De-cat.

I have already bought my air ticket to Europe during MATTA fair. And I thought I can spend on my Black Mamba once I have bought the ticket. I was wrong. I have to save up them doughs again since I will be travelling to Czech, Italy, Spain and Scotland. Not fair. Instead of getting those DC Sports ceramic header or Toda, I decided to choose the cheapest way to release another 2-3 horses from the engine - by removing the catalyzer.

I sent my car to JFA Exhaust (Al-fatihah to the late Saudara Jaafar) in Sunway as they are one of the best exhaust customizers in town. Took me about an hour to get the cat removed and the de-cat pipe installed by Dino, one of the specialists in JFA.

This is the catalyzer. Quite heavy

2.5" De-cat pipe being welded

Job well done.

The restrictive and environmental-friendly webbing of the catalyzer. They just have to go.

Post-Installation Comments:

1. Power - There is not much difference in terms of power deliverance (I believe that the Type-R catalyzer is already a high-flow catalyzer), but I reckon that the revs are much smoother before and after the vtec engangement. The sound of the exhaust has not much changed either, but I do have fire popping at the back sometimes. Haven't done any dyno yet tho.

2. Fuel Consumption - I still managed to clock 455km with a full tank of Shell green petrol worth RM72 (Decent driving, shifting at every 3,500 - 4,000rpms with occasional vtec engagement). That is already considered economical for a high-revving 2,000cc engine.

3. Cost - RM150.00 for mild steel. Quite reasonable. Purposely ditched the idea of using stainless steel as the aftermarket header is waiting for me once I return from Europe. Price could be cheaper if I bring another Jawa to nego with Dino.

At the same time I am also sad that with this setup will release the CO2 gases to the air. With the earth getting warmer everyday, I think I should be playing my part in conserving our beloved planet earth.

Forgive me Mother Nature for contaminating the air with DOHC iVTEC gases, but horsepower is very vital to me at this present moment. :-P

Another Skunk2 Goodie..Yummy.

Anyone who try to catch up with The Black Mamba will definitely be blinded by this Skunk2 rear lower tie bar bling-bling. LOL.

Got this pretty cheap from Junaidi. For RM200 with no scratches at all - its a steal. Junaidi has moved to the multi-point undercarriage bars, which I believe serve no purpose to me at this moment.

I will reject if people label me a Skunk2 purist. Ha ha.

Unplanned Success.

I was out of breath that night. More than 20 DC5Rs came for the informal gathering at Aman Suria. We then headed to Putrajaya for the unplanned photoshoot and the result was not bad at all. Photoshoot area was very very dark but Hezz, Alex and Elaine made full use of their Nikon and Cannon DSLRs.

Here are some final pics from Hezz's blog. The black & white scheme did bring the classy look out of the Tegs. I still can't get the pics to be linked on my blog or upload the full sized. Bummer.

http://mivek4doddle.blogspot.com/2009/03/honda-integra-dc-5-gathering-photoshoot.html

Next plan - To gather FD2Rs, EP3s, DC5s and other K-powered cars at a place. Perhaps MHCC, HOC, HCOC days are over?

WTF?

I cant get my pics to be clicked for full-size. Does anyone knows how to fix this? Newbie here.

Behemoth

Behemoth is a mythical primal beast. It is said by the Jews that Behemoth is the most largest and powerful animal ever roamed on land and it will battle Leviathan at world's end.

Behemoth died, eventually, in recent years and was then been reincarnated by God in another form of life - The PORSCHE CAYENNE GEMBALLA BITURBO.

Yes its true that you'll see quite a number of Cayennes on the road. And no its not true that you'll see quite a number of Cayenne Gemballa Biturbo on the road, be it a GT600 or GT750 coz this aint your ordinary high-end SUV.

I have seen the same car few times over AKLEH and around KL and believe me, the churning noise of its 700bhp twin-turbo engine will just shuts off any sound generated by 9000rpm vtecs or 2.0bar TD05s on any given day.

I met someone and had a little chat about the Gemballas - GT3 and Cayenne. Could you believe he actually said that "there's no way a Gemballa could make way to Malaysia land. Probably the owner custom-made the 'GEMBALLA BITURBO' stickers from RacingFit and put it at the back of his Cayenne S".

Dia ingat Cayenne Gemballa ni Civic Ferio DX Vi-RS Si SiR ABS LSD TCS PGMFi DOHC VTEC Side-Mirror-Defroster keeeeeeeeeeeee?

Gemballa Online - www.gemballa.com

The Darkside - Part 1

Owning an Integra DC5 and modding it is a whole new league for me. I have to plan for all the mods as it is not as cheap as the Civics (cheap kah? hahah). I remember swapping/selling the 15s every time I feel like doing so with the EF. But with brand new 17inchers can fetch to 5-digit figure (and secondhand still, 30-40% lesser from the shelf price) I can foresee that getting either RPF1 or SSR Type-F can only be materialized many months from today. Furthermore, I have to save up for my upcoming Euro trip so this plan will be KIV.

Before. Fucking Ugly.

The best solution for now is to paint the current wheels to my color of choice - FLAT BLACK. The reasons for me getting flat blacks are only two :

1. It looks sinister

2. It wont look dirty. Unless someone put on kapur barus on it, yes.

So the chosen one for this job is a good friend of mine - Arn. Known him for many years since my EF days and so far the he's the only person I've known to be very 'artful' when it comes to automotive-related hobby. Being a perfectionist with less-shaky hands, he can actually hand-drawn, and hand-cut any kind of decals/stickers of his (and most of the time mine hahaha) choice. Just give him any logo, or pics and he can beat the crap out of the sticker-cutting machine in no time hahahah. And oh, he's good with spraypainting as well. If he's been given an airbrush gun, he can sketch Beavis & Butthead images on his Harley helmet with his eyes blindfolded while the other hand SMS-ing. That's how great he is.

