After a year of underdog reputation, with basic setup that secure some podium finishes; winning is not the main reasons for the Solomolo Lantis 323F.

By far, she made me proud of her awards & achievements in 2013.

- The Most Ugliest Lantis in Sports Lantisan United Owners Club Malaysia (SLUOCM) 2013 Gathering Celebration
- The Best Windows & Doors in Sports Lantisan United Owners Club Malaysia (SLUOCM) 2013 Gathering Celebration
- 2nd Place Car Component Test (CCT) NA in Killerbees Trackday Racing Invitation 2013
- 2nd Place Car Component Test (CCT) Best of The Best Turbo & NA in Killerbees Trackday Racing Invitation 2013

She also involved in charity work such as lending her to friends that send their Lantises to my panel workshop, friends that don't have any other means of transport but only Lantis. Friends in the SLUOCM.

But for now, she was being forced to retire as her involvement in a road accident induced by heavy downpour of the rain, driven by a friend that was on his way to fetch his car at the panel workshop.

Well, tough luck maybe.... Back to workshop again for some insurance claim & rebuilding her back.

The Rebirth of Solomolo Lantis

Some of the photos I've taken

After this, I need to do Puspakom inspections as the roadtax expired august 2010 hahaha.
And I'll have to do the transfer of car ownership too.
Then I'll got to take care of the roof...if the's a cat, it can play golf on top of it hahaha
I wonder how much is the sunroof these days eh....

Trying to get one of this sexy looking aerofoil or spoiler many might say it in Malaysia.

The Rebirth of Solomolo Lantis

Now that I've finished transplanting the KFZE V6 engine, it's time to tidy up the mess inside the car.
In order to do so, as usual, I've to travel from Cheras to the workshop at Subang Jaya SS14 every free time that I have.

Normally in one week I have to allocate my time from 2pm to 5pm, which on every Tuesday, a no workshop day because at night on that day, I have to attend my weekly class of Univest Group for unit trust consultants. The class is organize specially for the members of that group to hyphen up our knowledge in this industry. It's also a get together class which the members share any latest info about signs of the share market movement.

Yes..... I'm a unit trust investment consultant for the leading Number One unit trust company in Malaysia. I think people must have the awareness to make their money 'work' for them, and not making the habit purposely only 'working for money' or work to get money. We have to diversify our money growth, instead of leaving your money in a savings account or fixed deposit account which gives us very very minimal profits every year.

Stage 3 Racing Clutch aka Semi-Racing Clutch.
8 pucks clutch plate with carbon ceramics brake button pads.
The carbon ceramic is a heavy duty material that can withstand extreme heat resistant when we step on & release the clutch lever. The action is instantaneous & with very-very minimal delay due to mili-seconds slippage by the carbon ceramics clutch plate, compared to what we've usually experiencing with the normal organic clutch plate.

Anyway, I've finally manage to pay the manufacturer after a long delay due to rolling of funds.
Now it's time to install the long awaited clutch set that hinders the progress of the conversion.

I'm a very happy person

Coming soon...
The 8 pucks racing clutch...
Been constructed & ready to use...
Photo will be uploaded...

ARRIVAA...

COMING THRUUUUUU.......

THE SOLOMOLO LANTIS LOOKING AT THE HALFCUT SILENTLY....

I just bought a halfcut of Lantis 323f V6-KFZE engine...
Not that excited coz I've drove one for 10 years plus...
Expensive nowadays though...

I will update the photos for your viewing later...& soonest.

(Above) This still photo showed the engine was working well inside the halfcut body & it is idling...

(Above) The mileage were coool man!!! Only 60 over thousand kilometres only dude!!!

(Above) The moment the hood popped, I was smiling coz the spark plug is an after market blue coloured cable... but I was wondering if the cables were from gud brand or some 'lauya' cipan brand...?

(Above) Now I know the brand of the cables..hehehehe

This is the video that made history as the 1st Mazda Lantis 323F in Malaysia that uses a ZLVE S-VT engine..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-VbargKYzU

That's half the fun...coz only 2 ignition were working... the other 2 i don't know how to solve them yet...

After the start up, i've to tow the car to the exhaust shop coz it won't move without any exhaust back pressure due to the nature of an auto-tranny that needed as much exhaust back pressure as it can.

