Some updates from Bigbigcar

Have a lot of others on already... just haven't had time to update this Blog.





I really had a blast doing the Focus article... it was long overdue, as I had two features on the TDCi pending and I wrote them into one article... it would be unseemly to post three Focus articles at once, so the other two are probably going to be uploaded "stealth" style... without being reflected on the main page.

Things are going slowly right now... haven't done a test-drive in two weeks and I'm getting pretty antsy... well... maybe next week we'll do one or two little things... ;)

Our website just went up!

It's been over a year since I was approached to get on board this project, and it's nice to see it come to fruitition. It's a site about cars, car buying and driving, etcetera. Some blood, some sweat, some tears, some roasted tires and endless kilometers of test driving. At least we finally have something to show for it. ;)

http://bigbigcar.com

Now all we need are some sponsors.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Two typhoons within spitting distance of each other. No testing. No test-driving. Nuthin. Damn weather.

My right arm for a V-Box

Sorry, no photos with this one...

It's been a slow week for test-drives, so I've been fiddling with a friend's VBox for the past week, and it's disappointing that this supposedly 142 bhp car (++, with my mods) still can't get to 100 km/h in under 8.9 seconds.

I know my driving sucks... but that's not the point... I should be able to get about 8.5 easy. Time for new engine mounts, I suppose... lots of lurch on launch from the soft, cheap replacement parts. But also, it may be time to lower my tire pressures... 35 psi on the street is kind of excessive.

What's interesting is that at 8.9 to 100 km/h and a further 16.1 to 160 km/h, I've matched Car and Driver's 25 second run to 160 km/h. Which means, if I'd gotten the 0-100 km/h right, as per C!'s supposed 8.2 second run, I should be 1.5 seconds faster than stock to 160 km/h. Pathetic... time to sort out my intake again. :)

Ford Focus TDCi

In August, Ford will be launching the Focus 2.0 TDCi on the Philippine market. With 136 hp and 340 Nm (250 ft-lbs) of torque available on overboost, it's got enough muscle to stomp all over the competition while still hitting fuel economy figures of 20 km/l.

The Ford Club of the Philippines was lucky enough to get a preview of this car last Sunday at the Subic International Raceway, care of the Tuason Racing School. It was a fiesta of roasted tires out on the tarmac, with a special guest appearance by none other than Pocholo Ramirez. Articles on FCP coming up within the next week, but here's a teaser.





Oh, it's still a bit nose-heavy, and those tires are cheap, but most everything else comes on horrible tires, and only the Mazda3, locally, has better balance. What the Mazda3 doesn't have is the Focus's unflappable stability (due to much better shocks)and, obviously, that wonderful diesel engine.

I wonder how much I can trade my Lynx in for?

MVPMAP Review and Design Analysis

From the Tsikot Forums.

As a backgrounder, here's the MVPMAP Website.. While I applaud their efforts to produce an original Philippine-manufactured vehicle, this effort falls short of what other local small-scale manufacturers have done on a lower budget.

Click through for the article.

Still, this is merely the prototype. Which is why I've actually held my acid tounge for this article. There is plenty of time for them to fix things before implementation. In the meantime, the Chinese are slowly eating into the market, while the Koreans and Japanese rediscover the fact that they're supposed to be producing cheap vehicles (Hyundai has recently re-released their Porter, Isuzu, the IPV). It's going to be a very interesting year.

Good Morning, Manila!

There's nothing here right now, but eventually, I hope to put more content in this site. This will serve as a central link to all of my writing, past, present and future, relating to my endless obsession with the automobile.