Travel Blog No.1: Toyosato. The K-On! pilgrimage and a little bit more.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here and also my first time doing a sort of travel blog. I’ve been thinking about writing about our travels, however I’ve always had a hard time figuring out how to cut up a one or two week trip so it won’t end up too long. In this case it was easy to segment this part of the trip and focus on just one interesting little town.

Consider this the first installment of a travelling through Japan series (or maybe the only one I write, depending on my motivation). We’ll be taking a look at town of Toyosato, located in the Inukami District, Shiga Prefecture, Japan.

Before we get to Toyosato though, we need to talk about K-On!, because we would not have any interest in going to Toyosato in the first place if not for that. K-On! (けいおん!) is a Japanese Yonkoma (4-panel) Manga written and illustrated by Kakifly (a penname), first published in 2007 and later followed by an Anime adaptation by Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) that premiered in 2009, with a second season in 2010 and a Movie in late 2011. Thanks to my friend Mr. 2dkomplex [https://2dkomplex.wordpress.com] I first discovered K-On! a little more than a year ago, through the KyoAni adaptation and I’ve been a fan ever since. The story revolves around 5 high school girls and the Light Music Club (Keionbu in Japanese hence the title Keion or K-On!) It’s a fun lighthearted ‘slice of life’ series, but if you pay close attention to the little details, the story and the character development are deeper than what it seems, as is the case with a lot of KyoAni’s work. I’d highly recommend watching the series if you haven’t, even if you’re not one who usually watches Anime.

While the original Manga (and Anime for that matter) is not set in any specific place, the animated adaptation makes use of real life locations as references for the background locations, typical of a lot of the work KyoAni has done. Most of these locations for K-On! can be found around Kyoto Prefecture. The Sakuragaoka High School however, where most of the story takes place was modeled after the real life Toyosato Elementary School located in Toyosato-chō. I’m lucky that my wife is a fan too, so when we were planning a trip to Japan to revisit Kyoto, we figured we’d go see Toyosato as well. Toyosato is a fairly out of the way town. Despite whatever fame it might have because of its connection with K-On!, I would say that it’s pretty far removed from the typical tourist places in Japan. I guess you could call it rural and I don’t mean that as an insult, I’d happily live in a quiet place like this. In the K-On! series it looks like the school is set in some busy part of Kyoto, not too far from the shopping districts and restaurants. But in real life, most of that is in and around Kyoto, specifically Uji where KyoAni is based. The school pretty much stands by itself in Toyosato. If it’s you’re first time traveling through Japan, keep in mind that this is far away enough from the beaten path that you won’t find too many English signs (or people who can converse with you in English). Don’t let that scare you though, as long as you have internet, Google Maps and Google Translate with pretty much have you covered. Perhaps the best way to put Toyosato in context with other places you might visit in Japan is the fact this place is remote enough that the Toyosato train station has no staff in it. Literally it’s just an open building with a restroom next to the train tracks.

With the Kyoto Train Station as a starting point, there are a number of options to get to Toyosato, only differing in price due to Shinkansen (Bullet train) vs Express (or Local) trains vs a Train + bus ride combo, and how much walking you’ll do after that. They all take around one hour and forty minutes. Since it’s pretty out of the way, you also won’t find any direct route, you’ll have to make some transfers. The route we chose was the 2nd cheapest option costing a total of 1,420 Yen one way, per person but ending up with a shorter walk from the train station vs. the cheapest option that requires an additional bus ride and a longer walk from the bus station. From the Kyoto Station get on the JR Tokaido-Sanyo line bound for Maibara. Ride the train for 8 stops and get off at the Omi-Hachiman Station. You’ll exit the JR Omi-Hachiman Station and walk over to the Omi Railway Station. They are right next to each other, it takes about a minute to cross over. At the Omi-Hachiman Station get on the Omi Tetsudo-Yokaichi Line bound for Yokaichi. Ride 6 stops all the way to the end and get off at the Yokaichi Station. From Yokaichi Station transfer to the Omi Tetsudo line train bound for Maibara. Ride 4 stops and get off at the Toyosato Station.

Going back is pretty much just the opposite of getting there. The only things to keep in mind are the fact that only one train per hour stops at Toyosato for most of the day, two per hour during rush hours, so make sure to check the schedule at the station. If you screw up don’t worry, waiting in Japanese train stations is fun. As mentioned earlier there is no staff at the Toyosato station. No ticket machines or IC card readers either. When you get on the train going back to Yokaichi make sure you get on at the middle or back door, there will be a little dispenser on there that will give you a stub that proves you got on at Toyosato then you’ll just pay the fare to the station staff when you get to Yokaichi. From the Toyosato train station it’s 700 meters to the school. Keep in mind that if you’re navigating using Google Maps and you set your destination to ‘Toyosato Elementary School’ it will lead you to the current Elementary School. The school building we want to go to is on the same block opposite the current school. I know this because we ended up at the current school, you’ll just have to go around the block to the other entrance. Getting a little lost is not too bad though, you’ll get to see a bit of the town as you wander around. It’s around a 6 min. walk to the school from the station (if you don’t get lost) then you’re greeted by that familiar gate that you’re seeing for the first time. You get to channel your inner Hirasawa Yui on the first day of school.

