It will be worth it

It’s been a while since my last post ‘coz I’ve been super busy….. with so many things that I can’t even begin to list them out. Anyway, the fact that I’m writing this post with my iPhone while having breakfast should give you a hint how busy I’ve been these days. I promise I’ll get into what I’ve been doing in my other posts in the coming future.

This post, however, is about the few lines of lyrics that have been circling in my head for the past few days and I just can’t get them outta my head. So I’m attemping to get them out by posting them here
“when our worlds they fall apart, when the walls come tumbling in, though we may deserve it, it will be worth it. ” - Depeche Mode (Halo)

A Chrismas gift from my cyberdog

Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you! Your cars are listening and they know what you want and they love you. You know I’ve been complaining about several things on my .:R32 including the weird throttle respond, the rear wheels keep hooping when I do a U-turn at very slow speed, and most of all, the SuperChip that the previous owner installed.

I had a few ideas about these problems. The throttle respond could be because the previous owner installed one of those drive by wire booster, but I checked and couldn’t find it. So it probably is the SuperChip. Since I’ll have my ECU remapped by HPA when I have my CVP install, so two out of three of my problems should be resolved shortly.

Rgarding the rear wheels hooping, I thought it was because the rear differential oil was clogging everything, I had it changed twice and it only got worse rather than better. Then someone told me it could be some dirty wheel speed sensors, although I haven’t got around to clean them, but I really doubt it is the cause of the problem. The most likely cause, I thought, would be the Haldex controller. It could be getting faulty or just that the oil needs changing. And since my order from HPA includes the Haldex competition controller which means all my problems would be resolved as soon as my HPA order arrives.

Then this morning when I was on my way to work, out of the blue, without any warning, the CE light came on. Although the car was fine but I thought I’d take the car to the garage and let him sit there over the Chrismas holiday and give him some time to think about what’s wrong with him.

But since VW has a service center right in front of my office, I thought I’d take it to them and let him check the fault codes for me first. Turned out their VAS 5051 was able to flash my ECU and it’s been running perfectly fine with all the problems gone !

Thank you and Merry Chrismas to you too cyberdog!

1st MD after the gauges install

Got the gauges installed last week and have my first MD with them this morning. Like I kept saying, I needed the gauges in the beginning, but I end up wanting the dog bone more!

So how was the dog bone? First of all, it definitely has more vibrations. Note that there are, to me, two kinds of engine vibrations. The annoying I am a heavily mod car kind of vibration and the solid let’s give you what you really have kind of vibration. The dog bone is definitely not the annoying kind.

Over the last week, I couldn’t help but to question myself if VW made a bad choice by not using this kind of harder material on their stock transmission mount. I mean of course, you can’t really use them on the normal cars, but I don’t think the GTI or .:R buyers would mind trading a tiny bit of comfort for a much smoother shifting and the close to instant power feeling!

Anyway, words from HPA told me that my CVP stage 1 and Haldex competition controller is almost ready to ship, I just wish that I’ll be able to get everything done by Chinese New Year!

First batch of mods are in the house for my R32

Finally! I ordered these like 2 or 3 months ago. Pretty much as soon as I got the R32, the first thing I needed to add was an oil temperature gauge. Seriously, I don’t know what the Germans are thinking nowadays, I mean, we use to have oil and coolant temperature gauges as standard features. My Mk2 16V GTI had them, my Mk3 VR6 had them, but all the sudden, the Germans decided that just coolant temperature is good enough for us. I guess it’s perfectly fine for a normal car, but this is a .:R and they should put them in as standard!

I’ve been MD’ing with the R32 over the past months and believe me, not knowing what my oil temperature is really annoyed me especially when I had that knowledge ever since I started driving.

In this order, I also ordered the dog bone mount for Mk4 hoping that it could smoothen that annoying kick while shifting. Anyway, I’ll take them all to the garage next Wednesday and have them installed!

2009 Scirocco cup car unveiled

Further to my previous report about the Scirocco cup in China due next year, here is an updated photo of the cup car.