After finished installing the cheap 4-2-1 exhaust setup, the car drove with only the 2 pistons combusted... to my amazement, it speed up to 140kmh, with only 2 pistons banging & igniting!!!! I can't imagine if all 4 ignition was working...hmmmm

The motor fits snugly inside the engine bay.

The mounting issues on the gearbox side solved...

I've added some customized bushes for the engine mounting & lower arms.

More issues after finished installations..

Now the replacement engine, the ZLVE 1.5L S-VT... with an auto tranny...
It got a continuous variable valve timing cam system. With auto tranny it can produce a humble 115hp...but...
with a manual tranny the power jumped to 145-160hp depending on the setup.. what setup...
Everything regarding a standard setup will do.... and if bolt on turbo with piggy back ecu, can produce up to 300hp... Now that is something to look forward at...hahaha

Now... in goes with the engine...hahaha

Next... major major major issue.... the engine MOUNTINGS....huhuhu

Well, I'm getting use of being lazy updating my blog...hehe
It's been a year now...again.... a year late of updating...again...hahaha

And I think I'm gonna fill my blog with anything that has to do with automotive or cars...
Starting with my own car...

Below is my beloved old car... a 1997 Mazda 323f Lantis BA... originally a 1600cc car that I've bought 2nd hand in 2001... a year later I transplanted to an unknown engine in Malaysia for a Lantis use at that time... it is called KFZE engine with an auto tranny...A 2000cc V6 engine... the engine was legally registered and the road tax was a whooping RM300++ from RM90 of the 1.6 engine...hahaha...

Why an auto tranny? Becoz my wife dun wanna drive the manual gearing like when it's a 1.6 engine...hahaha

Then, after mastering the KFZE-V6 inside & out from 2002 to 2010, I've decided to look for a new kind of challenge. A challenge to change the engine to a new type of engine... from a distributor engine to a distributor-less engine... from a KFZE 2000cc that produces 170hp (M) & 125hp (A) to a humble ZLVE 1500cc engine...again with and auto tranny....

What the heck am I fitting this engine for... A downgrading issue??? Not enuff money to maintain the V6 huh??? If not enuf why am I using the big engine for so many years back...?? There's something about the ZLVE engine...

SO... out goes the V6....

 There you are... errr... where's the replacement engine????

Ate Ngape weh...(Wazzap): A year later....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzqTPxNcghs

A year later....

It's over a year now since my last post in this blog... regarding my car...huhuhu... it was like nothing, no movement, no improvement what so ever to it...

Since the overheating incident, me & my friend broke off with another friend of ours to form a new entity... a new workshop to cater our existing customers... it's that jealously thing that made us form the new workshop... it's about me & my friend (later as biz partner& chief mechanic) bringing more & more customer... a lot more than the other friend's customers... every time our customer came, he just refuse to let the car go in the workshop or lend us the tools... why the ****** is he doing like that...

So we've made a decision to rent a place from the city council DBKL... a place that was always close to our heart... a place called Industri Kecil Taman Salak Jaya... a place that made our name rise... a place where everyone in automotive biz knew what they r dealing with if they heard the place...

That was a few years back... now it's comeback kid time...

Since we form the workshop with very minimal amount of capital...with what ever cash & fund that we have in our pockets... we manage to survive a full one year operation...

We've made some engine conversions /transplant... from front wheel drive (fwd) natural aspirated (NA) to Turbo charged 4 cylinders, and to V6 engines...and the rear wheel drive (rwd), which is my favourite setup since i was growing up with this type of rwd setup right at the beginning of my child hood days in the 70s... From normal overhauls to performance overhauls, until to the installment of stand alone electronic computer unit (ECU) such as Microtech & Haltech ecu... we've done them all... But this upgrades is still not quite as popular as engine transplant..

We've done some racings at the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) in the Sepang Drag Battle (SDB) event, the biggest drag racing event so far in Malaysia... and also the minor events such as the street drag race of MUSC... the scooter community organizer... we've competed in NA & turbo class event in which our customer voluntarily give their car to be tested in the event... we never forced them to do so, only if they want to... So, it's only a participation in the event... not a serious contender... but then a few guys already opened up their eyes to rebuild their engines up to competition standards.. So far, me & my partner concentrated on Mazda & Ford cars...Now that's where the Microtech & Haltech fall into places...hehehehe

Have a look at my racing activities thru these links... I drove them cars in those races bro...hahaha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnNiGg9Aovc

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5390773/cyberjaya_musc_drag_challenge_16_october_2010/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5708697/final_round_musc_drag_challenge_2010/

Why i love automotive & its engineering stuff so much... i also really really don't know why... I guess it's a passion to me since my childhood days.... just like Chris Rea's song "La Patione".. or more like when I was a child, I saw movies consist of beautiful young ladies driving sport car... similar also like Chris Rea's song "Girl In A Sport Car".

