Kics Project Magnetic Drain Bolt

This just came in via courier today. Already had a good lick!
The Kics Project magnetic drain bolt basically replaces the oil sump drain bolt and incorporates a magnet so that any metallic particles or debri will accumulate at the bolt area rather than in the oil possibly causing long term damage. The actual bolt itself is made from aluminium alloy for light weight. Fab idea and execution. If you're not sure of what an oil sump is time to read up :) Nissan vehicles use a M12 X 1.25 thread pitch bolt. Bolt is available in any colour so long as it's red. Closeup pix.

The magnetic drain bolt is supplied complete with stock washer and gasket. Picture below of the magnet element.

Will install during my next oil change about 2000km from now. The Kics Project magnetic drain bolt costs bout 75-80 smackers per bolt (need to check my card statement for exchange rate) including shipment and is basically available for most popular Jap makes. You can order through me but if your car is not a Nissan do make sure you know the bolt size and thread pitch. Mitsubishi and Proton for example uses a M14 X 1.5 bolt. If you're not sure, ask me nicely and I can find out for you.

The Carbon Dream Continues

Replaced the bracket holding my Helix Cap 33 with carbon version today. Also replaced the bracket holding the Phoenix Gold 150 amp main fuse. Brackets are full carbon and not fibreglass crap with one layer of cf for aesthetics. You cannot imagine how much effort and carbon material is required to make even a simple bracket. When all it takes is a 5 min job to bend and cut mild steel you have to wet lay-up the carbon cloth. One layer of carbon cloth is 0.25mm thick so to make a 1mm thick bracket you need around 10 layers or so after factoring shrinkage. Then you need to mould in the bends and curves. No joke.

Picture below of said brackets. I had a spare bracket made up for the Helix Cap 33.

Carbon bracket vs crappy starting to rust mild steel bracket. Haha.. wait till Uncle David sees this..

Carbon has one third the mass of steel. Much stiffer too! The only downside is carbon will not bend like steel and will break if the force applied to it exceeds it's shear strength. Pictured below of the bracket and Helix Cap 33 installed. Need to replace crappy mild steel nut. Blue or gold anodized titanium would look lovely.

Picture below of Phoenix Gold 0AWG/150amp main fuse with carbon holder mounted. Too lazy to make the other bracket as that has too many compound curves.

Too much work for too little carbon? Don't worry. I had my rear Nismo bootlid lip/spoiler removed in order to make an investment mould for a carbon version. Was originally going to buy a spare spoiler to make the mould so my stock spoiler would remain virgin but one joker wanted to sell me his second hand spoiler for close to stock list price while the other joker told me he was going to check the shipping cost of his spoiler and get back to me but he never did. Guess I'll spend the money instead to repaint my stock spoiler back to like new after the mould is completed and sell it off later. Picture below of spoiler removed. The stock spoiler is held onto the bootlid only with double sided tape. Damn heavy too. I'll get it weighted for comparison when my carbon spoiler is ready. Brabus Rocket here I come! :P

After more than an hour of lotsa WD40, muscle ache, sweat and swearing the boot lid looked much more presentable. Man! Do my fingers ache from scrapping of the double sided tape residue &*(*^%&%#@! Could have made it to look mint with some Autoglym polish but polish or wax is the last thing you want to get on the area where you're gonna be installing the carbon spoiler again via double sided tape.

I also had my number plates done up in carbon. Carbon parts should be ready in about a month or two (sooner for the number plates). Spend the rest of the morning watching Kimi win the Ozzie GP, discussing other carbon parts for the Slowtra and sms'ing Jacko & Uncle Foo who wanted a carbon airbox. The possibilities are endless and only limited by my budget or lack of :) Man I can't sleep!

Oh, I know this is not related to carbon composites but I'm too lazy to start another article. I had the "SG" badge removed also while removing the rear spoiler. Thinking to stick the "Nismo" decal beneath the "Sentra" badge and "S-Tune" beneath the "1.6 VTC" badge. What do you think? Will the rear boot lid look too cluttered?

Helix Cap 33

If you're experiencing alternator whine and additional grounding doesn't fix the issue then you might wanna consider this gadget. It really worked a treat when I was having alternator whine problems after installing my Steg amp. The Cap 33 works like a mini capacitor and is only rated at 33,000 microfarad. You basically connect it between your car's battery and it's alternator. More details in Helix Capacitor webpage - Audiotec Fischer. Picture below of how mine is installed. Crappy fabricated mild steel mounting bracket will soon make way for a carbon version. Was gonna install the carbon bracket last weekend but then I had to get into an accident. Hopefully I'll have time to install this weekend.

Pix looking from the side. Screw terminals are gold plated.