I have to admit it could look much better like the GT24, but since it’s gonna be racing in China, I guess the German decided that it could look a bit more rice than race

We don’t need clean air in Hong Kong - said the HK Government

Here is the problem with the environment in Hong Kong! Since most of our heavy industries moved to China in the recent years (or was it the recent twenty years or so, hmmm….. anyway), our biggest problem with air pollution come from cars. True, there are many models of hybrid cars they are importing from Japan, ranging from small size family car to SUV to even 7/8 seaters. The Hong Kong government even have some kind of reward programs for people who use hybrid cars like cheaper road tax and stuff.

But let’s face it, how much energy a hybrid SUV can save, no really, it’s like asking a 300 lbs fat ass to cut some of his expenses by eat only half of what he NEEDS, notice I said “need” not “usually eat”. It’s simply a marketing scam and not only people are buying it, our stupid government is buying it too! From what I know, the main problem with hybrid cars in Hong Kong is that there are simply too many twisty mountain roads in Hong Kong and if you know how those hybrid car’s operating system works, you’ll know that those hybrid cars are mainly running on their internal combustion engine instead of their electric motors! In fact, a friend of mine drove his friend’s Pirus on Clearwater Bay Road for a few days and he concluded that the average gas milage of that car on that road (he’s a real estate agent in that area, so he goes back and forth that road many times everyday) is around 16L/100km! Ouch!! My R32 which is a 3.2L six cylinder car only needs around 15L for each 100km on that road in average, go figure!

So is there any hope for us in Hong Kong for a cleaner environment? Actually the answer is yes and no! Why? You may have asked yourself many times why isn’t there any European hybrid cars on the market, not just Hong Kong but anywhere else in the world. Well, the answer is simple, because there aren’t any available! The Europeans don’t believe in giving electric motors the main lead role in a car because our technology hasn’t caught up with that yet. It seems though, our prayer for a better hybrid car, has finally arrived, or at least there is an actual plan for producing such a car from the European car makers.

Volkswagen announced that they will trial a fleet of 20 TwinDrive Golfs early next year with the German government. VW claims that this concept Golf, which features a twin powerplant design with an electric motor for city drive and an internal combustion engine for longer trips, has a combined output of 176HP (that’s more horsepower then the current Golf GT and my old VR6) yet it averages only 2.5L/100km in fuel consumption! Just so you know, the Pirus has 146HP and averages 4.2L/100km and we know Japanese measure their HP before the transmission while Europeans measure theirs with transmission and everything in place, so if you really want to compare, the 146HP in European term would be something like 120-130HP!

Bad news for us though, this car, or as far as I know any European hybrid car, uses diesel for the internal combustion part of their engines because, LISTEN TO THIS YOU STPUID HK GOVERNMENT, they can now make very clean and environmental friendly diesel engine. In fact, almost all of the European diesel engines nowadays are cleaner then most gasoline engines!

Scirocco cup in China in 2009

Just received news from a very reliable source that says Volkswagen Motorsports will start their Scirocco cup series in China in 2009. The Scirocco cup car will, however, NOT look like the GT24, I don’t have any picture of the Scirocco cup car yet but I know for a fact that the cup car will be basically the same as the currently selling Scirocco, lightened to about 1,200 kg, with much closer DSG gear ratio, and fitted with the Audi R8 brakes.

The races will be held in Zhuhai, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Beijing with the hope that if the Guangzhou circuit can be built on time, then it’ll be raced there as well.

The entry fee is shockingly low. Estimated around €45,000 including the Scirocco cup car and all track side services! I think it’s time we start looking for sponsors!!

First 10,000 km with the new cyberdog

Have the Mk4 .:R32 for about 3 months and I think I’ve finally getting a hang of driving it. Yes, I know, 10k km and 3 months to get use to a VW is not really my style. I questioned myself almost everyday ever since I got the car. So what was the problem(s)? Is it just me getting old or is there something wrong with the car?

At first, I thought it was mainly because of the terribly stupid accident I had with the old cyberdog that got me all scare about driving fast. I just had this weird feeling that my R32 is not sticking on the road as it should be. I mean, I drove two different R32’s before, from their bone stock form to heavily moded form and I know it shouldn’t feel like that. I would be driving on the highway at speed not even close to what I had driven my old VR6 at and when I turned in a corner, the R32 just didn’t give me any response from the steering wheel like my old VR6 use to.

