Success!

i finally got the DIY support cable to work!!!! yes, it's 7.20 in the morning and i stayed up till 1.30am on a work night but i just had to see if it would work.

when i accessed the main unit parameters it showed bullock settings like +20% fuel at 6000 rpm and +0% on all the other A.A.V. settings! also, all the jumper and rotary switch settings made no sense especially the bit that was for the number of cylinders in the car was set to 0! wtf.

anyway, i just set everything back to zero and updated the main unit. calculated tuning NOT based on throttle position to commence this weekend unless i backside itchy tonight which may probably be the case.

oh well. off to work.

note: the bluebird's 'Super Pearl White' will be sprayed today. will post pics once i get back.

oh yeah, and thanks Monash for awarding me with the 'Best Award - Final Year Project' for Mechanical Discipline. All those nights of ANSYS-ing in the dark and measuring sure paid off i suppose.

Failure.

scrap the DIY support tool cable for now. it just isn't working. maybe because the DKU-5 i bought is missing something that the original one has. oh well.

i'll just have to do more research on how to get the thing to work. i can get the cables instruct the GReddy support tool to go ONLINE, but no data is bring received from the e-manage.

back to the drawing board i guess...

i-Manage to e-Manage.

it was like deciding between the red or the blue wire, with thousands of lives at stake. only this time, it was whether my car would start or not.

as i mentioned previously, i had purchased an e-manage and actually hadn't thought of fitting it till over the weekend, but being the impatient bugger i was, the moment i reached home from work, i started to tinker with the anodized blue box.

i shall let the pictures explain because people who surf love to see pictures and not words. if they wanted long winded paragraphs like this this one, they would've sat on a comfy chair and read a book.




















total install time about 2 hours due to horrible crimping tools that came randomly for free with useless household appliances people buy. wiring was hell for me too cause i had to contort to awkward angles. if only Beat was there to see how flexible i was. :D

time to go beddy-bye (shower first) and figure out how to tune it tomorrow or something. cause i've a long day ahead of me, what with the prospects of the cortina coming back home tomorrow.

next article would be the DIY cabling i'll be doing to pick the e-Manage's brain.

Prep Time.

guess who's got his dirty grubby hands on an e-manage?

ME!

one of the many things left to obtain before the new autocross season begins. just remembered i'll be in singapore taking part in another race, so, i won't be able to make it for the 2nd round of the KKS Autocross 2008 series. Oh well.

Bump!

the painter's putting everything he has into this car. he's gonna keep undercoating until the surface is near flawless! kudos to him. however, it has begun to rain unpredictably, again.










soon, it'll be this car's turn. unless i can get my hands on a very sound condition starlet KP61. :D




some parents just don't feed their kids enough, check out this kid.

Undercoated And A Hint Of Future.

got a call from Ah Long the painter who said that he'd just did the undercoat. excited as i was, the whole family went to the paint shop to view the transformation from 'granny-green' to 'toighty-whitey'.

as this is the first layer of paint, it would have to be sun-dried for a day or two (weather permitting) then sanded down to remove imperfections before another layer of undercoat is sprayed. Ah Long estimates I should be getting the car back by end of the week. so, come to think of it, this rebuild is considered faster than the cortina's, which is saying something. sigh.






















the future bit is about my next project car which at the moment would be:

1. nissan cefiro a31
2. nissan laurel c33 or c34
3. toyota starlet kp61 (3 door preferably)

ah, i'm reliving my childhood but instead of buying micro-machines, i'm buying 1:1 scale cars. :D

Washing The Car. Everyday Phrases Taken To Literal New Heights.

The car being given a thorough wash before it gets covered in paint.



may not be much but it's still progress considering the torrential rain we've been experiencing in Malaysia. real bullocks weather for painting if you ask me, but what can I do?

the guys at the paint shop say that I'm crazy for spending so much money on a car like this because usually, people don't bother with restoring it to this extent, but you've to look at it from my point of view. If you're going to do something like this and have some money put aside for it (i can see my money depleting), might as well do it to the best I can rather than paint the bloody car in a half-assed manner only to regret later on.




what do you guys think? should I use those rubber side trim bits that come with the car or leave the sides bare as it is?

here's some undercoat applied to the driver side doors and such.


oh, did I mention that the colour being used is called "Crystal Brilliant White"?

been thinking of going with bride style seats and bride fabric for the interior but have absolutely NO IDEA if it'll look good or not. time to scour the internet for ideas...

Quick Update.