I'm using a Delkor Maintenance Free Battery btw. Size is per stock batt which is NS70. Kenneth (Netken) from ICE Forum did a group buy recently on the Cap 33. Price was very reasonable as Ken took the trouble to get the caps from Sillypore. He might still have a couple left. Hook him up over at ICE Forum if you're interested.

Bang! - All's Well Ends Well and BBS Porn

Checked my alignment today and everything was ok. Phew! Also redid my onwheel balancing.

While having my car done I had a long talk with the Taukeh (I only call him Taukeh and have been doing that since Day One) and was immediately asked if anyone's interested in this cool 17" JDM spec BBS LM wheel? The PCD is 100 4 lug bolt pattern so it fits Wiras/Putras/GTIs. Price? Take a deep breath, sit down and sip a cup of water..... RM10K! And that's offer price for the rim that only got fitted today on pictured Mini for promotional purposes and will be removed the next day.
LMs are forged ACQ (Aircraft Quality) Aluminium. Weight's not too light most surprisingly. The pictured rim below weights around 8.6kg per BBS Japan website. Width of the rim should be 7.5" as that is the only width BBS makes a PCD 4X100 in. Offset should be 40. More details in BBS Japan's web page. Heavy or not I sure won't mind fitting a set to the Slowtra ;) Unfortunately BBS Jap does not make them in 114.3X4 PCD. Sigh.. Close up below. Shame bout the Falken tyre. A 10K rim IMHO should be fitted with more exotic tyres. The rims look good enough to lick. Lovely! Serious buyers pls call 04-2266516 or 04-2265349 and ask for the Taukeh.

The Taukeh also convinced me that selling my RKs would tantamount to sacrilege at this point. He was very impressed with the strength of the RKs and how hard the paint coating was to have hold up to the impact. RKs brand new would today retail around more than 4K. And that's if you can find one. Per the Taukeh, Enkei RPF's are pedestrian in comparison. Oh well, I might not sell my RKs after all...

Bang! - Better Than New

Just collected the Slowtra after work today. Pix below. Make your own opinion but I am very very chuffed with the results :) What a relief! Looks better than new eh? Damage was only bout 300 bucks.

Bang! - Cont'd

Went to check on the Slowtra today and as expected the car looks better than new with the bumper side and fender totally restored. What a relief! Unfortunately my painter advised me against painting my BBS wheel. The original paint on the wheel is very hard and will not fade with extreme heat. There's no way he can replicate the quality with Malaysian technology. This means the scratch marks will remain. Sigh. Pix below of the wheel slightly scuffed due to the skirmish. Luckily the scuff marks on the wheel spokes have been removed after some polishing.

Left my car there for another day or so as I'm repainting the driver's side side skirting. That's been scuffed till kingdom come cause yours truly has been quite clumsy when exiting the car. Got bigfoot? Will re-check the alignment when I collect my car. On a brighter note I've requested my bro Jacko to be on the lookout for some Enkei RPF1s. Jacko recently fitted said wheels to his Super GTI. Article in my other blog. Managed to track down a set but the colour turned out to be white again. Arrgggh! Looking for silver or even gold. The RPF1s are even lighter than the BBS RK!

Bang!

This just happened earlier after work and dinner.

And the idiot actually had the audacity to yell at me after getting out of his car. Obviously I exploded and yelled back and that actually calmed him down. Haha! We decided it was 50-50 and to settle the damage ourselves. Personally I think he's well in the wrong but honestly I don't have all the time to file a police report and argue my case. Damage looks too minimal for an insurance claim and furthermore I have max NCB so no way I'm gonna loose that. To say I'm pissed is an understatement. 9+ months, not a scratch and now suddenly this. Couldn't have happened at a better time as I'm up to my neck already renovating my house. Also have some parts on order for the Slowtra which I wanted to blog about in the near future but could now be delayed as a result of this mishap. Worse of all the BBS wheel took a hit with some scratches and scuff/paint marks. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Sigh... Luckily the bumper and fender looks intact with nothing out of alignment. The N16 is a pretty tough car from the looks of it.

Called my mech to send the car to hospital for plastic/metal surgery/rebeautification job. Thanks Ah Eng for listening to my rant after a long day and for allowing me to put my car in your shop even after it's been well closed for the day and of course for dropping me home. Hope the painter/repairer does a good job. He's my usual guy and has been with me since my SP days. This guy can really do a good job if you give him time. Also taking the opportunity to fix some bumper road rash (caused by small gravel hitting the bumper at high speed) and scuff marks of the driver side sideskirt (caused by me not being careful when getting out of the Slowtra). I'm gonna retire for the night. Praying hard my BBS wheel can be fixed like near mint. Worse case I'm gonna get me some Enkei RPF1s or SSR Type Cs :( Guess I'll know in the next few days. Over and out.