Dietary Supplements Part 2

The Slowtra has had even more fasteners replaced since the fuel hike. A lot of flab will have to go to hopefully improve the fuel consumption and power to weight ratio. Have decided to take the fasteners technology on the Slowtra to SP/motorsport levels of mod.

Bolts on the front headlight mount and radiator top mount brackets replaced with lightweight silver anodized aluminium items. 7075 aluminium is 60% lighter than mild steel and doesn't rust.

The bonnet latch bolts replaced with black anodized aluminium items.

Horn bracket mount bolts replaced with aluminium potassium bichromate items. Potassium bichromate coating is cheaper than anodizing but doesn't look as nice.
Radiator coolant overflow bottle mount bolts replaced with silver anodized aluminium items. Three bolts hold the bracket to the car's body but surprisingly only one bolt holds the bottle to the mounting bracket. There is a tab on the other end of the bottle and this tab slots into the hole on rectangle hole on the bracket.
Inlet manifold support bracket bolts replaced with aluminium potassium bichromate items. Likewise bolts holding the EGR plumbing.

I've much more fasteners on the car scheduled to be replaced with lightweight aluminium and some titanium items when my budget allows. Watch the Dietary Supplements series.

Nismo Badge Installed

I finally made some time for myself to personally install the Nismo badge. Took me bout 15 minutes including ensuring proper alignment. What do you think?

Closeup

I'd have to say the end results look good. Guess it better be at more than 400 smackers!

Black Thursday

I normally don't like to blog about politics but yesterday's announcement by our dear PM really made my blood boil. At a stroke the price of petrol went up by 78 cents to RM2.70 (40.625% increase!). How ridiculous can you get? To make matters worse most of Penang's jokers were actually putting our already slow traffic to a standstill in their efforts to rush to the petrol station to fill up before the price hike. Most of the roads with any semblance of a petrol station were filled to the brim with up to kilometres long of cars waiting to fuel up. Some were actually blocking the entry/exit of some roads in their efforts to queue up for petrol. Come on people! How much can you save?

I did a quick calculation of how much more I would need to spend on petrol and it came up to the following:

Currently am refuelling bout 40 litres every 1.5 weeks for my Slowtra. This means I’ll hafta refuel approx 35 times per year.

This would make my fuel costs

Yesterday
(40 X 1.92) X 35 = RM2688

Today
(40 X 2.70) X 35 = RM3780

Difference = RM1092

Deduct the RM625 rebate promised by our dear Gov and this means that I would be paying extra RM467 per year or RM38.916666666 per month.

Which doesn't sound that bad until you hear that Tenaga Nasional is to raise electricity rates by 18% for home users. This will then likely spiral the price of everything else upwards. Went for lunch earlier today and a bowl of large koay teow ting immediately went up to RM3 from RM2.50. Unscrupulous or Unbelievable! On top of that I''ll be moving to my new house soon which will mean that my new mileage will be approx 40% higher. Double Ouch! Now excuse me while I go sulk in a corner..

SR20 Forum's Excellent Suspension Faq

The SR20 Forum has one of the most comprehensive suspension faqs around. Lovely stuff! Everything you wanted to know about modding the N16's suspension is listed in the faq. The link to the faq can be found here!

In case you need a rehash the USDM (US Domestic Market) B15 chassis code Sentra is practically the same as our N16.

If you want to mod your N16's suspension and don't know where and how to begin do yourself a favour and spend some time to properly read, understand and digest the faq. If you have questions you can always ask me and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability. Now where can I find someone to bend my rear beam in Bolehland?