Monthly Archives: June 2012

Liqui Moly Ceratec Long Term Review: This sh*t really works!!!!

Finally after having Liqui Moly’s Ceratec added in my Silvia S13 on 6th May 2011 , one year and 9 days later , I had decided to do an oil change!!

Though not being a daily driver , this S13 had clocked over 4,000 km of hard driving  since the Ceratec additive was poured in .This includes, 2 track days in Sepang, 5 drift sessions , 1 drift competition and 3 autocross/gymkhana events and of course the commute through and fro to the events! In all honesty, this is not the norm as I usually schedule  my oil change based on number of events, which is 2 events for my competition cars  or  on every 6th month for those  road cars that is hardly driven.

Despite the abuse the lubricant had gone through, there weren’t any  noticible drop of the oil’s preformance which I base it on;  oil tempreture, smoothness of engine during acceleration and quietness of the  engine at idling.

So we got the car up the hoist and proceeded to drain the oil.

Though expected , it was still shocking to see the oil that  came out looked almost like black paint!!

Amusingly ,this caused a fair bit of commotion among the people at the shop.  Anyway, with the engine oil drained, the oil filter was replaced , a fresh can of synthetic engine oil was poured in and I was good to go.

Ceratec is said to be able to last for at least 4 oil changes once the additive had bonded with the internal engine components. So I was eager to see if there were any noticable differences and proceeded to test the car on the way back home. The first thing I looked at was the oil temperature  ; The oil temperature readings remained similar to the water temperature and were just a couple of degrees higher than than water after pushing the car a fair bit! This is one characteristic which I found unique when using Ceratec as I usually run on a higher oil tempreture as compared to water. I did not detect any changes of smoothness of engine and the car idled the same as before the oil change.  Please with the result , I headed home and planned to use the car again for an up coming autocross event  the following  weekend, unknowingly  which turned out to be the real test for the Ceratec Oil additive!

 

On that weekend ,I took a slow drive to the location  of the event and  while warming up the car prior to  my run, I had decided to adjust my shift light and proceeded to rev the engine to set the limit. A saw a puff of smoke coming out of the engine bay when I lifted off the throttle and thought that the car had suddenly develop a bit of blow by from the idling it had done and didn’t pay much attention to it.With the air condition on and stereo playing, I begin heard  loud rattling noises . As there were a few cars around me, all warming up their engines prior to their runs, I had thought that it must have came from one of the other cars. Yes..I’m an idiot…anyway a least 2 minutes had passed when suddenly I saw Jane running up to me ,telling me to kill the engine!! It was then I had realised that the noise had actually came from my car. Popping the hood , revealed that the oil filter had came undone causing the engine oil to splash out out all  over the engine. What caused this is another story all together but I was truly devastated at the  thought of an expensive engine rebuild , as posted on my  page.

I checked the dip stick and there weren’t a single drop of oil in the engine. Basically I had the car idling on an empty sump!! Things really looked bleak as I  waited for what felt like an eternity  for my mechanic to arrive. Eventually he did and had the the oil filter fitted back , poured some synthetic engine oil back into the engine and proceeded to start the engine. To my relief , the engine run fine. There weren’t any audible bearing noises which attributed to engine bearing damage and the rattling noise I had heard earlier were the oil starved hydraulic tappets which functioned fine once the engine was filled with oil!

Anyway the car worked fine and did not experience any drop of power  as I managed to go out and got a couple of decent runs but sadly , still got my ass handed back to me.:)

I find it ironic  that we often  see demonstration of oil additives protection on rigs that don’t look a bit like an engine internal.They usually involve a spinning bearing against something metallic to illustrate friction. Well, lo and behold , Liqui Moly Ceratec had just done one on a real working engine, thanks to yours truly and all I have to say is’ thank god  this sh*t works!!’

 

 

Conemasters International Gymkhana Challenge @ Sepang International Circuit 20th May 2012

Most of you guys were wondering; what had happened to me during the Malaysian leg of the Formula Drift Asia. I didn’t compete nor did I turn up for any of the three days it was held on. My sponsorship for the event did not go through making me unable to join. I was disappointed as  this is the first time I have not competed in this prestigious drift event.As the reason for me not making my appearance to the event ;Drifting is a great spectators sport but I make a lousy spectator so instead I had spent time preparing my car and  joined  the Conemasters series held in conjunction with ZTH’s Time to Attack event.

Having done 2 other autokhana/gymkhana events prior to this, I had a rough idea what needs to be done to  the S13, Blackie, and had spent abit of time prior to the event, tweeking the car’s set up. Thanks to Kian for working  on the car  the whole day ,only to see me coming back the next day to do more adjustments.  The car is far from perfect but it handles a lot better now than before

I arrived at Sepang, bright and  a bit too early that day as the organisers  were still in the process of setting up the course . Further more I was the only competitor there as no one had arrived yet..

However ,the organiser , Ben Lo being the  kind soul he was , took the trouble  to entertain me and also brought me around the course while I waited for the rest to arrive.

Soon  the participants slowly  made their appearance and we were  then allowed to go out on our practice laps.

 

Conemasters have a  different way of running their events where participants have an unlimited amount of practice runs within the given time as compared to  single practice runs by other organisers.

Our timed runs also worked the same, where we are divided into our respective categories  and were given unlimited runs within the time to each category.This gave the participants ample  time to experiment and improve on our runs !

Being divided into different categories with its own time allocations gave us time to hang out, relax…

goof around….

and also enjoy the side activities ..:)

However, it was all business when it was time to compete. Most notably were the AWD category where we see their times going down after each successive run!

The cool thing I like about autocrosser are they are always willing to share and help other competitors, two of the participants who help me the most were also my competitors fighting in the same category, Hafiz and Mickey which ended up sharing the podium with me!!

It goes without saying that  I really did enjoy myself and was pleasantly  surprised when I clocked the fastest time in the Rear Wheel Drive Category and 2nd fastest overall.

And the icing on the cake was the swag I had gotten for being champion; A car stereo player from Clarion, Shoes from DC, Motor Oil from Martini racing and vouchers and coupons from other sponsors!!

Many thanks to  Ben lo and the crew of Conemasters!!

RESULTS

RWD category

1st   Ariff Johanis Ahmad Sync Optima

2nd  Abdul Hafiz Salleh

3rd  Mickey Teoh

Overall

1st Mitch Chong Strawberry Fields

2nd Ariff Johanis Ahmad Sync Optima

3rd Mike Ng