Thursday, March 25, 2010

Proton i-Care? Care my A**

I have been trying to book the Exora in for its 10,000km service at the Proton 'Center of Excellence' and I have been calling them at the numbers provided 80269333 and 80269167 for A WEEK!!!!! NOBODY HAS PICKED UP THE PHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Nevermind.... I called the Proton i-Care line at 1300880888. It rings and then a message asks you to hold on while they connect you to an customer service rep, it rings some more and then it tells you that no one has picked up and ASKS YOU TO CALL AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


What a load of CR*P!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Center of Excellence my A**................

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Replacement Battery ah? No need lah.... just buy a new phone!

That's what I was told by the salesgirl when I went looking for a replacement battery for this...





I needed a second phone and it so happened that my sister had a Nokia 8800 lying around.

After using it for a few days, I must say its quite a nice phone and it did cost around RM3k new. The phone has a nice and solid feel to it with the brushed stainless steel cover and the slider is just awesome with a ball bearing mechanism and a smooth action and a nice metallic click to it when opening or closing.

It is also a decent phone albeit with a small screen (by todays standards) and perhaps less functionality. The only fault with it was the battery which as expected does not last very long after heavy usage. So went looking for a replacement battery, a BL-5X.

Went to MidValley and the official Nokia store did not have one. Went to 1 Utama and met the salesgirl who told me, "Replacement Battery ah? No need lah.... just buy a new phone!", at the official Nokia store. She said that the battery cost was very high and suggested that I just buy a new phone. Throw away a RM3k when new, top of the line, Nokia for an entry level Nokia just for the sake of a new battery???!!!

Finally went to a 'Hello' Station shop near Jusco and they HAD one battery but sold it the day before. What is this man? Suddenly all of the Nokia 8800 (and there can't be that many of them) users are looking for batteries? Anyway at least the salesman there was understanding and offered to order one for me. So.... will be waiting for his call..... hopefully.

Maybe its a conspiracy by Nokia to stop producing replacement batteries so that their sales people can tell people, "Replacement Battery ah? No need lah.... just buy a new phone!".

Thursday, March 18, 2010

E34 1JZ Exhaust

Decided to carry out some minor surgery on my E34 1JZ-GTE. After the heart transplant, I kept the stock center silencer and exhaust muffler in my attempt to keep the car as 'stock' as possible.

The exhaust note was actually quieter than stock to the point that you may have mistaken the 1JZ for an electric motor. I began to suspect that the exhaust might be overly restrictive when there were some boost fluctuation issues at full boost, approximately 0.7 bar.

So without carrying out any further or more scientific diagnosis of whether this issue was indeed caused by the exhaust....

Out with the blow torch.


Decided to just remove the center silencer and keep the stock exhaust muffler for the moment.

The offending item removed.

Initial impressions are that the engine seems to be revving easier with less restriction but then again I might be crazy and imagining things. The engine now has a note but it's still very very quiet. Unfortunately there's an irritating resonance now on light throttle openings. Its not very loud but still.....

However, one things that I did notice was that the maximum boost was up slightly to 0.8 bar vs. 0.7 bar with the silencer installed. This doesn't really make much sense as the wastegate is still the same and theoretically should have maintained the same maximum boost of 0.7 bar.

Can I notice any increase in power due to this 0.1 bar increase in boost pressure?

Most definitely........ NOT.

I may be crazy but not that crazy. There seems to be an improvement in response but can't say I can feel any power increase......

Hmmm...... maybe time for a straight through muffler.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Proton GTR

Proton GTR.

 

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Jap Swapped E34 on Bimmerforums.com

Never thought I'd get mentioned on bimmerforums.com but I found this link on one of my favorite bimmer forums (ahahahahahah) aside from BMWCM.

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1411274

Most comments were on the cost of the swap vs the cost of maintaining the original M50 engine.

Hmmm.... need to 'correct' some of their misconceptions.