The actual Toyosato Elementary School was built in 1937 through the donations of Tetsujirō Furukawa, his bust is the one in front of the school building and the one that was always decorated with a seasonal hat in the Anime. The school building was designed by American turned Naturalized Japanese Architect William Merrell Vories. In 2004 the Elementary school moved to a new building. Rather than have the old building torn down, residents of Toyosato moved to have the historic building preserved and in 2013 it was registered as a tangible cultural asset of the country (I assume this protects it under some law).

Even without the K-On! connection the building itself is interesting. From the yellow circles painted on the hall way to warn people about the doors that open outward, because in 1937 most people in Japan were used to sliding doors, to the brass rabbit and turtle sculptures on the stairs that seem to depict the hare and the tortoise fable. It’s a very well designed building that allows a lot natural light and ventilation to come in. William Vories was also a Christian Missionary which is why from some angles the school building kind of looks like a church. A couple of rooms in the ground floor house exhibits dedicated to the history of the school building itself. Also of some significance and warranting its own glass display case, an English made water pump called “the Conqueror pump” is on display at one end of the building, likely to do with the agricultural history of the area. It’s notable that the building underwent a full restoration in 2008, a full year before K-On! made it a point of interest.

Ever since K-On! put it on the map in 2009 the school has been visited by countless fans who over the years have contributed items to make the upstairs music room appear how it did in the show. Pretty much every detail has been recreated, from the snacks for tea time to the unfilled club registration form stuffed inside one of the desks. The adjacent building that appears as the auditorium in the show has been converted to a souvenir shop and museum for even more K-On! related items, from a complete set of instruments and a whole lot of figures and art work. As it stands as of 2017, the school is open to the public. You can walk into the building, wander through the hall ways and go all the way up into the music room. A number of rooms in the building seem to still be in use for school administrative functions and a few of the downstairs class rooms are used as pre-school classes.

We were there on a Wednesday, May 17, 2017 and had the place pretty much to ourselves to explore and take pictures before a few other fans showed up. I’ve read it’s busier on Weekends and there’s usually an event of some sort for each of the characters birthdays.

It’s a surreal experience to just wander around the school. After 41 episodes of anime and a Movie featuring the place, it definitely didn’t feel like it was the first time being there. The stairs, hallways and music room all seemed like familiar places. The accuracy in which the school was rendered in the series and the accuracy that the fans went through to duplicate the K-On! club room in real life is amazing. If we treat KyoAni’s works as art then it’s a perfect example of art imitating life and life imitating art.

More than just seeing the school and calling it an obligatory pilgrimage to a K-On! Shrine visiting Toyosato also leads to other interesting insights about Japan. At first glance there’s pretty much nothing else in Toyosato, specifically this part of Toyosato that we walked around in. Pretty much the only major things in the immediate area are the Elementary school and a fairly big hospital. There are a few factories and buildings around but it’s mostly residential and agricultural land. There’s a shrine next to the school and a several nice traditional Japanese houses. There didn’t even seem to be any major restaurant in the area aside from the bakery next to the train station. In short, not much “tourist stuff” to do, but for me that part of what makes it even more interesting.

If you only go to popular tourist places while travelling you won’t really get a feel of what that country is really like. The tourism industry tends to mask the not so nice parts and present guests with a more polished sort of ‘for show’ side things. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just the way things are. What I find amazing about this trip to Toyosato is that however out of the way it might be is that not much really changed from our perception of what Japan is like. The people are still super friendly, language barrier or not. The staff at Souvenir shop in the school went out of their way to print out a map to show us where the post office was (we wanted to mail a postcard we got at the school to Manila) when they could not explain it in words. The place is impeccably clean, from the streets, canals, down to the restrooms in the staff-less train station probably even more so because of the lack of tourists. The train that only comes once per hour still arrived perfectly on time.

This trip may have started as a ‘visit to the school in K-On!’, and while that may be a sort of bucket list item for me, I also ended up with a bit more an appreciation of what Japan is really like.

Pro level (and beyond) wheel restoration [Part 1]

Wow. It's been over a year since I've uploaded anything for the blog. Time to catch up on some things. Decided to restore the wheels I have on my car. Sounds simple enough right? Well, for me that can easily snowball into a big project so I might as well point out that, despite doing this myself, there are cheaper and easier ways to have your wheels restored. Most of my previous sets of wheels were professionally restored by a company called Master Wheels (02-875-1199 look for Edwin), located in Las Pinas (Metro Manila, Philippines) which does excellent work for a very reasonable price. However the level of detail I wanted to get into is a little bit beyond what they can offer. So let's get started. The wheels I'll be working on are my 1984 production date 15x7 +20 offset Rays Engineering Volk Racing Artisan Spirit wheels.

