The nitty gritty details of my ZC71

Hello everybody,

I can't express how excited I am when I sent my dearest zc71 in today to L Soon Auto  (located at AMK AutoPoint)to fix the dents, align the "koyak" rear bumper & give it a fresh coat of spray.

The work done (as far as I can see with my naked eyes) is good + the paint work is decent (but need a couple weeks more to review since it hasn't seem much of the weather yet. Alignment is fixed nicely, although can still tell it has been bumped before.

Overall, the price is reasonable for the kind of quality I am given. The lead time taken is about 7-8 hours, which is still acceptable. Dumb dumb me forgotten to take the "BEFORE" photos of the dents & cracks, so only can show you guys the "AFTER" looks.

Enjoy...

 Full Rear View

 Rear view (right side)

First of all, GONG XI FA CAI to one & all, whether you are old or young, straight or crooked, or if you don't look as good as me, I wish all of you good health & greater prosperity.

Apologies for the lack of updates recently bec my Madam has been watching me very closely so I don't dare to upgrade anymore, else I will suffer the music on my ears.

Seriously, I have been thinking to myself (after reflecting on what others said to me) - what is a car with all those racing-style decals when it cannot run at all. Although I am hanging onto just 1.2cc car, but I am quite an optimist on what this machine can do for me.

I camped high & low, read reviews of different exhaust systems & met up old birds in the SwiftClubSG forum before deciding my next move.

Lo'and Behold!

 My 2nd hand SuperSprint muffler

 Under the exo!

It is legal, with certificate to boot + it is semi-flow so at least I reduce some back-pressure for more power.

After fitment at RTES, I went for a test drive on the road. The result is very clear - a very vast difference from my stock low end. The pickup is much faster & responsive than the stock exhaust; after a certain speed limit, I experience a greater push to the car.

After a week of testing with my CAD spring on stock Tokico shocks, I finally had enough. Taking a ride in my car is like going on a roller-coaster ride man. The spring is too soft to shift the weight proportionately so I keep jumpin' up & down in my ride.

So I decided to swap back with that bro, in exchange for his Vogtland lowering spring + I took over his stock Swift Sports Monroe shocks.

The result = FANTASTIC suspension system. Though very minor, but it is good enough for an upgrade from my stock Tokico shocks & spring.

 Vogtland spring on Monroes

Once again, I am on the move to enhance the exterior enhancement of my baby Swift. Now I need to modify the suspension system to lower my ride. Hence, I decided to change the lowering spring. The stock Tokico shocks & spring are complimentary in ensuring that the weights are properly shifted so that the effects of the humps & bumps are pretty much alleviated.

Now I will just replace the original spring to CAD ones. I have absolutely no prior experience or heard any review on this spring, so I decided to dive in with it since it is cheap & the bro assured me a lowered ride.

So again, I went down to RTES to get them fixed up. Nice people over there & I really like their sense of humor and professionalism.

 CAD Springs (in red)

 Work in Progress

 Spring on the front side

After installing, I wasn't happy (no, not because the people @ RTES weren't doing a good job) because the ride was only lowered BY 1 finger, instead of lowering TO 1 finger spacing (from the tires).

No choice I left with the "supposed lowered ride" & test it out.

Alright, I saw quite a few rides got this decal on em', so figured why not on mine too?

So I went back to Soh Guan Chuan Auto Supply to have them fix up this decal.

Total damage = $12.

 The new decal with my gf & my surname + blood type

There are several instances where I felt drawn towards being a motorhead, although at times I found myself having to self-remind that driving this little machine is meant for traveling from point to point.

1. I try to catch up & overtake every single "sporty-looking" car, which is going at high speed on the highway.

2. Visiting performance shops in the different corners of Singapore & trying to figure out how I can increase the BHP of my little guy.

3. Trying to body-kit my ride at every possible moment when I caught glances of some ideas from the different sports car owners in SG.

4. Getting high at the sound of those "zhng-ed" sport cars & wanting to sound like them.

5. Spending large amount of dough to lighten my ride & increase its performance slowly by adding performance parts.

6. Driving like em' speed devils on the highways & even small roads.

So today's so-called mods shouldn't come as a surprise. I would call it functional, really. A couple days back, I managed to snag this set of beautiful Taiwan motor gauges (Auto Gauge) at jaw-drop pricing; can't reveal the price, else I will put both the seller & I in jeopardy muahahahaha!

Anyways, I was recommended by a friend's brother to install this set of gauges at Racing Technology Exhaust System (RTES). Man, their service is really damn good. Look for this guy - Ah Wu. Their workmanship & quality is top notch, staffs are friendly too i.e. when I ask a lot of questions, they answer me 1 by 1 without getting frustrated or sound like they are rushing off to other places. A definite thumbs up for customer service.

I am going back there to smoothen my front 2 rotors, as well as do exhaust mod (which will be coming in later posts). Meanwhile, enjoy the photos!!

 Auto Gauge when engine is off (day time)

 Auto Gauge when engine is on (day time)

Today I got itchy again; went down to AL Tyres Cooperation @ Circuit Link to look see look see, end up kanna convinced to get the SSR Type C rims (black). Been wanting to get my hands on them for a long time + the boss quoted me a really steal price for a brand new set after I trade in my rims. BEST BARGAIN!