Just a quick update regarding the progress of the bluebird. Surprisingly, not many places to weld unlike the cortina which consumed copious amounts of sheet metal.



looking good here. neat welds, but then again, nothing too major except to mould the piece of sheet metal to fit. notice the welder plug welded the centre section of the two mounting points rather than doing spastic spot welds along the edge of the sheet metal. good stuff.


as you can see, most of the areas were in need of some putty. the windscreens are due to come out by this friday. a quick check beneath the chrome bits around the windscreen reveal a slight surface rust which will be easily cured. what a relief that is, really.

the welder says that the car is '7-7, 8-8 complete' which directly translated from cantonese means that welding will be completed really soon so i will need to decide on a paint colour and whether to spend RM1300 for solid coloured paint or RM2000 for metallic/2k paints. i think the latter is a better investment don't you think?

will have the colour chart up by this weekend hopefully. need to decide fast because apparently the panel beater will have to call in a 'sifu' or master if you will should i choose the latter.

...

on another note, was mucking about the putra and was wondering if i should remove the rear spoiler as it weighs 2.8-3.0 kg.

with


without

thoughts and comments welcome as always. :)

"Bulu-bird"

That's how my welder/painter guy calls the datsun bluebird i sent like a month or so ago.

Welding and painting should finish in about a months time. very impatient because i've got two cars that are waiting for me to drive/drift/whatever in, if most of you remember, the other one is the mk3 cortina.

yes, the cortina is still alive and well and i've not junked it. head on to the cortina blog for updates and pics.

i digress.

it's always a dilemma when it comes to choosing a colour for a car since it's a specification that could make or break a car's character. in short, the current "Green de Grandma" has to go in favour of solid white all over the car except the under carriage.

why white? first of all, it's cheap(er) than going with some other colours and also because the interior can retain it's original colours (somewhat beige) therefore saving some extra bits of Ringgit here and there.

here's some pics to whet your appetite, you picture whores. :)


notice the new steel rib that will be welded into place. looks similar to the original so, it's good enough for me.

rib location

very nice bit of detailing by my welder. notice the folds that were done to give a neater almost factory look to it.

i'm on the fence with this bit of welding. why don't they seam weld the plates instead? could it be because of possible distortion of the original steel beneath it?

good patch work over here.

had to remove at least 1/2 the sheet metal in this area as it was quite rusted. good work here too.

layer of primer i believe just to keep it from developing surface rust while other parts are being welded.

until the next update, feel free to leave your comments on anything and everything regarding the car. maybe even help me pick a colour!

Streamyx Throttling.

is it just me or is streamyx throttling http?

i'm sure most of you streamyx user have noticed downloads speeding up after 12am and slows down to an unbelievable 20-ish kB/s.

reasons you should be pissed off:
1. most of us pay RM 88 a month for the 1 Mbps line which should give at download speeds of at least 90 kB/s.
2. hence, your money is being ripped off.
3. blocking P2P is fine, but blocking http is just crazy as i don't think any one ISP in other countries block ALL http connections (local or international)
4. what's the point of waiting till after 12am to utilize the internet? most of us need to work the following day anyway.

if you think about it, streamyx charges should be reduced and its changes reflected in the coming phone bill. but obviously, TM is never going to allow that to happen but i'll try to give a breakdown of what I should be paying for the current service i'm provided.

i get about 240 kbps for the first 12 hours of the day and then about 1320 kbps for the remainder of the day. so, let's take the average bandwidth i'm given by streamyx or "Nazis" as we shall refer to them from now on, is about 780 kbps. so, all we need to do is take this number, divide it by 1536 kbps (which is what i'm getting) and then multiply it by RM 88 (or whatever amount you are paying). Hence, i should be paying only RM 44.69 which is almost half of what i'm current paying!

if this goes on for the next 12 months, imagine the amount of money TM would make. assuming that everyone has the same connection as i do and with streamyx subscribers of about 500000 nationwide, that's RM 268,125,000 worth of service denied to the customer!

as fred durst of limp bizkit said in his song, "just think about it".

Proofread, Anyone?

i happened to come across THIS article in today's edition of the Star, which is one of the major newspaper publishers in Malaysia and if you read the article and look at the picture given, something is not very right at all.

you guessed it, the article says that a Play Station 3 (which is actually spelled as PlayStation 3) was given to a kid as part of some collaboration between Sunway Pyramid Sdn. Bhd. and the Children's Wish Society of Malaysia when in fact, they gave him a slim PlayStation 2!

take a look at the orange box that i placed in the picture from the article to highlight this for you, and now for comparison as well as for those of you who've never seen what a PS2 or PS3 console look like:

a freaking huge pic of what a PS3 console and its box look like courtesy of Wikipedia Commons, 2008.


and this is what a PS2 console courtesy of philregalo.com, 2008.


and there you have it, undeniable proof that the person in charge of this article did not proofread or s/he did not know the meaning of the word proofread as Wikipedia defines as,

Proofreading traditionally means reading a proof copy of a text in order to detect and correct any errors.

so, who do you think is to blame for this? did the people sponsoring the alleged PS3 know that a PS2 instead was purchased, you could literary get 3 PS2 consoles for the price of 1 PS3 which leads to questions of corruption. finally, have the people responsible taken actions to errata the article or to exchange the PS2 given in the article for a PS3?

anyone working for these organizations and happen to read my blog, please drop me a comment or email.

seriously, do you really want to cheat a kid from owning a PS3?