While they look good when mounted on the car, and viewed from several feet away, a closer look reveals that the 30 year old wheels had seen better days. The color finish is not original either, they had been repainted a number of times in the past since it was a trend of sorts to have the gold center polished lip look.

These wheels are 3 piece split wheels. The center and the inner and outer barrels all separate. After having the tires dismounted the first order of business was to split the wheels up. It takes a considerable amount of force to break loose the allen bolts that hold these wheels together. Use at least a half inch drive deep wall socket and a good quality allen wrench. I first attempted it using a 1/4 inch drive socket set only to be rewarded with the socket splitting in half! Soak all the bolts with WD-40 and crack them loose with a power handle. Once they are free a socket will make quick work of it. A few taps with a piece of wood may be required to free the center, and a cutter will help split the barrels which are also held together with silicone.

Once apart there are two jobs to be done. Clean up the barrels which are bare aluminum (polished on the outside) and strip the paint off the centers. Does not really matter what you do first, I decided to strip the centers first since that's the more difficult task.

Like eating your veggies first before the meat. There are a few methods available to do this, Media blasting (the more generic term for Sandblasting) is an option specially in other countries where the service is readily available, but you have to be careful not the damage the aluminum. My preferred method in this case would be to chemically strip the centers. Although messy, this is the cheaper method and the least likely to damage anything. 1 Liter of Stripsol (brand) paint stripper, a paint brush to apply and an assortment of things to scrape with will be all you need. Be sure to wear gloves, although the burning sensation you'll feel when the paint stripper contacts your skin will remind you in case you forget.

My technique here is to apply a liberal amount of Stripsol (think of it like how much sauce you'd put on Pasta) and let it work it's magic on the paint. Others suggest to rough up the surface with sandpaper to give the chemical something to bite into, but in my experience it does not seem to make any difference whether you do or not. Without doing anything you'll see it start to eat the paint away.

After letting it sit for a few min. I work the Stripsol into the paint using an old tooth brush. Let it sit for a few more min and you'll see the old paint start to drip down. I cut a few small pieces of wood to use as a scraper to help with this, then hose it out with water to neutralize the paint stripper. This is what they centers looked like after one round.

There was at least 2 different coats of gold paint on the wheels, and the original black center silver spokes paint the Artisan Spirit wheels came in so we didn't get it all off in one round. After letting the centers dry I re-applied the Stripsol and did the same thing all over again and this was the result.

Whatever paint residue left there will still be soft because of the paint stripper. To finish them off, I used a Scotchbrite pad and soapy water to scrub it all down to clean bare aluminum.

This is the finished result.

The next thing requiring attention were the barrels. While they seemed fine when the wheels were together, it was not the case when they were taken apart. The in between of the barrels had a significant build up of dirt same with the edges of wheels where the tire bead sits. While aluminum does not rust, it can corrode in the right conditions which results in pitting which was starting to occur in some places.

Using a metal chisel, I carefully scraped off the thick dirt build up. This had already hardened into a sort of scale.

The three piece wheels are sealed at the joint using a sealant of some sort. Over time this sealant can become hard and start to leak air. In fact one of the reasons that pushed me to do the restoration was that I had a very slow air leak out of one wheel, which was not due to any fault of the tires, nor could it be traced when I had the wheel dunked in a tank of water to look for air bubbles. But it was losing air at around 5 psi a week. The previous owner of the wheels likely had the same problem as there were two layers of sealant in the wheels, the white stuff is what Rays Engineering originally put in there (also tells me that the barrels of the wheels have never been apart) and an extra layer of clear (well it's sort of yellowed now) silicone on top. Careful work with a blade will make short work of that.

The final step would be to spray the barrels with WD-40 (love this stuff) and scrub them with a Scotchbrite pad. This will remove whatever crap maybe on the the aluminum. Dirt, tape residue, rubber bits where the tire bead sits, old stickers (would save them if they were in readable but they were not) and the mounting residue from old wheel weights.

My wheels were in pretty good condition but one of the outer barrels had a little bit of curb rash courtesy of one of the previous owners. Careful work with the flat part of a file will get that back into shape. Use WD-40 to lube it to minimize the damage.

After all that work, I finally had my wheels down to the bare aluminum. I really wanted to just reassemble them like this, but this would be OK only for a show car. I like to drive my car of course, so bare aluminum is not exactly the best choice for that. The wheels will need a protective finish in order make sure they last for another 30 years and more. In Part 2, we finish the wheels and reassemble them.

