Category Archives: Posting by Ariff

Updates: August and Sept!!

Wow.. time surely flies when you’re having fun. So much so that I have totally lost track of the updates done on the blog. My sincere apologies.

The following are quick updates of what we have been up to these past two months!

Pirelli Cinturato Dealers Launch 4th and 5th August 2012

Sync Optima was commissioned by the Kit Loong , the distributors of Pirreli , to do a launch for their new line of Cinturato tires to their dealers. We had a fleet of cars which ranges from Myvis up to BMW 5 series  being supervised by trained instructors for this event.

We had a dry and wet course set up done for the dealers to have a better understanding of the tires handling characteristics.

TGIF’s Fathers Day Competition sponsored by Castrol and YHI Yokohama 26th August 2012

In conjunction with Fathers Day, TGIF ran a competition that gave out free drift lesson to fathers . We were fortunate to be given the opportunity to introduce  and teach two lucky winners the sport of Drifting.

This would not be made possible without the generous  sponsors from  YHI Yokohama and Castrol lubricants.

The day ended with an free open drift session to all the drifters present.

FederationD RacePOD Drift Series round 5  2nd September 2012

We were roped in judge for round 5 held at MIMC circuit in Malacca. The RacePod series is currently the most regular drift series here in Malaysia .

Participated by the finest drifters from Malaysia and also participants from Singapore and Indonesia, we are glad to be part of this series and will be taking a more active role in the future.

New lesson car: Skyline GTR 32  15th Sept 2012

Besides our trust worthy AE86 ,we have purchased a new platform for rental to be used during our Sync Optima Drift Academy lessons. And no, it is not a typo, but  it is really  a GTR 32. A rear wheel drive GTR running on SR20!! To add to the queerness , is this car is running on 15 inch wheels. I would have to say that this is the world’s first !

I’ve been testing it during SpeedCity’s saturday night sessions and I am glad to say that this car is ready to be rented! Please contact Jane at  jane@syncoptima.com for rental rates!!

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

Toyota 86 Drive Experience @ Changi Exhibition , Singapore 15th and 16th May 2012

The FT86 or Toyota 86  is certainly one of the most anticipated car of this century. Said to be the modernized version of the iconic AE86, this car had everyone clinging to their seats for almost 6 years since  it’s announcement. Singapore’s Toyota distributor, Borneo Motors took deliver of the first ever batch to arrive in the Sout East Asia shores  and wanted to do a launch for the members of the  press and also use this opportunity to show case the car’s attributes and also experience first hand, to their own sales staff  to aid them in their sales.

Being an AE86 enthusiast myself ,  I literally jumped at offer of given by PitCrew to not only  drive , guide and instruct  but also, as requested by the distributor, to drift it!!

A few days later,  I caught a flight to Singapore  and took a cab straight to the Changi grounds where  set up was being done. Upon arrival, I was greeted by  the sight of not one ,but a fleet of eight Toyota 86s .

 

The first I did was to pop up the hood to see for myself how low the engine is mounted. The engineers in Toyota and Subaru, had mounted the engine as low and as far back as they could to improve the roll center and weight distribution. What I had noticed was the lack of front wheel well which was replaces by plastic inserts. This allows bigger wheels and more aggressive caster that normally forces us to either knock the wells out or just cut them!

Interior wise, they had a nifty steering wheel which was said to be the smallest ever on a production Toyota car.

The dash was nothing to shout about  and center console was literally dominated by the  air con control!! I suppose they reckon keeping the driver cool is one of the most important factor in performance

They didn’t have to tell me twice to drive the car around to familirized myself with it. I drove the auto first; honestly knowing that this car only had 200 bhp at the crank, I wasn’t expecting much.  However what I was most impressed was how good the steering was. Very sharp with tonnes of feed back. The chasis seems to respond very well to the slalom course and what I love the most was how comfortable the ride was inspite of the lack of bodyroll.  Next was the 6 speed mannual, it had a bit more grunt and the gear change had a nice positive feel to it. The clutch felt a bit weak which was normal for a production car but the torson rear diff would be great if it was tighter.

 

Later that day , we were briefed  on all the modules that were to be done and Ivan Lim and I were requested to do a drift demo. The Toyota 86  by no means is an easy car to drift! Even with all the electronics and drivers aids all turned off, it took a bit of an effort to kick the tail out! This is attributed to how well balanced and sorted out the car was. Besides having  a torson LSD, the 86 had some positive front  chamber dialled into the car just to make the car slighlty understeer at the limit!

Speaking of understeering, I was really amazed how well the  drivers aid electronics worked. We demoed and encouraged the participants to unstablized the car , with throttle lift offs and abrubt  steering turns at about 80 km/h,  but it refuses to unsettle the rear!! We tackled the wet corner at speed but were greeted an initial understeer followed by a sharper turn in then understeer,  alternating  between the two throughout  the duration of the corner which allows the car to actually turn unlike other drivers aid which just feeds you gobs of understeer thus forcing you to stomp on the brakes to sharpen the turns

 

TRD version… Bodykit , full exhaust system ,19 inch rims and 6 pot and 4 pot brake calipers!!!