New Priorities, New Responsibilities.

I've finally graduated and can finally use the word 'Engineer' under the occupation section in forms that people fill.

like the title says, new priorities and new responsibilities. i must now work like the rest of the world, contributing my knowledge in minute ways. i am starting work beginning august 2008 with Boustead International Heaters (BIH) which is an oil and gas company dealing primarily with furnaces/heaters and similar thermo-applications related to oil and gas. you can google the company if you want.

time to pay back the government for the loan that they gave me. also to lighten my dad's financial burden by contributing to the putra's loan (yes, it's still on loan) and whatever outstanding bills. all in all, a monumental goal has been playing around in my mind, which is to be debt-free by age 30. i use the term 'debt-free' quite loosely here because i think i will still owe the bank for the house loan.

anyway on to more interesting things. i've been contemplating if polyurethane bushings would have a longer service life than the regular rubber bushings sold by proton and other oem parts manufacturers. i was very interested in getting a similar set of bushings like those done over by Backyard Special, however i didn't commit just yet because i was considering getting a replacement for all four mountings. a couple of days ago, i found a solution.


from top to bottom you can see that we have the original front and rear engine mountings by a local oem manufacturer and then below that a set i bought from the breakers yard which i was told came from the first generation of mitsubishi evolutions and then finally at the bottom, the ones that are in the putra as i type. below you will see a picture of the replacement bushings that need to be hydraulically pressed into the older bushings steel housing which is also shown below (in colour) that shows the reason why engine torque and oscillations from having stiffer suspension can cause premature failure of these bushes.



now i won't be putting up lengthy calculations as that would be quite boring for most of you. so instead, let's imagine the cross-sectional areas between these three mountings and as you can imagine, there's ample room for deflection of the rubber bushes. therefore, the best way to reduce rocking of the engine when accelerating/braking/etc., is to limit the amount of space for this deflection to occur. there is a negative impact on the comfort level because of this since more vibration is transferred into the cockpit. i can assure you however that acceleration is achieved quicker because the engine doesn't waste energy rocking back and forth upon sudden accelerations.

in short, acceleration seems quicker because there is less rocking of the engine due to the absence of space for this deflection to occur compared to the original mountings.

so now, it all boils down to the life span of the bushes because the oem ones last about 6 months before they fail. the Backyard Special guy's polyurethane mountings have lasted him 2 years according to one his recent posts so i'll report back when the thing fails.

finally, here's a picture that i wanted to share.

Week 9...

busy lately with thesis work. running back and forth to the fabricator.

almost final thesis presentation week so i've gotta work extra hard. 24 hrs just isn't enough lately.

here's half of what i've been busy with.



have to test the LCA at the designated spot. hope it doesn't fail.

Air-CON job.

after a few days of driving the bluebird around, i'm starting to discover its quirks.

before i explain, lemme just say, my putra is damaged again. some fucker tried to break into my car...probably to steal the OMP suede steering wheel and one recaro seat. fuckhead. for nothing my driver side door handle was damaged and the key barrel was removed probably for him to make a set to open it the next time he came back. so it has been agreed upon that the putra will not be seeing much seat time except for track days. :( (i'll post the number plate of that sohai later. maybe you guys can keep an eye out for it).

back to the story. so Chong, the previous owner, told me that the air-conditioner blower was not working but everything else does, which was fine to me because i expected to service the thing anyway. in the midst of a traffic jam, i decided to fiddle with the aircond fan switches and thermostat and other buttons on that particular panel, suddenly, there was wind. cool wind i tell you along with some dried leaves came out from the vents. i was happy and glad i wouldn't need to spend money fixing it.

however, the moment i switched it off and back on, the blower would not function. i was annoyed and started flipping the lever that selected recirculated or fresh air. one violent switch later and the aircond blower started working again, along with some dried sponge, glass and random crap that fell into Beat's not-so-new Hush Puppies.

anyway, i think i'll need to fix the damn thing anyway and check the gas levels. and the locks need tweaking too.

