The return to Ulu Yam

Once again, the 8GCC organized another trip to Ulu Yam. In spite of what we read in the papers, our local expert Hock "Ulu Yam" Ming had scouted the route and found it clear of debris, rocks, chicken feathers, etc....

As for me, since no one else was coming from Melaka, so there was no need for an early morning convoy like before. Instead, I went down the night before to Damansara, so that I didn't have to find my way to Batu Caves in the wee hours of the Sunday Morning. Incidentally, the (im)famous Batu Caves Shell station was not on my GPS (must be an older revision map), so I reckoned I'd still have to do some searching that morning....



Anyway, I arrived at ~6.45am, where the current 8GCC president Kor was already waiting with a couple of other guys. Slowly, one by one, the rest of the team trickled in. Eventually, we made our move at ~7.30am or so. We had a number of FD's, a Type R, a BMW 323 and 2 Subarus (don't know exactly which model, I'm not a Subaru connoisseur). This was a leisurely drive, so basically hardly any overtaking took place.

I was more interested in testing out the set of newly installed Eibach Prokit Springs, which replaced my stock ones. When paired with my existing Koni FSD shocks, they allowed for a much firmer ride with practically no compromise on comfort. Unfortunately the result is a drop in ride height by roughly 1 inch in the rear and 1.5 inches in the front (my car now has a slightly front slating poise). This meant that on "regular" Malaysian roads, there was too much travel required of the suspension system, resulting in bumps with each pothole and speedbump. Ironically, this meant that I could go faster around bends, but slower in most straight-line situations....

I also had in my tank of fuel a healthy dose of Dixel RCL fuel additive, that made the occasional high revs both easy to achieve and smooth. Never hurts to protect the engine as much as you can.

As we made our run up the UY trail, at the first bend I was a little cautious, as during my previous run here I encountered quite a lot of "drifting". This time around, I encountered much less body rolling than before, and the tires did not lose their grip so easily.

With Bro Solid88 in front of me to keep the pace, I followed the line up the roads of the Ulu Yam trail and observed the noticeable difference in handling. Now, we were by no means traveling at breakneck speeds, and I'm sure that if we were, I would ultimately be left in the dust (the Bro in front of me was a skilled driver with better equipment and 2 HPC's under his belt, after all).

I took the opportunity to test out my Pivot 3 Drive, which was mostly in EC5 and forgotten about. Halfway through, I switched to S mode and engaged paddle shifting (our older FD2's are not capable of engaging gears in D mode). Switching over to SP5 from EC5, I noted that it was much easier to redline the engine compared to when I was in EC5. I switched back and forth a couple of times just to ascertain that it wasn't just psychological. Conclusion - if you want to drive as fast as possible, use paddle shift and SP mode (haven't tried SP7 though). Or, you can get yourself a Sprintbooster, but that's a permanent ON setting that you can't turn off on the fly.

Brakes were more than adequate, with no signs of fading or that awful burning smell as when I was on Honda stock pads. Of course, there was plenty of brake dust coming from my Project Mu Bestops. When these pads wear out, I'll evaluate on some EBC's next....





Halfway up, as we stopped at the cable car station, a fog was starting to brew. Now, it's been a long time since I actually saw fog at Genting (last time being when I went on a school trip during secondary school). The road ahead was severely fogged up - all the way to the mamak corner.






Well, after breakfast, we decided to head back down to one of the lakes / waterfalls before heading home. Unfortunately, the traffic was quite heavy by that time, so halfway down, Kor and I (who were at the back), got caught up behind a slow bas (not a slow bas**** - really just a slow bas). Due to communication challenges (never bring walkie-talkie), we lost the rest of the convoy, and thus went back on our way home.


It was a good event, smooth in execution, and I'm happy to have been able to join. I'd very much like to come again one of these days and stop by for photos (already test car, now time to test camera).

Looking forward to seeing more friends again the next time `round!