 

. Besides the  wonderful PitCrew guys and my co instructors ,driving the 86 made it feel like it wasn’t work at all throughout the 3 days I was there!. Though not a big fan of the looks, I loved how the car handles and behaves. I was so comfortable with the car that I was doing  3rd gear drifts  in the tight space we had without any problems. However,the Toyota 86 by all means is not and should not be limited to only drifting. The balance of the car allows it to be versatile for any other forms of driving. With a bit more power, I believe other manufactures will have trouble coming up with something as well sorted out as the Toyota 86!!

Would I get it? You bet!!…..once I could afford it laa :p

Ultra Racing Labour Day Gymkhana @ Mines 1/5/2012

As our weekends are always filled, we were glad that Labour Day holiday fell on the middle of the week as Jeet Singh from Wheelspin motorsport had planned a Gymkhana event on that day.

The Ultra Racing Labour Day Gymkhana was held at a fairly tight  parking space at the Mines convention center in conjunction to some motor  show being held there.

Jane was not able to make it on that day , so I got Terence Lim to join the event and also Lawrence to hang out with.

Like any porno actress/actor, Jeet Singh , the organiser, loves his toys,motorised kind may I add. For this event he brought out a cool shifter Kart with absorbers and springs! A rally Kart I was told it was and Jeet did a couple of laps in it

As the course was fairly tight , having a smaller car gave you the added advantage and I would help tremendously if your handbrake work , especially for those tight U-turns and donuts.

Photo by Hei Najdi

Terence , unfortunately had issues with his handbrake and suffered the whole day with his Putra.

 

One of the added attraction of the event was the inclusion of bikes in the gymkhana, a huge number of Motards and MX bikes attended the event and also a handful of Pit bikes made their appearance at the end of the day

The bikes had no problem negotiating through the course and did better times than the cars , which wasn’t surprising as to how tight the course was.

Photo by Hei Nadji

Believing in taking baby steps, I did a few minor changes in the Blackie’s setup since the Race of Champions . Though not perfect, the changes made was a huge improvement since its last outing .

Though not the fastest  overall , I managed to win in the RWD open category and 2nd in the 1 class Open category.

Which I credited to the tips given to me by Terence Lim and also the videos took by Lawrence helped a great deal .Thanks guys!!

RESULTS

Champion Open RWD Category   ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD

2nd  Class 1 Open Category           ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD

ACE Drift Challenge @ Seremban 2 , 21st 22nd April 2012

All photos are by Tan Chin Fu

We got a call from Lim from ACE suspension saying that they got a place in Seremban 2 that they are planning to run weekly events. He reckoned that the best way to promote the place was to hold a drift competition there. Initially he wanted to limit the entrants to just beginners but decided to hold two separate competitions based on our qualifying results. The first qualifier till 8th will go against each other and from 9th till 24th will have their own tandem battle competition. As this was meant to be a fun event, I decided to bring J4m8u rather than my regular competition car. Having my drifting scrutinized and given some pointers on how to improve from the event before, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to test out what I have learnt.

The course in Seremban 2 had a fairly short run straights before we are to initiate to a long gradual corner that leads to a fairly sharp hairpin. Ideally it would be best to short shift into 3rd before initiating and power your way to the hairpin. However as J4m8u was painfully underpowered, I was forced to drift in 2nd and feather the throttle to avoid the engine from bouncing off the limiter all the way to the hairpin. It took a bit of practice but by I managed it in the end and was also able to experiment different techniques I wanted to try out.

Jane where else had no trouble drifting the course and was putting in some perfect consistent run by the end of the day.

 

The next day was qualifying and I narrowly made it into the top 8th by qualifying 7th. I am a bit confused as to what were their main judging criteria but I assumed they reckon my entry speed was slow as I was only using 2nd gear  and was penalized for it. Ironically the tandem battle that follows, I had no trouble initiating  door to door with my opponents, so though only being in 2nd , my speed was up there with the rest.

Anyway, I managed to climb my way to top 4 and had to go against Yoong. I was no match going against the v8 and it was left up to me to go against Along for the final spot on the podium.


Having the advantage for the first run, I was confident to be able to take Along on for the win. While initiating, I could hear a loud mechanical groan as  the tail of the car suddenly veered a lot wider than expected , sending the rear hitting the tire wall ending my run. Just like the 1st round of the WestLake series, it appears that  I do not seem to have much luck with LSDs as it  decided to give way on my final run…oh well.

Jane on the other hand due to some weird tandem battle allocation was paired up to tandem in top 16 where by right she should have gotten a walk over due to only 22 participants entering.

Not wanting to kick up a fuss, she  went through it but  unfortunately had straighten during one of her OMT runs due to some intermittent misfiring of her car.

Inspite of all our shortcomings, we honestly  had  a blast! I had the chance to try out new things and Jane improved on her consistency , which is very important in this sport!! We can’t wait for the next event!! Rock on!!

We would like to thank Lawerence Chong for taking care of Johanna while we both were out on the track..thanks bro 🙂

 

RESULTS

4th ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD Team Sync Optima

9th AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH Team Sync Optima