Prince of Burungbiru.

did you all guess what car it was? well, this pic will give you a better idea.

i bought my own car. ahh, a 27 year old datsun bluebird 1.8 sss. seems to be a japan recond vehicle cause there's a japanese shell service sticker under the bonnet. oh well. car is in good working condition and comes with twin carbs! the sound is awesome.

thanks to Chong for a smooth transaction. at about 2pm today will be the JPJ inspection which is required when transferring ownership of the car.

on the way back, last night, managed to kick the tail out and went sideways a couple of meters, all under 3k rpm. i was surprised how easy it was to kick the rear out. done 120 kph, no problems so far.

car has some rust spots which aren't anywhere as bad as the cortina or beemer. i would say for the price, one cannot have extremely high expectations. i think it's about the same condition as when i first got my putra, which comes with rust spots and bad panel beating FREE

ta-da!



looks in good shape dunnit? anyway, there's things to be done over the next year (i hope) which include but not limited to:

1. fix air-cond blower (could be a fuse too)
2. fix engine oil filter, gearbox, rear axle leak (probable a gasket issue)
3. fix sticky locks and power windows
4. refurbish interior
5. rust removal, panel beating and painting
6. balancing propeller shaft
7. come up with some ingenious aluminium bits to provide cooler air (a post dedicated to poor design some time in the future)

some interesting engine facts:

L18T

The L18T was basically the same as the L18 but had Twin SU carbs, a high lift cam, 2 mm bigger inlet valves and 1 mm bigger exhaust valves. Fitted to 910-U Bluebird 1.8GL "Hardtop" coupé for UK market. It produces 110 hp (82 kW).

Wikipedia 2008

the reason is clear now as to where the power comes from. higher lift cams, bigger inlet valves. this is starting to sound really good! but due to the age factor of the engine, i'd estimate the WHP to be in the high 80s region.

i'm currently looking for information on obtaining some parts for this car. preferably new ones as i was told that tan chong motors in segambut still stocks quite a range of old bluebird parts. hmmm.

btw, the putra's back but it's shabby. the panel beaters messed up the locking mechanism. fuck.

I'm Back!

it's been 7 months since my last post.

i've been busy. with work and uni, among other things.

after spending a long summer vacation working under dr. H. T. Eik for 3 months, i mustered up some cash...though not equivalent to that stipulated in my contract...i still had some cash to spare.

i worked on my thesis, getting suppliers, getting the design right, and getting monash to fork out some cash for me to get my sensors up and running, which took quite a while...took even longer for me to get my money back since i had to fork it out on my own due to blardy fucking redtape.

march came, and it was back to uni. no difference to me, still felt as hectic as my so called summer vacation was.

i fixed up my drum room. it now has profile-cut acoustic foam to prevent horrible echo that is synonymous with small and square-shaped rooms. i've picked up my double pedals again. currently fabricating a sound barrier to prevent transmission through the crappy wooden door. ingredients include, wood, rockwool, fabric and time.


my putra was involved in an accident. i was turning into a parking lot in sunway at 8.55 am when a taxi t-boned me. apparently it was my fault, hence the fine. which was waived thanks to some magician. however, insurance would still destroy my NCB thus raising my premium for next year. fuck. you can go to runningmuchdeeper for pics of the damage. if i had no roll-cage, the damage would have been much more severe. i'm getting back the putra today after 1 week at the panel beater. hope they did a good job.

the cortina is still a work in progress. apparently the paint was supposed to go on yesterday but after i sms-ed a certain person regarding it, no reply was received so one can assume that it still hasn't been completed yet. however, after the undercoat went on, the car looks good. all starting to take shape. here's a teaser:


i'm still working on my thesis like a mad person since i've 3 more weeks before my presentation. my fabricator is KAMCO. good people. they are everything and anything aluminium. i never knew 6061 flat bars were affordable. supposed to be checking the prototype this week though. hope it checks out without much dimension changes.

came in 2nd place in the Monash Engineering Club Go-Karting weekend race. thanks to Jaryd for letting me race in the finals due to me coming in 8th in the pre-finals thanks to some thwat smacking the chain loose seconds after the rolling start. at least apologize la cunt-faced-motherfucker. still waiting for the trophy though.


later that day, a mr. wong came to view the beemer. its up for sale by the way. going for RM3k, negotiable. make that VERY negotiable as i need to make way for my latest addition to my car collection.

for the first time i can actually say, i bought this car with my own money. even though it didn't cost much, it's still money earned during the summer. let's just say it's a japanese rear-wheel drive sedan that costs less than the price of a decent laptop. and the condition is good for a car that age. you all slowly guess la.

ok. i guess that's enough for the next 6-7 months. :)