Mani

I was very impressed with his work as well. He shot close to 3k pictures that day. You mean the unversal hello Thanks! Dillon, I sold the Supra about 2 years back and now playing with bikes to keep my self entertained

Just got back from a track day over the weekend. Was a great time playing around with some friends. Here are some pictures shot by a good friend.

In Sri Lankan driving I think synthetic is a waste of money. Regular mineral oil should do fine. You will not have a chance to run the engine to a point where synthetic oil will benefit you. However, as it is said here, it's good to change your oil and filter at around the 1000 - 1500 km. No matter how carefully the engine is built, you will still have metal particles in a new engine. Part of this is as the engine is broken in and the rings are being seated as well as initial "washing" of the engine with the new oil will gather all the small particles in the new oil. Once you take off the first oil then go with something little thicker. Most auto manufacturers will recommend the oil type based on many factors. Fuel economy is one of them, among other factors. For Sri Lankan driving, where the weather is hot and lot of stop and go slow driving, running a little thicker oil will benefit the engine. By thicker I mean something like 10W40 to 20W50 . Braking in an engine process is controversial. Most of the recommendations that is being followed are many many years old. It may have been the proper method 40 -50 years ago when engine honing machines were much less sophisticated than they are now. The honing is much more precise now. Ideally, in order to properly brake in a modern engine you do have to drive it hard. The idea is to bring the RPMs up under engine load but not for extended periods of time. You need to "heat treat" the parts AND seat the rings. You may have less than a 500 mile window to properly seat the rings. Driving the car easily will not seat the rings properly. It will glaze the cylinder wall and not seal completely. This will be along discussion so I'll leave it at that. For the time being, my recommendation is to change your oil and filter. Go with somewhat THINNER oil until you hit about the 5k Km mark and go for a little thicker oil and you should be good to go. Lastly, I would stick to changing the oil at least once every 6 months or 5k Km which ever comes first. By about the 6 month mark your oil will break down regardless of the mileage driven.

Never ridden a Busa or the ZX. Those two bikes are very popular with drag racers here. Stupid quick bikes they are. On top of that you get these guys that turbo charge them and then it's a whole new game. I have two good friends with couple of turbo Busas. One is in the 380 WHP range and the other I think is in the mid 400 WHP. These things carry the front wheel at well over 200 kph easily. The vid below is some serious action from the two turbo busas that belongs to my buddies and one NOS busa along with a standard Busa. I kind of make a cameo appearance at 3:00 min mark. The drama was at over 300 KPH and the engine was a complete loss The chase bike is the 380 WHP Busa [in my sig] and I'm racing a modified GSX-R 1000. Terminal speed was 216.6 MPH [361 KPH].

That's funny! I used to know this one ditch by my grand fathers house intimately when I used to "barrow" my uncle's CB125, in the middle of the night, when I was in SL. The road ends so I have to make a U turn and used to dump his bike in the ditch because I can barely put my foot on the ground. I was 9 back then . Still got a nasty burn mark on my left leg when I happen to drop it in the ditch one time and bike fell on me and nicely crisped my leg on the exhaust. This is a picture of my Yamaha FZ6 at a track day in October last year. Two weeks after this picture, I handily crashed on the highway and busted my shoulder in two places. Got knocked out and had a nice ambulance ride to the hospital. Sadly the bike didn't fair too well. I have about 70% use of my right arm now. It should be all good in couple of months. I'm finally getting back into riding again and replaced the FZ with the CBR but haven't really ridden it hard yet.

That's a great bike. Those things are a riot to ride. I think your bike is well suited for SL to go on and off road and everything in between. Is there track events for bike that you just go and blow off some steam when you feel like it? I did a search and couldn't come up with any info. Found bunch of pictures, mainly here, of car action but haven't seen any bikes tearing it up.

Nice bikes DarkangeL Love that Blade! I wish that bike is available here.

Post up some pictures of your rides and some details about it.

What is involved in bringing a Supra to Sri Lanka these days? These things are not all that much in Japan but I assume the taxes and fees will probably double or more the price of one. How does the tax and fee structure and any way to get around all that crap?