Specs:-

15"x6.5j, PCD 4x100, 5.85kg per rims. Read more...

 Nice rims eh!

 Closeup shot

 Front view

Got lobang to CF wrap my beloved front emblem + added a feel of the VW Golf GTi front grill concept to my ZC71 by wrapping the front part with matte black coating. All wrappings shown in this post are done at Soh Guan Chuan Auto Supply (3005 Ubi Ave 3 #01-50, call 6748 2202).

 The new front look

 Closeup on the embem.

Okie dokie, I admit I got a bit itchy handed and I decided to DIY this time to do [IT]'s racing stripes on the side door. I went to ISS Mart to purchase the material, dirt cheap + it's Oracal Germany decal so quality is damn good & stretchable.

And so shall it be that more lights are installed on this little machine. All mods are done in JB, except the front tray LED & the console LED are done at Express Audio House (Upper Thomson Road)

 LED Cabin Light

 Legroom LED Light Front Driver + Passenger

 Legroom LED Light Back Passenger 

 Boot LED

Remember in Chapter 1, I got a friend (Yus / K4teen) to help me wrap the bonnet with 3M CF. Well, there are some leftovers and here is what I did with them.

 Side window panel

 Fuel Lid Cover

 Stock gear knob

 Brake handle

 Door interior

Owning & driving around in my ride for a couple of weeks felt really good until I saw a Mini Cooper parked right beside me in a public car park. In that instance, I felt that something must be done to my exterior to make it catch eyes (aka Attract Attention). That Mini Cooper gave me the best idea, although I am very tempted to share its number plate but better not la, Internet not safe one (later got police come catch me).

It looks something like this...

So I also decided to go with the flow & just outrightly plagiarized its design onto my Swift (except that my gap is more narrow). So here you go...

 Top view

 Close Up

 Back View

By the way, not forgetting to give credits to the guys at JuzzWheelzz for translating my thoughts into reality. You guys rock!

This is a bit off topic, but since you can't start a car without your remote, why not just show it some love by giving one post to describing how I beautify it.

So the story goes like this...

"I was bored one day, got nothing to do, logged onto SwiftClubSG to check out any new post.

This thread caught me attention (click here), so I entered it.

Lo' and behold, CF sticker for my keyless remote.

Dropped the TS my contact & got an instant reply that he stays near my place.

Drove down in a jiffy to get it + check out that forum-er's ride. Woohoo!"

E-Bay here refers to Engine Bay (by my definition haha). I figured I needed to do something to improve on the low end drive of my ride + install some mods that most people in the market are doing.

I managed to find the nice people of GoodSpeed (Alvin @ 9146 2635) to help me out in doing so. He recommended me Pivot Raizin Volt Stabilizer + a 6-pt grounding system to help maintain the battery life, as well as to have a much more smoother drive.

For power wise, he added a direct CAI & overhaul my stock air-intake pipe to a much bigger diameter hose, made from heat resistance material (so that air coming into my stock box won't be affected by the temp of my engine bay).

 Here is an overview

  See that blue stuff there? It is the Pivot Raizin VS + 6-pt grounding on my battery

  See that humongous-ly big black wrapping? Underneath it lies my enhanced air-intake piping. Oh BTW, I changed to K&N Drop-In Filter prior to this mod. Can see significant improvement in acceleration.

  The diameter of the air-intake pipe is so much bigger than the stock one. Alvin had it re-routed to the front top grill section to get the most out of it.

Added: new SL-R A Style replica spoiler (although I am not too sure if it is follow that style, but sure looks cool to me). Glossy CF material on the side; FRP material for the rest.

I got it from a fellow forum-er as well; the price was a steal + he recommended me a workshop to get it fixed at uber reasonable price tag.

 The spoiler before installation

 CF side

In case you guys have problem with the auto-fanatics lingo, CF = carbon fibre. It looks something like this.

Cut straight to the chase, I got a fellow forum-er (Yus/K4teen) to CF wrap my bonnet to look like those Initial-D type of cars. He brought along a friend to help me install and man I must say the quality of tools, 3M CF material & worksmanship is superb. All it took was an hour odd before everything was done. Also, he came down to my convenience to have everything installed. I am a very satisfied customer.

Here is how my ZC71 looks after the wrapping...

If you want people to wrap your vehicles, you know who you can look for.

Finally, after so long of snoozing around and camping at my car club forum, I managed to squeeze out the time to come out with a blog for [IT] (don't ask me why; my gf named my car). It will feature the nitty and gritty details of the modifications done to [IT] throughout the entire period of our relationship as master and slave muahahahaha (so bad!).

I got my ZC71 roughly a month and a half back on 18 Nov 2010. Got real hyped about it since I joined the SwiftClubSG forum 7 months ago to research more about the different models Suzuki have on offer before setting my eyes on this guy.

A definite good buy for a fuel efficient stock car, with all its 2-tone leather upholstery, GTR daylight, DVD head unit, TFT drop down monitor etc.

It is so amazing what a 1.2cc car can offer me, with its stock CVT engine - the comfort and wondeful drive-ability.

I drove it for a less than a day & I am in love. Thank you Chris (Faster Auto Trading) for giving me best quote for the car, as well as insurance.

With this, I begin my journey (or quest) to upgrade [IT] to the best of my ability & preference.