Debunking the bullshit behind water powered cars

Run your car on pure water! Or in some cases it will still run on fuel but some incredible device that uses water to create hydrogen will help you ‘save fuel’ and ‘increase engine power’. Does that sound too good to be true? Damn right it is!

Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s a Filipino inventor made news all over the world when he claimed that he had built a Toyota Corolla that runs on 100% pure water. There are several videos on YouTube that show his supposedly incredible demonstrations. The car was basically stock, except of a battery sized device that generated Hydrogen gas from the water to power the engine. It’s all smoke and mirrors though as he never revealed exactly how his invention worked. The DOST eventually labeled it as a hoax and it all ended in 2008 when Dingle was convicted of Estafa. Dingle died in 2010, however while I wish he took his ‘invention’ with him to the grave, it lives on in many similar ‘powered by water’ devices that are being marketed by enterprising  businessmen.

There are many conspiracy theories that say the giant petroleum companies and even governments are behind all sorts of shady dealings in order to prevent these innovations from being available to the public. However, the reality is that these things really just do not work. The gas created by running an electrical current through water is called HHO or Browns Gas. It is basically two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen. This gas is supposedly the magical fuel source that will free us from our dependence on fossil fuels. The problem is the energy required to split water into its component atoms to create the HHO gas is so high that you will use more energy creating it than you will get to power the car. If you paid attention in Science class back in High School, the First Law of Thermodynamics will see to that. So, not only is it impossible to run a car on pure HHO gas, if you tried to use it as a fuel saving device, you will actually use more fuel because your cars electrical system will be working more to make the electricity to split the water. If you want to read more about this in greater detail check out this very well written article by the Aardvark.

Honestly, I spend a hell of a lot of money on fuel. I’d be the first person to wish things like these were true, however, the Science behind it says otherwise. Economics too, because when you think about it, it's nice now that water is cheap and sometimes free. But once water becomes a fuel the price will also go up. It’s a simple matter of supply and demand; there will be a lot more demand for water and with a supply that is pretty much fixed (hey, it's even hard to get water in some places!). Then imagine how much worse it will be, because not only will it be still expensive to fuel your car, it will also be expensive to get a glass of water to drink too!

Finding My Partner For Life

Five months and two weeks ago I proposed to my girlfriend and got a 'yes'. Going from being single and without a care in the world to being engaged has in itself been a blissful experience. I knew from the beginning that it would no be easy, and it was a challenge that I looked forward to facing.

In retrospect, I'm looking back at how this all started.

I met her at work. As if it was the script in some cheesy romantic movie, she was my boss, and if that cliche was not enough we started out as friends. It started with coffee. Hanging out together after work and just talking. I had come from a point where a previous relationship had ended on a rather sour note, and I was trying to kick a drinking habit that was already boarding on alcoholism. She had also been through something similar. It was nice to having a friend to talk to, I didn't have to keep things to myself and at the very least I kept me away from drinking. It's hard for me to remember at what point exactly I started entertaining the thoughts that we could be more than just friends. Towards the end of 2010 I had realized I was starting to fall for her. I decided to leave the company and pursue other things... her being one of them. When you find a girl who's willing to ride in your loud stripped out aircon-less car that's been sitting in the noon time sun, and she has to hop over the roll cage in her short dress, that has to be someone worth pursuing. Even if it meant leaving my comfort zone of a Job that actually paid quite well. After some courtship that would not be out of place in a John Loyd Cruz movie, including going through around 9 different cities just looking for a Starbucks that was open, we exchanged the verbal agreement to become mutually exclusive.

Bliss. Probably the most overused term in describing relationships. However, I can defend why I'd say our relationship has been blissful. Over the last couple of years, we experienced a lot of things together. Good things, bad things. We had our moments of joy and shared laughter, and also moments when we've hurt each other. Yes, we've had fights. Nasty ones sometimes involving somebody getting out of the car in the middle of traffic and walking away. An innocent post may also have been punched out of frustration leading to the injury of an innocent hand. We never broke up though, maybe somebody may had said something to that extent out of spite at one point, but without the acknowledgement of the other it was never official. The good times of course outnumber those, however believe it or not it's in those low moments that a relationship is forged. When your happy and having a good time, it's easy to gloss over things and get lost in the euphoria. When you're sitting a lone brooding about how you think the other person is unreasonable and imagining breaking up with them and how much easier and stress free things would be if you were single, is the time that you really test and see how much you love the other person, or not. Single life was great, you get to do whatever you want, when you want and you don't have to consider anyone else. You don't have to do things you don't want to do. You don't have to worry about hurting anyone. But when the desire to be with someone is stronger than all of that, when you'd put up with long (very long) shopping trips in a mall, wearing gay looking loafers and colorful clothes, not being able to grow an incredibly long beard that has a life of it's own because she thinks it looks dirty... The only explanation would be that you genuinely love the person and every moment spent with a person you truly love, both the good times and the bad, is bliss.