When I hear those songs, i felt very-very happy deep inside my heart... it rekindle the memories of my childhood days with my late father i guess... He always said "No no no no" to me...hahahaha.....hmm ahh those good old memories...

I'M BACK

This couple of weeks before, I was in a terrible mood, furious with my car...

The 2.0 litre V6 engine had so many overheating issues... headache man... I was driving last Thursday morning when all the sudden, the temperature just won't go down... it just went up and up and up... in the morning KL traffic jam at Jalan Tun Razak!

I stopped by the Multimedia College Jalan Semarak & searched for tap water coz no more water inside the radiator! After stabilizing the temperature & what ever necessary, I drove to my trusty ol friend's workshop at Lorong Shahbandar just opposite SK Cochrane... I settled what ever logistic I could before the car got inside the workshop... then the argument whether wanna repair the engine or just change it...

It Has Been Very Long Absent

Yea... the title said it all... Now is November 2009 & my last update was on May 2009. 7 months absent... aiyoooo..

Now I'm an official Unit Trust Consultant for Public Mutual Berhad, the No. 1 mutual fund company in Malaysia. I'm glad & proud to be in the team. Every Tuesday nite starting as early as 7.30pm, my Group Agency Manager (GAM) will conduct some basic & advance training plus sharing of experiences in the latest market share movement & techniques in Malaysia. My GAM is one of a few pioneers in Malay market, who is already very successful in the business & he's very famous in the company. Lucky for me I was registered or enrole as a consultant personally by him.. & that is a big mountain of task to catch up to his standard of achievement brooooo....

To tell u the truth... I have no idea wat so ever wats coming to me in this line of biz. I was in the market shares back in 1992-93 as a small time investor.. that time the market was booming like nobody's biz & I got my fair share & benefited from that booming situation.. That's when I was teaching... then I was transferred to a different department in the govt sector that do training courses.. this made me travelled from places to places every week... where got time to invest mah... Then somemore transferring jobs from Perak to KL & until now it has been 17 years since I last entered the market share...

But now it's a different ball game as I've became the "player" that manages clients' share accounts. This it won't be easier, coz I'll be the "punching bag" if I can't get higher profit for them...

Other than that, the usual stuff lah...

Oh by the way, I did enter the DRAG RACE series in Sepang International Circuit last May.. wanna see me loosing the race many times? Go to the video link below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyH9sKFRaK4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpY92DfzHvM

Aill be BACHK....

AHHH... LEGAA>>>

Fuh... Lega rasenye dah LULUS exam FMUTMC unit trust aku... kul 12-2pm tadi.

Kena tunggu official appointment from unit trust management company..

Then baru bleh cari customer & jadi unit trust consultant...

FERRARI..>!!!! here i come...!!! err... may be more...???

EXAM>>>>>

I'm taking an exam tomorrow... A Unit Trust examination coz baru enroll as a Unit Trust Consultant... So if nak get my licence to deal, first of all I must take the exam. If i pass ok lah...i can chase my dreams, if not pass i kena repeat lar...

Hopefully i pass la... Nak study le today ..hopefully no interferances

AT LAST.... CONTINUED AGAIN

Finally, i have the time to update my blog.

It was hectic schedules these few months for me...

For now i have no idea what so ever to write... Next time lah...

But I've updated my photo...

GONG XI FA CHAI

Assalamualaikum.

Well, well, well... It has been more than 3 months since i've posted my last update. BZZ la kut... Butta more to solving other people's car problem.

Many of my frenz have cars from the basic kancil to the advanced german cars... My on-off workshop partner (off when i'm involved with other things,on when got customer that have problems with their cars), currently he caters malaysian & japanese cars, & sometimes korean cars & german cars (bmw, merc & audi). But Italian cars???