Went to Miri for a week and left the car in his good hands. He enjoyed the car. But obviously not the work. It was raining torrentially last few weeks so the wheels did not actually dry up properly and there were lots of blisters on it. So Arn had to redo the spraypainting few times.

Lets see what's underneath the fenders: Oh look. Green thang. Its TEIN!

The blue thang is CUSCO 25mm Anti-Roll Bar.

The red thang is a BREMBO 4 Pot Caliper.

Taken off, washed and sandpapered it a bit.

Hey the width and offset is not that bad! (nak sedapkan hati)

This is how you spray the wheels, Arn-style. Tape me baby.

Wok with Arn.

Almost there..

Waiting for the sun to shine on me..

Post-spraypainting fitment. Already looking good.

The End Product. Brilliant.

By the way, 2 days after getting the car I scraped the front left wheel on a curb at One Utama. The next day, it looked like brand new again. Roadside touch-up. LOL.

If that happened to a Volk RE030 or CE28N, I'd be in tears for sure.

Mambo No. 4

With these trumpets under my hood, I dont mind wearing like Lou Bega to any Honda gatherings. :-P

The Group

The outing to Sunway and Putrajaya somewhere in February. 12 DC5s were present. Photos courtesy of Elaine and Desmond.

It's Happening..

http://www.zerotohundred.com/newforums/honda/271756-integra-type-r-dc5-stolen-need-help.html

Never heard of a DC5 being stolen before but surely its happening now. Be more careful when leaving your car at parking lot and take whatever necessary precautions to protect your car.

Sometimes I wish I could shrink my car and put it in my pocket wherever I go.

I hope the owner will found his car.

Funny?

and my mum's Chevrolet Optra has the Corvette's 6.2L LS3 V8 engine. Duh.

The Day Sunway Stood Still (for a while)

I was supposed to dynorun my car on a weekend. Not on a bloody Wednesday after work. Since the boys are damn free to get to know their latest ponies on a Wednesday evening at a bargain price of RM60/car, I decided to go through the massive traffic on MRR2 and join them at JC Racing, Sunway for the event.

The dyno result of a stock K20A engine with simple bolt-on mods of:

1. Pretuned E-manage Ultimate & V-manage
2. Open pod air filter
3. 2.3inch APEXi exhaust system (with catalyser still intact on the OEM header)

I didn’t expect the power will be 3 ponies shy of 200whp and torque of 19.6kg/m as I have seen lower figure before on a 2005 DC5 with same mods. The air-fuel ratio reading is also quite smooth thanks to the supplement of E-manage/V-manage combination. Yes the pre-VTEC mode is a bit scruffy and there’s a slight drop during VTEC engagement (note that the VTEC point has been lowered from 5800rpm to 5200rpm by those piggybacks) but the power generated wasn’t disappointing. One thing for sure I’ll make full use of the E-manages and V-manage to fine tune the graph and subsequently tweak few more horsepower from the engine.

The first step shall be: de-cat the exhaust with test pipe before getting an aftermarket header!

The verdict: K20A is amazing.

Holding Monster

Nothing is much more fun than swapping your full-bucket seat on every other weekend. The red Bride Zeta II came with the DC5 (together with the Bride seat rail) and the black Exas III was previously on my EF. I prefer to have the Exas III on my DC5 for now…until I can find someone selling ONLY driver side SR4 Recaro complete with railing. One useful advice for using full-bucket on your daily beater: forget about getting a blowjob while youre on that seat. LOL.

The Zeta will always have wider shoulder support than the others:

Exas III on my EF:

And now on the DC5 wot wottt!

Bride Exas III @ more-japan: http://www.more-japan.com/Bride-EXAS-III-p-1-c-404.html

Skunk2 Engine Bay Botox

Gifts from Ram for my engine bay. Very kind of him. I feel so content to see S2 products for DC5 available everywhere. Unlike of those for Civic EF / CR-X where you have to kill and bury your best friends to get the Pro-Series adjustable camber kits from Chris of Pentagon Enterprise. Ha ha ha ha.

Oil filler and 1.3 bar radiator cap:

Brake / Power steering fluid reservoir cover:

No decent shots of the engine bay for now. So its gonna be next time.

Mutiara Motors Greddy/Trust/M7 Package

I would recommend anyone who plans on buying any Japan performance/import car to visit Mutiara Motors in JB. They offer wide range of cars at attractive prices and being the sole distributor for Greddy , Trust and M7 performance products in Asia, they provide value-added service with their ‘Tune-Up’ package equipped to every car purchased by the customer. So the conclusion of getting a semi-loaded 2005 New Facelift DC5 at RM150K+ and being gifted with the Greddy/Trust goodies: DOUBLE WHAMMY.

This is what I got for my car:

The Greddy e-manage Ultimate + v-manage kit complete with harness as seen from a shaky hands POV:

Ah, this is the Trust Airinx air filter kit for a better breathing K20A. The stock airbox is still with me though.

Visit Mutiara Motors on the net: www.mutiaramotors.com

A very good site to surf for used Japanese car in Japan, before being shipped out from Japan to rest of the world: www.tradecarview.com

Most probably you can order your preferred car from the website with Mutiara Motors. I think so.