We had been boyfriend-girlfriend for a couple of years. How I decided it was the time to 'pop the question', I don't even really remember. I guess it's a sum total of all the feelings I had developed in the time we had been together. I can offer no logical explanation why I decided it was the right time to, all I knew is that on that early Monday morning on the 8th of July this year, everything felt 'right'. I had spent a lot of time looking at 'epic' wedding proposals on YouTube, thinking of elaborate ways to surprise her, but none of them felt right or really as sincere as I'd like. I didn't need anything fancy with video coverage, I felt like it was something that had to be private, shared only by the two of us. So again, after catching a movie, over some coffee, while talking and reminiscing out how things have been like over the time we had been together, I asked her if she would like to marry me. And so the adventure began.

Marriage. Scary word that. A lot of guys liken it to losing all freedom. The colloquial term for it translates to getting tied down. I don't remember ever fearing that. Although honestly I never also gave it much thought. It's said that you really have to prepare yourself before you consider getting married. You should be mature enough to handle the responsibility of starting your own family. You should be financially stable with a good amount of savings. You have to be sure that the person you are about to marry is the person you are willing to commit your life to. If there was a test to take that would allow you to get married, I certainly won't pass. 1 out of 3. Only the last case would apply. I know I'm far from ready for this sort of thing. Savings? I've been living it up indulging my self in all sorts of things, so I don't really have any, I wiped out whatever I had buying an engagement ring. All I knew was that I was sure she was the person I would like to spend the rest of my life with. I could imagine waking up next to her every morning, taking a shower in the bathroom while she poops, maybe having kids, and growing old together. I knew it was not going to be an easy journey, but it was just my style. I've always gone into things without really being prepared and figuring out how to make it work along the way. Think of it as cramming for an exam. It's definitely not the best way to go and things would be a lot easier if you prepared well ahead of time, but at the same time it is exciting, and in the end maybe even more rewarding. I'm well aware that things to come will be difficult, it will involve a lot of sacrifices, blood sweat and tears. There are still a lot of uncertain things, but I am sure that on August 8, 2014, when we exchange our vows and commit 'till death do us apart. It will be the happiest day of my life.

Unassisted Brakes.. Full manual conversion!

The upgrade that involves removing something that was already there.

First, a quick back story. My 1979 Mitsubishi Lancer originally came with a power assisted brakes by way of a Firewall mounted brake servo (aka. hydrovac). When I upgraded the engine, the original brake master and servo were in the way of the bigger carburetor so I switched to a custom brake system using an AP Lockheed remote servo mounted in the front of the car where the battery used to be. 

I can't really complain about the performance of the Lockheed system. Aside from the fact that is has a cool name and looks really trick (always starts a conversation when people see the setup for the first time) it actually performs quite well. It's really powerful, I'd even call it overassisted. You get full braking power with just a light touch of the brake pedal. I've used it for almost 5 years already covering a whole lot of driving, mountain runs, high speed runs and even slalom racing once. The system is not perfect though. Because the brake servo is remote from the pedal, it lacks feel, or more accurately, there is no feel. The pedal acts more like an on/off switch, although with enough time and experience, knowing how the car will react when I step a certain amount, I was able to learn how to control it, but I never could use 100% of the brakes without locking it up. Another disadvantage was that you lose the split circuit safety of the original brake system, because the lockheed is fed by a single line in, if you have a leak anywhere you lose all brakes. I had a slight scare once when the bolt of a t-fitting came off and caused one of the brake pipes to crack. I've been paranoid about it ever since. Lastly, it's an old-tech system. Even 5 years ago, we were selling the things 'new old stock' coming out of decaying boxes. I have sold the last of our stocks of the things even the one I was keeping as a spare, so I figured if it were to break it would be best to look for a more modern alternative. Although, I must give the Lockheed some credit there, as long as they have clean brake fluid, they seem to last forever.

For a while, I had been researching alternative options that can apply to the car, given the tight space constraints of the engine. There is no modern version of the Lockheed remote servo, and even the smallest thinnest firewall mounted servo from a Japanese Kei car will still be too long for our application. There was always the option of switching to a down draft car and manifold to get the space back, but I felt that would be giving up on the side draft system that already works so well. Eventually, I started looking into Motorsports solutions. I was drawn in particular to the Tilton design dual master cylinder brake system that had a separate master for the front and rear brakes and a balance bar for adjustment and tuning. This is where I first encountered unassisted brakes. I had always thought that unassited brakes were reserved only for really really old cars that date back from before the brake booster/servo/hydrovac was invented. My 60 Chevy has manual brakes and they were terrible. I learned since then that a large number of race cars actually remove the servo and run unassited brakes for better control. Also learned that one of my favorite cars, the early Porsche 911 also did not have any brake servo up to some of the earlier 930 series. So based on the logic that most race cars and Porsche's are faster than my car and they run unassited brakes, I figured that would be the way to go.