Thanks guys... and a Happy New Year to you all....

I'm pretty sure your problem is tire wheel balance. Have you wheels, especially the front, checked for proper balance. Often times you will hit a wheel speed where the out of balance wheel have the most resonance at a certain speed, mainly between 50-90.

You may want to have someone take a look at your gas tank [petrol] and make sure that no water or debris is present in there. Also what is the fuel level when the car start to die? if the fuel level is low you may have some contaminants in the gas tank. Have a look at the fuel filter as well. This is a good place to start diagnosing the problem.

Thanks for the info guys. Everyone that I talked to about this project gave me the same warning as you guys have. I think my best option is to get my bro involved and have him take a more of a hands on approch. KaluZ, I'll shoot you a message to get some details. Thanks agin. MJ.

Hello to all, First of all let me introduce my self. My name is Mani Jayasinghe and I live in the Unites States and an avid car nut. I have been racing both cars and motorcycles for over 25 years now. I've been reading this forum for a qhiet a while [beginning with the old message board] but don't post much. I'm in the beginning stages of building a house in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, I'm attempting to do it while I'm abroad so I'm not able to supervise much of the construction. My brother is in the country and he will most likely be the person who will be supervising this project. I mentioned all of that because I'm in need of a good contractor who can take this project from inception through turn key. I will need him to obtain all needed permits, prepare the land for construction [there are bunch of coconut trees that need to be cut down to make room for the building ground], and begin construction. The house is not big by Sri Lankan standards [~4,000 sq/ft]. Do any of you know of a trust worthy good contractor who has good reputation and references that you can recommend me? I left Sri Lanka while I was very young so I'm not too familiar with where everything is in the island. Thanks for your time MJ

Look into Bit Char-G. They have tiny RC cars that you can modify with faster motors, tire compounds, bodies etc. E bay link http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?s...op=1&fsoo=1

Often times you get that noise when the belt is too loose. Even though the car has low miles it's the age of the belt that will degrade it. Best way to check your belt's tightness is to push the belt down at it's longest point where it goes from one pulley to another and you should have less than 1/2 inch play. If it's properly tightened and you still have the noise, use some belt dressing and most likely it will cure it. The belt dressing comes in a spray can so you just need to spray it on the belt. Does the noise go away after you drive the car for a little bit? If so, then it's definitely a loose belt. Good luck Mani

Here's the video of this car being tested. http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/autoexpresstv...00/audi_r8.html

Nice run

Dillon, If you're looking to bring a car to Sri Lanka there are some diamonds in the rough [i'm going to get slammed for this one] that is better than the Supra. One being the Soarer with the 1JZ that is just as capable as the Supra but the price on them are much more reasonable. Supra prices are, in my opinion, inflated in a very soft market right now. Another car that is great for Sri Lankan market is a Nissan Syilvia S14. Thoughtfully upgraded and properly tuned, a S14 can give a Supra a good run for it's money. Well modified S14 can be had from Japan for less than $10K us. On a local track, my S14 laps well over a second faster than my Supra with more than twice the power. Car is light and well balanced. Most importantly, parts for a S14, be it stock or performance, are fairly cheap and readily available. Mani

Dillon, I'm not sure if the US spec Supra is much different from the J spec Supra. But in mine, one of the first things to come off is the traction control butterfly. That's the second butterfly behind the main one. If you still have your traction control, it may be the culprit. As far as my engine goes, I'm the only one to blame since I do all the work on the car Velocity Thanks for the e-mail. I'll try to coordinate my next visit to SL so I can catch some local racing actions. Overdrive, MADZ & SpeedHolic Thanks! Mustang, I'm no expert on the subject but the best bang for the buck on the big V8s is to put some NOS, if you drag race, or do a head and cam package for all around power. A 100 shot of NOS will put a big smile on your face each time you push the button Mani

Mean Green z28 That guest book is a cesspool. If I clear it today, it'll be just as full of &*&%$ in two days.