After about a month or so and a few MD with the R32, I started to realize it probably wasn’t me but there is definitely something wrong with the car. Here are some of the things that I observed:

1. After MD, the front tires simply didn’t get heat up at all, they are virtually cold while the rear tires were melting like I’ve been drifting the car the whole morning and I wasn’t running any slower than I was with my old VR6;
2. When the car is cold and I back it out of a parking space, even when the steering wheel was completely straight, the rear wheels were jumping like I have my rear differential locked on my Touareg while turning;
3. In some occasions, when I’m in some multi-stories parking lot looking for a parking space, I would be driving at really slow speed and as soon as the car started turning, the ESP light would be flashing like crazy.

It got me thinking that maybe there is something wrong with the rear end of the car instead of the front of the car. It just so happened that I was about to order the Haldex competition controller unit and I was pretty sure the previous owner never change his Haldex oil. I tried and tried to find a Haldex wrench and oil but it seemed like they are either really hard to find or really expensive because of the shipping charges. So I called the VW service center and asked the guy how much it’d cost for them to change the Haldex oil and the guy kept calling it the rear differential oil which got me thinking.

You know, when you buy a 2nd hand car, you take it to your favorite garage and have them change all the fluid, right? I did that and the guy at the garage told me he couldn’t get to the Haldex and he couldn’t find the Haldex oil, so I told me I’ll take care of that myself. Something hit me as soon as this scene rushed back to my head. I called the garage and ask the guy if he changed the rear differential oil for me and he said, “of course not, you said you would take care of that!”

It all makes sense now! Turn out the rear differential oil has never been changed and it becomes so sticky that it was more or less like glue sticking all the rear differential gear together and thus dragging rear of the car all the time while the front was pulling it!

I finally had the time to get the oil changed a few weeks ago and suddenly I have a monster! Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how big the difference was. Not only the rear end doesn’t drag you in the corner anymore, it was actually pushing it out of the corner as long as you are willing to punch it. It’s like the car is so alive that as soon as you turn in a corner, it’s rear end is hurrying you to get to the next corner faster.

Before I had all these figured out, I kept thinking that my R36 is a much faster and better car but now, I can’t really decide anymore. True the R36 is a lot quicker on the straight and the DSG shifts so quick you are virtually driving on 6th gear most of the time because it already went through 1st to 5th without you even noticing it. But still, the R32 feels more like a monster especially in corners which we have tons in Hong Kong.

One of the most inspiring speech

This is the flash version, but for some reason it only plays half of the speech………

Here is the QuickTime streaming version …. (works on Safari and Firefox, no idea and don’t care about IE)

2008 F1 season wrapped up

So Hamilton won this year’s title, I didn’t bother to watch the live broadcast because I knew Kimi would be solely in a supporting role for Massa, for keeping that crucial few points between Massa and Hamilton. I heard that it was quite an exciting race to watch though…… hmmmm…….. maybe I’ll ask someone who has recorded it and watch it.

Everyone said Hamilton deserves the title, actually I don’t think so! Yes he was quick in a lot of races and his car just seemed uncatchable at some point but to me, there are a lot more then just the car and the man behind the wheel. A champion is like a great leader, note that I said great leader, not just a leader, you got to have that certain charm or personality to become one. For example, George Bush is a leader, but he is a very lousy leader and he will never be a great leader. Right now, Hamilton is just like Bush! I mean, just look at that arrogant smile he has, if he’s not black, I’d seriously think that Bush was his father!

Here is the thing though, I’ve been a Kimi fan since he started racing F1, I just know that he is the quickest driver out there but there have always been something wrong with either his car or himself! Is it just bad luck or I, among ten thousand other people out there, are wrong about him? But the fact that Kimi had most of the fastest laps in this season can only tell you that he is definitely not slow, he just always have some issue with the car or that he’s just not too happy about the feeling of the car, but when the feeling is there, he just flies!

There are many articles or news reports right now that talks about Hamilton, Kimi and Massa but this one really caught my eyes!