I had originally planed on making my own version of the Tilton dual master cylinder system (of course we could always buy one, but there's no fun in that), but as I later decided that I don't really need the bias adjustability it offers over the increased cost and complexity of making one. The simpler the better, I figured as less parts would mean less areas to R&D and less places where things could possibly go wrong. I decided to pattern my brake system after the early Porsche 911 design which is basically a 2-pot master cylinder directly actuated by the pedal.

Master cylinders actually work like gears, with a ratio in relation to the piston in the brake caliper. The smaller master cylinder actually applies more pressure while the bigger it is means it moves more fluid (you also have to consider your brakes, discs have big pistons compared to the wheel cylinders in drums). The idea is to find the balance between having enough fluid volume to move your brakes within a fairly short stroke and having enough pressure. I understood this to mean that you use the smallest master you can get away with. According to the Porsche experts and racing people, a 20mm master cylinder was best for unssisted brake applications (any bigger and you'll probably want some assist already) so I figured that's a good place to start.

I dropped by favorite local parts place (Alabang Parts Center in Las Pinas) because those guys are patient with putting up with my strange requests for parts. I asked them to bring out all of the master cylinders they had on stock so I could choose one, considering both the 20mm bore size I needed and the need to get the shortest possible one to clear our engine mods. I settled with one for a '89 Lancer (yeah, funny to end up with a Mitsubishi part again) 13/16" = 20.3mm so close enough and it was also physically the stubbiest master the had available.

I fabricated an adaptor plate out of aluminum to mate it's 2-bolt flange to the 4-bolt hole in the cars firewall, which as you'll see in the pic, just barely clears the backing plate on the side draft carb.

I then fabricated a rod that connects the brake pedal to the master with an adjustable link so I had the option of adjusting pedal height and even preloading the master to shorten the pedal stroke if I wanted to. [no pics of that, I'm calling that a trade secret]

Took out all the complex brakes lines the old remote servo had and was left with a simple 'one for the front brakes, one for the rear brakes' setup. Still in the same armored copper pipe as before.

All done, there's a lot less clutter in the engine bay now.

Finally. The most important part. How does it perform?

I have to say that I like it a lot! In fact I've been driving the car all week just so I can keep testing it. Of course compared to any assisted setup it requires a lot more pressure to stop the car. There is nothing helping you so it's all muscle power. I would have to say it takes about 4 to 6 times more force from the right leg to stop the car. One noticeable difference is that there is now a progression in stopping. With a servo you just step, and the longer you leave your foot on the pedal the more stopping the car does. Without the servo you step and you have to step harder and harder to stop the car. It's not as bad as it seems though, as it's still quite easy to lock up the tires at speed if you step hard enough. I like it actually, and what I really like with the progression of the manual system is that it is very easy to modulated the brakes.

In order to use 100% of your braking system, you have to be able to brake at 'impending lockup' meaning any bit more pressure and you lock the wheels. On most cars I've driven with a brake assist this limit is very small, so you end up braking, locking the brakes, releasing, adding pressure, locking again and releasing, in order to balance the car at the limit. With the unassisted system, because of it's progression, it is SO easy to find that limit and keep it there, just perfect that you can hear the tires scrubbing just about to lock up but not locking up. I can imagine that this would be a great advantage at the track, which we may have the opportunity to test next year. For fast road use I am very satisfied.

In normal driving, the pedal does feel a lot harder than an assisted system. But after a bit of time to adjust to it, it feel normal and natural. City driving with stop and go traffic is easily handled without any more effort than if it had power assist.

In summary, I'm very happy with it. Pros: Great feel, excellent control and much simpler than the previous system. Cons: Very hard pedal (although I actually like that, it feels very reassuring to kick when your going for it) and more effort needed from the human to operate the car. So I don't think it's an mod for everybody and it probably won't be as easy if it was in a different application i.e. a much heavier car (remember our Lancer is like 750kg). I know a lot of people prefer over assisted systems because it makes the brake feel really strong, but really boosted pressure from the pedal does not make the actual brakes perform any better than if the pressure was manually supplied. 

Motoring on a budget: Honda City Project Car

I have an interesting new project. But a little back story first. My younger sister is now at the age where she needs a car of her own, so my Dad decided to get her one and since we're not kicking back on any Pork Barrel funds, we didn't have that much of a budget to work with. So the idea was to find a cheap car, with an automatic transmission that we could fix up and turn into a reliable daily driver for a first time driver. I'm taking care of fixing up the car and I figured I'd document the process and treat it like a challenge to see how we can get everything done on a budget. Kinda like those cheap car challenges on TopGear!

So here's what we got! 

It's a 1996 Honda City EXi with a 1.5L D15B engine and an automatic transmission. We got it for only 75,000 pesos. Way below market price! These things usually go for around 160k to 180k, but the catch is that it was not running. My dad noticed the car parked in front of a neighbors house, he called and made and offer and we got it. This is where our adventure begins. 

