on top of the factory piller via some ultra sticky glue.

Looks good or no difference? Oh well, might as well use it since it has been lying around in my room collecting dust. :P

Pic 2: A closer look

Pic 3: The stock factory piller

Pic 4: The piller with the Nismo Carbon Pillar Garnish

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

HKS EVC IV Updates....

I thought after dialling the boost down on the EVC from 0.8 bar to 0.7 bar, it will be fine but guess I was wrong. Took the ER34 out on the highway yesterday and the cut still comes in albeit at a higher speed now, circa 160km/h in 5th gear. Boost even spiked to 0.75 bar!

Stopped the car in a rest area and fiddle the setting to 0.6 bar and the ER34 will go till circa 180km/h before power was cut. I doubt it's misfiring as there's no 'firecracker' popping sound from the exhaust.

Tried running the car with the EVC off and it's just fine as per before.....well with the exception that the car suddenly feels very sluggish. Oh darn, I think I got too used to how the car behaves at higher boost. :P

Shall I really go for a Apexi S-AFC to settle this problem or live with it until I can really afford an Apexi Power FC? :P

But I guess, in the meantime, I'll just run three boost settings on the ER34. With the EVC off on 0.5 bar; and 0.6 bar and 0.7 bar on setting A & B on the EVC. Interestingly, at stock boost setting, the turbine did not produce a rattling sound as with when the boost was wound up. Hmmmmm………

Oh darn........need to strike lottery man.

R35 GT-R SUV concept

Pic 1: R35 GT-R SUV

The new R35 GT-R has created waves of awe the world over. While fans across the globe are still dreaming of seeing the vehicle in flesh; a fresh new development has just been leaked.

I am shocked to see a picture of the R35 GT-R in the form of an SUV very much like the Porsche Cayenne concept. A high powered performance SUV to cater to those who can't decide to get a proper sports car or to get an SUV to ferry the kids around comfortably.

Imagining a SUV with a 3.8-litre twin turbo V6 engine producing 473hp barrelling down the North-South Highway send shivers down my spine. If Nissan decides to go ahead with the project, do you think this totally kills the GT-R personality?

Source: Best Car Magazine, Japan

Pic 2: Best Car Magazine cover

HKS EVC IV Black Limited

The stock boost was more than enough but somehow, my hands started to itch for a 'lil bit more power. Thus I ordered the HKS EVC IV Black Limited; and got it installed onto the ER34.

The HKS EVC IV is a full-featured digital electronic boost controller that utilizes a precision "closed-loop" boost regulating stepping motor. Stepping motors are used because they can handle higher boost levels and are quicker to react to various conditions, thus offering quicker boost response and higher stable boost levels throughout each gear.

The unit is adjustable up to 2.5bar (36.25psi) of boost pressure and incorporates a real time digital boost and vacuum display. One can setup 2 boost levels (one high and one low) to accommodate for varying power needs. If a short burst of additional power is need, there is a scramble boost feature will add a specified amount of additional boost over the current boost setting for a preset duration between 1-30 seconds. A darn cool feature!

Pic 1: HKS EVC IV has landed!

Pic 2: This is whats inside the box

Pic 3: A closer look

I mounted the display unit where the ashtray used to reside. Ditched the ashtray and covered the hole with a carbon fibre panel. Then the display unit is mounted onto the carbon fibre panel. The controller unit is mounted below the dash under the TCS button. Yea, this is where my HKS Turbo Timer Type 1 used to be. The stepper motor is mounted in the engine bay with around 6ft of Samco hoses replacing the stock rubber vacuum hoses.

After installation and adjusting the boost from the factory 0.5 bar to 0.8 bar, the ER34 is a joy to drive. More power is available lower down, I could just drive and shift at 3,000rpm - 4,000rpm and that would make me happy for my daily commute to work and back.

After setting the boost to run at 0.8 bar and driving the ER34 for a couple of days, I encountered some problems. The ER34 experiences power cut (I think its fuel cut) intermittently at high revs in 3rd, 4th and 5th. This would be pretty dangerous if one were to be on full throttle into and out of a sweeping bend. The abrupt power cut could unsettle the balance of the car in mid corner. Not something I want to experience at all! I have got to dial the boost down to be below that of the factory ECU's fail safe level. Any higher boost will require a new aftermarket ECU at the very least. I think I will run on 0.7 bar for now. Of course one can trick the factory ECU via electronic units such as the HKS Fuel Cut Defender and Apexi Air Fuel Ratio Controller but I'll rather not go that route of tricking the ECU. An Apexi Power FC would be nice but it's just way too costly for me...... :(

The higher boost level now also brings out another problem. The turbine is giving out an audible clatter at above 4,500rpm. Perhaps the shaft is loose. I have no idea how long more the turbine can stand but I sure do hope it will hang in there lest someone offers me a cheap replacement aftermarket unit. :P

Oh darn, with a non-cooperative wallet, it's a such a pain to 'play' with the ER34.

Pic 4: The display and controller unit

Pic 5: A closer view of the display unit

Pic 6: 6ft of Samco hoses out from the stepping motor

Electrical Gremlins and Blitz FATT DCIV

Pic 1: Wiring madness

Darn it .... the ER34 has been acting up lately. Ever since December 2007, the ER34 is sometimes difficult to start/crank up as if power is running really low. It got so bad that at times, the starter can't even get enough power supply to crank the engine up.

Something is definitely really wrong. After consultations with a couple of car freaks and some mechanics, the problem could be either one of the below:-

1) Faulty alternator
2) Battery power running low
3) Need a bigger battery (now on NS40, needs at least NS60)
4) Current/Electricity leakage

Well I've already changed my alternator to a BCNR33 unit in December 2007 and got a new AC Delco NS40 battery in January 2008. So that rules out item 1 and 2. Many have commented that the battery I have on the ER34 is way too small. It's the same sized as those used in Perodua Kancil 660cc Kei-Cars (Kei Jidosha - Japanese for 'light vehicle'). Hmmmmm .... I've been using NS40 sized battery since I got the car and there's no problem so I've ruled that out. I'll will probably change to a bigger NS60 sized battery next time.

So that means there have to be some leakage of current somewhere. My volt meter fluctuates and dips dangerously low on every usage of the flash, signal lights and power windows. The leakage has even claimed the 'life' of my HKS Turbo Timer Type 1. The turbo timer still functions as normal except it is unable to keep the engine running when the ignition is shut. Oh darn, got to spend on a new replacement turbo timer now. :(

Eventhough I like the HKS Turbo Timer Type 1, I've decided against getting the same unit but instead opted for either the Apexi Turbo Timer or the Blitz Full Auto Turbo Timer DCIV. Since the Apexi offering are so common and there even exists an imitation version, I opted for the Blitz FATT DCIV. Never did come across anyone using this though. Great, I love novelty.

Pic 2: The Blitz FATT DCIV

Pic 3: The contents inside the Blitz FATT DCIV box

Pic 4: Blitz FATT DCIV installed on meter console

Anyway, I left the car with my mechanic to iron out the issue. All the wirings have got to be checked. After 5 days of going through the ER34, the car was finally returned back to me all ok. The engine purrs to life within a single or two crank and voltage readings are back to normal. Apparently, some wirings is not done properly and the cable to the positive terminal of the battery isn’t that good.

Boy am I glad that the ER34 is back!!!