Sunday, June 28, 2009

100th post

After 3 years, this blog reached what seemingly a long run for the 100th post. I noticed that I have lost the passion to blog whatever that comes to my mind, one is probably I am lazy to tap into my cranial juice to dig up what I felt previously, another reason is probably I am contented with my life right now and see no effort needed to write down stuff that I might feel dear later in life.

For those of you who had not known, I have changed my work role from Product Quality to Customer Quality. This might sound contradicting to my previous motto in life where I look up upon technical information as a true source of wisdom and knowledge and of course a form of job satisfaction, but having joined this company, I was shown that despite all the knowledge or effort you put into helping your product reach a more mature quality level, it all boils down to how management views you from their perspective. A good quality engineer might successfully averted disaster from his factory but his work might not be understood or appreciated by others.

Customer quality stands at the same fine line but it has one thing that I believe will make my life more happy, and that is the work loads are more cyclical. In order to keep working in this company, I find that I need time to pick up, sustain and then go back to standby mode again. One can never keep operating at 95% efficiency (well at least me) and I find that this new department is a good way to build up the way I speak to others

So currently I am holding two roles (product quality and customer quality) and that is why I can't find the time to update my blog or give you an update of how am I doing (not that you care anyway I know :P) By next week the replacement should arrive and I would do my passdown and go on with my life with SAP system and CQE :)

And here is an update of how my car is doing, ever since getting out from the workshop, there had been a few hiccups here and there, so in chronological orders:
- Air cond not cold (compressor faulty)
- Clock not working (fuse 20A burnt)
- Air cond not cold again (dryer pipe leak)

So far its running good and most of the problems were fixed in the warranty period. Have also changed the tyre to Hankook Ventus HR2 and I must tell you, I miss my old Advan Neova.

Have been actively playing pet society and Restaurant city lately also :)
I vowed to get myself out from facebook games but looks like I'm into it again, don't know how long it will be before I stop playing it. There are many times I knew its not a right thing to do, but part of my hearts want to do it and when it failed to deliver what I want, the results could be disastrous. I hope I can learn as fast as I could or there won't be much chances for me to blow next time...

Till then

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Transplant: Mixed feeling

Finally got the car 2 weeks ago and it has been on the road since, generally the car was good on the road, the air cond was not cold initially when it was out from garage but it has been fixed few days ago due to a faulty compressor.

Initial results shows good, no temperature increase when stucked in long traffic jam (except the failing aircond earlier), no leakages on the undercarriage, no knocking sound, reach 180kmh smoothly with no flat zone, minimum turbo lag even on front mount intercooler, moderate fuel consumption (RM60 for 350 km city driving) and no wiring faults.

One thing funny about the car is its fast on straight, but slow on corners. The way you decelerate and accelerate no longer apply when you drive a NA compared to a turbocharged car. This is one thing I guess I will not figure out until some months later on the road and its pretty frustrating to wait for the turbine to spool your way our from the exit corner... I used to think that with such a forced induction engine, everything is going to be fast, but this is virtually not the case. With boost on 0.9 bar max, the car is pretty fun when on the federal road but not so fun on, say Tanjung Bungah hill road...

I missed the feeling of driving the Deto at 5th gear and you still can overtake a car while youo yourself going at 60kmh. I missed the feeling of instant torque whenever you want it on my old Deto. I also missed the feeling of the LSD gear when taking corner with the Deto, knowing quite well that upon exiting the corner, you already on your power band and its linear acceleration. Now only I realize my driving skill sucks because I relied too much on the old engine's torque to drive regardless of the correct gear to use... but anyway I guess life was not meant to be that simple.

Well, for what's worth, going to Genting or Cameron or city driving would be much fun with this 4E engine, but certainly the scary feeling of driving this 4E will always be there, one will never know when the turbo is going to kick in when you are going through a corner, and if it kicks in right at the apex with a pool of water, that might not be a good way to die.

Until I can find a way to fix the way I drive during corner and change my driving style when handling gear, I don't think I will say this engine is good for me.

On a lighter note, I will be needing to change my botak tyres soon, the Yokohama Advan Neova had finally run to a near 10% tread and definately not road safe during rain. Another dilema is whatever tyre I choose, it will never be as good as the AD07 because I can't afford semi slicks anymore, and that's probably whats made it even more frustrating. Regardless, safety is still a priority..