So, we start with a non-running car. The owner said the car last ran in June of this year (3 months at the time of this writing). It was running before they stopped using it, and after not using it for a while it didn't want to start anymore. The culprit was likely just a dead battery. I had already enrolled the car into one of my AAP accounts so I could tow it to the shop and work on getting it to run there, but I needed to wait 7 days before the free roadside assistance would kick in. I decided we'd give it a shot and try to get the car running on the spot. We swapped in a fresh battery and the car started on the first try. It didn't sound the healthiest, for sure in desperate need of a tune up and change oil (the oil was filthy!) but good enough to drive home which was just a few blocks away.

The short drive home was enough to tell that we were going to have to work on a lot of things on the car. It ran ok and the automatic trans shifted fine. The interior was dirty and I kept my work gloves on because the steering wheel was sticky. The front power windows go down but need help going up and the brakes are noisy. At this price level though, we can't be too choosy. The car was running, the registration up to date and the aircon even works so that's a good start.

Once home, the first order of business was to pick out dirt and dried leaves from the crevices and hose out what we could. The car as seen in the first pic had been parked under a tree and had a lot of dirt and soil under it. 

The interior could use a good cleaning and smelled funky. I ripped off the yucky sticky steering wheel cover to find that the original steering wheel was pristine beneath it. It's got a rather ugly set of seat covers that actually cover the seats quite well. We suspect that the seats underneath are in pretty good shape. 

The roof on these early Honda cars seems to be a problem area. Seems like it's got something to do with the structural supports under the roof rusting through. We will get this properly repaired when all the mechanical work has been sorted out on the car but for now, I did a quick fix just to cover up the holes to at least try and prevent the rust from spreading. 

Using my industrial grade 'Nashua' aluminum tape. 

So that's where we are today. I didn't have much more time to work on the car today since I had work to do. Dad and I are hoping to get everything done and sorted with in a 100k budget. So far, we're at 75k for the car, 3.8k for the new Amaron battery, and 750 for the AAP membership (1500 divided by two since one membership takes two cars) running total for the project is 79,550. 

Tomorrow I'll drive the car to the shop so we can give the mechanicals a once over.

To be continued. 

Epic Tanay Matsuri 2013: The Tänaybürgring

Long story short; it's over 300 kilometers of fun across four provinces, with some of the best driving roads the country has to offer. If you haven't seen it yet, check out this little teaser video to get an idea how awesome it was. It was epic, it was awesome, it was the kind of thing serious car enthusiasts dream about. Three days after and I'm still feeling the high. 

The awesomeness of the event however goes beyond just a day of having fun in the mountains. With a line up of around 60 vehicles ranging from 60's Mercedes Benz sedans, a classic Datsun Sunny Pickup, our usual group of 70's and 80's Lancers, a classic Porsche 911, a selection of 90's era Japanese sports cars consisting of a few S-Chassis Nissans, Toyota MR2's and a Mazda RX-7 FD, Civics, Corollas, Lancers, and a Lancer EVO V, several Subaru Impreza's... and a Forester turbo, several Hyundai Genesis's, Diesel powered pickups and SUV's, a E46 BMW, a Volvo wagon, an AMG Benz, a Kawasaki bike, a 1.2L Mirage, a Hyundai Elantra and (the wildcard surprise of the trip) a Toyota Avanza. (and more that I just can't remember now) Our convoy through the mountains had a representative from almost every branch of our local car culture; Race cars, stance, classics, 4x4's, stock rides, factory tuned, professionally built and home built cars. It would have been the equivalent of all the religions in the world getting along together in once place in spite of having different beliefs and priorities. 

Sure, you could argue that you'd get a similar diverse layout in even small scale car shows, but only a real enthusiast can go out and drive. Driving is the litmus test here. Those who build cars to impress others can put all the parts they can buy and slap together an impressive show car, but only if you build your car to impress yourself will you be willing to take it on a 300+ KM round trip where breaking down or falling of a mountain side would be real possibilities if you didn't know what you were doing. 

It may not have been a huge meet with hundreds in attendance, but the quality of the people (not just the cars) was impressive. As I like to say, we were a small but powerful crowd.

