Ok, since drifter is pretending to be busy and not post his report, I thought I’d put down a few words of my own on the drive.
Who came:
The rides
GTO – C220 CDI
Drifter – Accent CRDi
Fordrocam – Ford Ikon 1.6
Gr8guzler – Ford ikon 1.6
Balenopower – Baleno
Maana – Accent
Speedsatya – Zen MPFI
Adya – Accord 2.4iVtech
Rtech – Octavia 1.9tdi
The passengers:
Rehaan
Ported_head
Dippy
F50
Stratos
RJK
Normally_crazy
Mad Monkey
Viper
Yes, I know I’ve missed out a lot of names. Feel free to lynch me later.
After a lull of a few weeks, it was time for another Mumbai T-bhp drive.
The destination – Amby Valley, Lonavala. Decided upon after a lot of bickering and some wild idea’s and Ported’s pleading for a drive to “anywhere but lets just go”! I was really eager to go on this drive for reasons you will soon find out.
Time of Departure: Supposedly 6.30 am. I say supposedly, because the
“Organiser” himself was late, and made his grand entrance at 6.45am or so, and ever the responsible person he his, promptly blames the delay on Mad Monkey (MM). 15 minutes late is not too bad though, when you consider the delays we had at previous meets.
The first wave of T-bhpian’s head off to our second meeting place at the end of Palm Beach road. We bump into bikefreak right at the beginning of Palm Beach. He was not joining us for the drive, but had just come about to meet us (and probably for an early morning ride on his F2).
We reach our meeting point expecting to find 3 cars waiting; instead we find maana, her hubby and her friend waiting there alone. No NC, no SS, no RJK. Why is it the people who live the closest are always the one’s that arrive last! We really need to start implementing that “last guy to arrive buys fuel” rule.
Finally everyone arrives and we set off…straight into a red light (that’s where MM took that great pic of the line up). Balenopower decides to make a drag of it. The pair of Accent’s didn’t stand a chance, and balenopower had to back off as he was in the left lane.
Maybe this is the right time to mention that, a few days ago, my car had a…umm, mild performance enhancement done to it. Yes, I was equipped our own member – turboindia’s supplied powerbox - Pete’s PSI Powerbox. As per factory claims, raises the power from 88bhp to 108bhp with a jump in torque of around 40NM. A full, detailed report on this will be put up shortly after I finish with some fuel economy readings.
While GTO had to restrict the rpm’s on his 200km old beauty, Viper, driving ford rocam’s heavily modded Ikon decided to tear up the road (in a responsible way) with me following. We hit the expressway and we are off. A lot of holiday traffic means a lot of lane hopping to get around the stubborn drivers who like to do 50kmph in the right lane. The 2 of us snake through the traffic and I open her up when I see a clear stretch of road. 150 goes by fast, 170 comes soon after, 180…190…195…200…202….and that’s where it stayed planted. The car would just not go above that speed. She was running at 4,100rpm, so there was 900rpm left, but it just wouldn’t move beyond that. However, an indicated 200 is about 20kmph higher than what my stock Octavia used to do, so yes, I was smiling! Also, it was as stable as if I was driving at 120. Those German’s I tell you!
Once past about 180, I could see the Ford getting smaller in my mirror, but he’s on me again when we reach the toll booth. A quick snack later, and once we have all regrouped again, we head off. The rocam through the tunnel’s was an awesome experience. He would downshift and we could see the Sumo drivers get a shock when they heard that sound suddenly go by them in the dark!
We reach the twisties at about 8am and wait for adya to join us in his black Accord 2.4. Now the fun begin’s. Only not. The thick fog meant we were actually sticking to speed limits for a change, with visibility dropping to only a few feet at times. However, on a few patches where it cleared up, POOW, we were off. Tight 1st gear hairpins were being taken in 2nd thanks to the box, and I still had the inside wheel spinning! I almost rear-end adya when he appears to miss a shift and almost stall’s it in the middle of one of those tight hairpins. This is where torque really comes into play and the 1.9tdi was revelling in these conditions. As you can see from rehaan’s amazingly edited video clip, we were enjoying ourselves. Not so sure about ported_head, who was my passenger, and who didn’t say a word till the end!
We all meet up at the end and get to talking about each others rides. SS pops his hood and we have a mob situation where people flock to see what amazing and colourful modifications have been carried out! Rehaan ran off with the CRDi aka. the tempo, as I presume he was missing his Accent. Dippy managed to con adya into letting him drive his Accord all the way back down, and NC tried out my car to see what difference there was. It took him a while to get used to my clutch for some reason, and although he didn’t say much, I think he was as impressed as me with the jump in performance. So NC, have you placed your order yet!!
The drive down was exhilarating. Once again it’s Viper in the rocam and me who take off. Viper was close behind all the way down, though he later says that he was really pushing just to keep up. Dude, with those fuelling tweaks sorted out, that car will be great!
Our run is brought to a premature end when we get stuck in a serpentine traffic jam that goes from bad to worse. Mr. Ratbuster decided enough is enough and plays chicken with a mini bus. Luckily (for him) the bus gives way!!
GTO’s black beauty are the stars of Amby Valley that morning. The dark tints and pimpin’ colour led people to think that there was a bollywood star or something in the car. Rehaan peering out of the moonroof with his camera had the tourists cheering when they drove past! I guess the 3 pointed star has some star power in it yet.
When we hit the expressway for the ride home, GTO and me seem to have separated from the rest of the pack. We have a great drive down to the food stop where I follow his C and marvel at how composed it was over the bumps and corners. Then I realise that I don’t have to keep my car below 2,500 rpm and take off!
A few vada’s later the rest of the group meets up with us at the food station. A good meal later we all head off to end another classic team-bhp drive.
Now Ported, it’s time we found that sponsor for our next drive!
This is my addition to the gallery:
Polution levels getting worse everyday!
Mr. Benz leads the group down. Rocam's Ikon has an intake sound to die for!!
speedy amazing everyone with his engine bay!!
Everywhere this car went, it was turning heads!
Maybe it had something to do with a crazy bawa poking out of the roof!
we were lucky, the traffic got worse than this!