Here comes the GoldMember...

So at the conclusion of SDB Round 2 of 2009, I bought this 1992 2-door Civic EH2 (local version of JDM's Honda EG) at a price of RM21,000.00.  It was Blue in color, with SOHC engine and bolt-on tiny turbo system.  The color was somewhat unusual locally, I have no idea what is is called.  Here's what it looked like the first day I brought it home.

So I drove this car around  with this color and this turbo engine for a while, like for about 3 months.  Didn't quite excite me though.

In the meantime, I race my EK again in SDB Round 3 in July of 2009.

With some friends at the pitt.

Here's the owner of the fast Civic Si, Mr Poji.

Busy traffic at the pitt exit.

View from the starting line, waiting for our turn to run.

Ok now it's my turn to race.

In the end, I ended up doing worse from the previous round.  The best time for this round was 15.879s.  Last time I managed to clock 15.735s.  It was high time to start transfering this engine into the GoldMember.

Let's race it again

And here I was again, in Round 2 of the Sepang Drag Battle 2009.  Not much changes was done to the car.  Except perhaps some fine tuning on the Hondata, which I was learning to do it by myself as well.  Hopefully in the future, I could reduce my dependency to my friend Zaki for tuning help and do it myself, without blowing the engine in the process, of course.  Well, in the course of learning, one will have to accept some failures, including killing a few engines in the process.  I just hope it won't happen too fast though!

Here's me doing some final touches before the race starts.

Everything in the engine bay remained the same.

So was the car.

And here's the result (see car no. 26).  I had managed to improve the timing from 17.048s to 15.735s this time.  But it was still way too slow to catch up with the rest of the guys.  Hence this was when I decided to look for a lighter chasis.  It was then the true birth of the GoldMember as it is now.

Here are some other cars at the race, from various categories.

Let's race it

So with all done (hopefully!), now it's time to test the machine on track.  I brought the car with this engine to participate in Class F (Road Legal Category) at Round 1 of the Sepang Drag Battle 2009.  I didn't expect to win or even qualify for quarter final round with this car, since the competition includes many smaller and lighter cars with more engine power.  I would just be happy if it can just survive the race, so that I can drive it home after the race, and bring me to work on Monday.

So here it is at the pit.

And here's how it did on track.

Here's a friend's car, which is using a DOHC non-VTEC Si engine, which was way faster than mine.  Much better power-to-weight ratio perhaps.  Plus the driver is a much more experienced drag racer than I am.  It's a nice classic civic very well maintained and restored nonetheless.