For quite some time I've been bored, even disenchanted with our local car scene. I've written about that before and could give a long litany about all the posers and asshats I've come across which have made me stay away from going to car meets and the like for a while. Just go on the Facebook page of a certain popular automotive magazine (clue it rhymes with hop rear) and if you were to judge what the Philippine car culture was like based on the posts there alone, it's not something you would be proud of. Unless you'd be proud to say that you're a jealous sports car hating whiny bitch. The results of the Matsuri (that's festival in Japanese in case you're wondering) give me hope for the local scene. It shows that we can all get together and have fun without the need for any real organized structure. No need for presidents or admins, or complicated groups with all sorts of fees and memberships statuses. Everybody just acting as individuals, united only by our shared passion for cars and driving. I guess that's part of the reason I still feel the high three days later. Because I feel so refreshed. If you hang out too much with people who just have the same type of car, you will develop a certain herd mentality that will prevent you from full enjoying what our car culture has to offer. People for example in Mitsubishi only clubs seem to think that people who drive Honda's are our rivals. 'mayabang ang mga naka Honda' in the colloquial as a lot would say. But out on the mountain you will realize that the guys driving the Honda (or whatever your perceived rival might be) are just enthusiasts like you and if you open your mind and talk to them you might find it surprising that you have some common ground between the two of you. 

With that realization, I'm seeing a bright future for our local car culture. The Matsuri is the first of many fun events organized by us enthusiasts for enthusiasts. In order to keep in touch with everybody who joined and to bring together more like minded individuals we have setup a Facebook group called the EPIC Awesome Drivers Lounge. Anyone out there who finds this post and would be interested to join is most welcome.

The event aside, this was also a debut run in the mountains for my '79 Lancer. While we've made more runs around the mountains than I can remember this is the first with the new engine and new setup with the AC and all. This is also my first run with my new partner, my soon to be wife, and this was an experience I wanted to share with her. 

I started preparing the car for the run a few months ago. Shaking it down so it won't break down on the road. I was getting confident with the new setup, the newly built engine has almost 2500 KM on it since it was built and is only now really starting to feel broken in and is really feeling strong. I'm also adjusting to the new suspension setup and new tires (brand and size I've never used before). This is also the first time in many many years that the car has aircon (a sign I'm getting old perhaps).

The night before I was up late having a 'steak party' at my house with friends and that combined with being so excited and having to be up early meant I got at best 2 hours of sleep. I was up by 4:00AM because I had made arrangements for a small convoy for us based in the South to leave Petron Westgate at 5:30AM. At exactly 5:32AM our small convoy left Alabang en route to the kick off point for the Matsuri. The Shell gas station along Marcos Highway. By 6:00 AM we were at Shell. On the way I stopped by the Petron station along Marcos Highway to fill the tank of the Lancer with the new 100 Octane Euro 4 Petron Blaze. Having calculated that we should be able to make it all the way around on one full tank of gas.

The atmosphere at Shell was electric. There were already quite a number of cars gathered by the time we got there and more and more arrived by the minute. It took a bit a time to get everybody together and organized. We were put on the #taco group which meant we were with the faster cars. We left Shell at around 8AMish (I really was not keep track of time anymore). After snaking our way through the traffic of Marcos Highway we eventually entered the Devils Playground and started to climb to Tanay. A nice group we were in, initially we were along side a pair of MR2's and an S14 Silvia. I was driving with the AC on and a passenger but the engine was pulling strong and we were keeping pace easily. By the time we were half way up to Tanay at our first stopover to take pictures I was already synched in to my car again. If you are the crazy type who would believe that cars are more than machines and could possibly even have a soul this may have been proof. I don't know if it was the adrenaline or the excitement getting to me, but the car felt like it was running smoother. It felt like it was responding faster. It's almost as if you could feel that it was happy doing what it was doing. It was incredible. The torque of the new engine setup meant I didn't have to ring every last RPM out of the engine like before. 3000 to 4000 RPM shifts in 3rd and 4th gear was enough to keep pace. Only a few times did we need to call upon a full power when the need to overtake arose. As a result the car was relaxed and running cool. I didn't even feel the need to switch off the AC at any point because I didn't feel any lack of power and my sleepy co driver appreciated to frosty cold AC. By the time we were heading down the mountain towards Caliraya we were properly on it! With a mean black Subaru WRX filling my wide angle rear view mirror urging on. It was driving nirvana!

There were a few casualties for the event. Cars with mechanical problems of course, no death or anything like that. Being among the oldest cars in the group we impressively did not have any major problems. Our only hitch was that the left wiper linkage came loose while running in the rain causing the both wipers to bind. It was a quick fix to convert it to a single wiper temporarily get us through the day. The '77 Lancer of my friend got through with no problems at all. We ended with a late lunch (Pizza! I like pizza if you didn't know) at Nuvali in Sta. Rosa Laguna. Exhausted but totally satisfied. 

It's been a while since I've had a feeling of being satisfied with the performance of my car. I want to upgrade the brakes since I feel with the new performance they could be better (already have some ideas brewing), but otherwise I can't ask the old car to do anymore than it has. 

Lastly, if you noticed the Save the Ring stickers and banners in video, that is in support of the Save the Nurburgring petition. 

The rest of the pics we took can be seen here! You can also go the the Epic Tanay Matsuri 2013: The Tänaybürgring events page for more pics and videos from other participants.