Some of the spareparts shop that're regular to us would say...Aiya! Wah! U all "terer" (can do easily) repair the Italian cars ah... Wah! Italian cars the hardest to repair mah...

Most of the mechnics in KL are experts when dealing with popular Japanese cars such as the VTEC of Honda, the VVT & supercharger of Toyota, the turbos of Nissan & Evo converted Protons, & the simple turbo of kancils. More workshops are also beginning to mastered the german cars. But not many has the interest to deal with cars from France & Italy.

The truth is, I love Italy & France. They are rich in culture & their people are sporting. They have good soccer players & clubs. Many of the clubs have & still produces superstars that worth millions of dollar. When it comes to cars, Italians produced the most beautiful car & super-hypercar on the planet with multiple world championship credits in motorsport. The French also has rough & robust car that won multiple rally races around the world. And Italians too produced the best superbikes in the world..namely Ducati, Aprillia, Benelli, Agusta, Moto Guzzi, Bimota & many more.

But why we have the impression that they produced lousy cars & bikes? Want to know why?

For me the answer is very simple. The people who brought the Italians & French vehicle to Malaysia has the ability to sell them here...but they sell them without the strong spareparts package. If they have the package, still people will scratch their heads upon hearing the sky-rocket price tag. The silly questions of why the spareparts are expensive, will be answered by even sillier answers... oh because it's Italians/French..hard to find spares one... oh euro expensive one... oh govt tax mah.. and so and so... on with the possible answers imaginable.

Why a new OEM (original equipment mfr) parts such as master brake pump of a proton (perdana) cost from RM100+, the japs car around RM300+ & the european (continental) cars starts from RM800? Why the oem spareparts maker didn't have the interest to produce continental car parts but preferred producing local & japs car? Simple, they have more market & saleable too compared to conti cars. But why it has to be like this?

Again the simple answer is the japs are cheaper than the conti and too much protection from the government on the local made cars. But is it worth the protection? I do not think so. If the protection is there, the local car will definitely be the 1st choice of consumer becoz it's the cheapest car. The more it were sold the richer the car manufacture and the more R&D with advancement technology implemented on to their product. If we look at Volkswagen (pronounce as Volks-va-gen), they started as the people's car (the exact translation of its name). They sell the beetle very cheap, over & over again till they become the largest automaker in europe. Then they bought the Audi & uses their technologies to produce even higher quality cars. Porsche also is in the volks family as the main shareholder. And now they even owned the Lamborghini & Bugati car that produced the most expensive & the fastest super-hypercar in the world. That's the german...

Fiat also started with small car, the Fiat 500 (Malaysian called it Katak or Frog). Over time they bought over lancia & produced even better cars & then owned the cream of supercar, the Ferrari. That's how the autoworld works. Does it work with proton? Noep, not at all..still the same after more than 25years...they never learn but still excellent in hiding their under-quality products behind political protection...and they r best in power struggle of the top company post. All they brag about is their cars are tuned by lotus engineering... As far as I know, the lotus guys replaced the old anti-roll bar with tick & stiffer ones. We can get the after market bars that performs greater than the "lotus' touch".

I'm not against malaysian cars as i've once owned & driven them b4. The majority of my customers owned proton cars. But why they produced under-quality car that was hard to be accepted by other european countries. Some of my frenz prefer buying a used 5-years old japs car than a brand new proton car. They should have listen to public complaint & act quickly like the japs to improved their products... noep, never happens. The japs carmaker produces superb cars to their local market, much-much better than their export models. Why? They rely on the reactions of their local market first than the foreign market, and the local market is still their biggest market.

Proton has to grow up & focus on ways to become at least like the koreans that begun their automotive industries about 10-years earlier. They got to work 120% harder & catch-up the koreans quickly or being left behind by the chinese & indian car maker.

GONG XI FA CHAI

Wiring My Car & Installing The Hydrogen Generator

I have just finished assembling & installing my H2 generator, a tedious work that needed effort to locate the best place to install the thing inside the engine bay. I have done some wiring too, to connect the EFIE (electronic fuel injection enhancer) but the wiring is still not perfected yet as my car is using a V6 engine that requires using of Dual EFIE. A single EFIE is for a single oxygen (O2) sensor mounted in front of an exhaust pipe, but for V6 engine it has double O2 sensor. The EFIE itself too did not finished yet, due to countless interuptions by the kids & guesses that came visiting us during Eid.