Magline Wheels Installed

Here are pictures of the car with the 18" Magline forged wheels. I gave the wheels a good scrub to remove the marks left by old brake dust followed by a good polish to give the wheels some glow. They looked rather nice now after the clean-up. There were some small areas on the wheels with nicks and scratches but they are too small to be seen unless you scrutinised them closely. Anyway, I am really not sure how long these wheels are going to last before I swop them again. I still think the Advanti Nebullar N993s looks nice and its low weight a good combination. With Enkei's MAT technology, it is quite a good bargain for a 18" wheel.

Finally, I remembered to take pictures of the NRG slim design steering wheel quick release. It is now working perfectly. What created the problem previously was that the rubber on the boss kit was preventing the quick release from turning. As it was made of rubber, you can imagine how much force is needed to turn the quick release to lock and unlock position. The quick fix solution is to apply plenty of rubber grease around the rubber boot of the boss kit. However, the permanent fix it to trim off the rubber that is touching the quick release. It does not affect the aesthetics and neither does it create any safety issue. It is much more convenient to climb in and out of the car now. In addition, it provides a great security feature when potential thieves realised the car does not have a steering wheel. Here are the pictures.

Gone Too Far

The time has come to call it quits. With all that I have done to the car, it has reached a stage whereby it is no longer fun to drive the car leisurely. In fact, it is a real pain to try and hold back on the throttle because the car hates it. It begs to be driven hard and fast. That's fine on the open roads but on the crowded streets, it is not a safe thing to do. Prior to installing the lightened flywheel and racing clutch, the car was still well-behaved even with the LSD installed. You could feel the LSD working when you make a turn but it was controlled and you don't hear any chattering. The situation today is completely different. At low speed, the car jerks like crazy when turning and you need to control the clutch in order to avoid the chattering. Not very cool when people point to the car and thinks the driver just passed his driving test. I assume the racing clutch is the cause of the jerking due to the better bite from the organic clutch. Coupled with a lightened flywheel, balancing the revolutions, engaging/disengaging the clutch and trying to turn smoothly is a real test of patience. Definitely not cool when circling around a multi-storey car park looking for a space.

On the other hand, when the road is clear and going faster than normal is permissible, the car is a real joy to drive. With the forged Magline wheels, moving off feels so much better probably due to the unsprung weight of the wheels. On the move, a tap on the throttle gives instantaneous response, like as if the Swift is a go-cart. Driving sensibly, I get 12.7km per litre. Drive the car hard and it drops dramatically to 12.0km per litre.

For some strange reasons, I could not bring myself to install the Remus exhaust that is lying around in the storage. Every time I want to do it, a quick look at the rear end tells me to leave it alone. It has got to be those black BMW exhaust tips that's talking to me! The car simply looks unique and uncluttered with the present rear set-up.

The installation of the underdrive and lightened crank pulley is put on hold. There are some other considerations to be sorted out before installing the crank pulley. I have complete faith in the crank pulley that it will improve performance. However, my next enhancement may make the crank pulley irrelevant. Stay tuned.