Understand Your Tire

Isuzu 4LE1 Engine

Although in the passenger car engine gasket field, it is interestingly to find out some engine that design for the electric generator, one of the recent sourcing item for customer is the Isuzu 4LE1 model.

Beside the generator usage, it is also known that this engine is use on excavator, even some of them is Hitachi brand excavator.



Sharing a Gasket Industrial Video

Disclaimer: This video post is just for the sharing purpose, we are not in the position of promoting or advertising any product related in this video.

Goo Car Catalog Apps

With the current world full with information from internet, nowadays to get a specification for car is so easy, it is a matter to google it or some may like to wiki it. And for the iPhone use and other Android smartphone user, there are a lot of Apps can be downloaded for such info, one of them is Goo Catalog.

Although it current version is in Japanese language, but I think it is worth it for the car fans to download it, further more it is a free application, may be with a little Japanese word knowledge, you can read the catalog info with a better understanding.

New Toyota 86 Coming Soon?

Recently when I browse the Malaysia Toyota official website, I found out one of its flash advertisement playing "All New Toyota 86, Coming Soon".

The Toyota AE86 is getting wellknown in Malaysia due to the famous Japanese animation story of "Initial D", but since than the AE86 can be consider old model at present.

But it seem the new Toyota 86 is not the replacement of AE86 at least at the engine side as it doesn't using the A series engine anymore.

Here is some fact from wikipedia, infact this engine got some relation to Subaru BRZ.

The Toyota 86 is a sports car developed jointly by Japanese automobile manufacturers Toyota and Subaru. It has 2+2 seats, a 2-door coupé body style and a front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout.

The model will be sold under three different brands: Toyota (Toyota 86 in Japan and Australia and Toyota GT-86 in Europe), Subaru (Subaru BRZ) and Scion (Scion FR-S). "86" (pronounced "eight-six" or Hachi-Roku (ハチロク)) refers to the Toyota AE86, a car sold in the 1980s. As such, the Toyota 86 has been named as the spiritual successor of the original AE86 during the press release of the 86. The Toyota and Scion have little distinguishing elements - the latter has cheaper pieces to reduce base price in the United States. The Subaru BRZ differs mainly in its front end, where the grille has an hexagonal shape versus an inverted trapezoid in the Toyota and Scion, along with the placement of the BRZ as the most luxurious variant of the platform, with more standard features and a higher suggested price than the Toyota-marketed versions.

It was first presented as a concept car at the October 2009 Tokyo Motor Show under the name Toyota FT-86, FT being shorthand for "Future Toyota". Later, a high-performance version was launched at the January 2010 Tokyo Auto Salon as the Toyota FT-86 G Sports. At the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, a third concept car was shown, the Toyota FT-86 II. The BRZ and FR-S also had their concept cars, the Subaru BRZ Concept STI and the Scion FR-S Concept. The production version of the 86, BRZ and FR-S were unveiled at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show.

Initially, the 86 and sister models will feature a Subaru-sourced naturally aspirated 2.0 L flat-4 boxer gasoline engine (Toyota engine code 4U-GSE, Subaru engine code FA20) that will deliver 200 PS (147 kW; 197 hp) that includes a direct injection system from Toyota. The model will be offered with two six-speed transmissions: a manual and an automatic with paddle shifters. The weight of the 86 is 1,180 to 1,250 kilograms (2,600 to 2,760 lb) depending on specification and equipment.

On 16th of March 2012 an line-off ceremony was held at Subaru’s Gunma Main Plant (Ota-city, Gunma Prefecture, Japan) with Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) President Akio Toyoda and honored guests in attendance, in commemoration of the production start of the Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86. FHI and TMC first agreed on business collaboration in October 2005. After the companies expanded their cooperative ties with new agreements related to development and production in April 2008, they then began four years of development. The completion of this joint-development product also marks a great achievement of the alliance between FHI and TMC. During the first month since February 2nd 2012 Toyota received 7,000 pre-orders on Toyota 86 model in Japan. First Toyota 86 sales are scheduled to begin on April 6th.

Daihatsu EF-RL Turbo Cylinder Head Gasket

One of the Kancil turbo engine swap if L7 turbo. Initially I quite reluctant to import this Daihatsu EF-RL cylinder head gasket, what is the reason? Firstly the original cost of this piece of cylinder head gasket is very high, and for those familiar with this engine, you may notice the design of this cylinder head gasket is similar to those Perodua Kelisa and Kenari.

The difference between this 2 is the original EF-RL material is graphite and the Kelisa and Kenari using metal type of gasket. One more thing is gasket bore diameter on EF-RL is 70mm while Kelisa and Kenari gasket bore diameter is 74mm.

Due to the high cost of the OEM type of EF-RL cylinder head gasket, many tend to use the metal type of head gasket as replacement.



So what made the price for this piece of cylinder head gasket is more expensive even compare to the metal type, I think the special rubber O-ring that show on above photo, which will give a very special seal effect is one of the main reason, this type of O-ring seal design is also can be seen on the Mitsubishi 4G92 cylinder head gasket.

And to copy this O-ring is never an easy job for other manufacturer, they might just skip this O-ring design or their seal effect is never function as well as this beuty OEM piece.

Have a closer look on this gasket in the video here.

Daihatsu D-X Concept Car

One of the car exhibit in the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show, with a statement as below from one of the website I found,

Remember the lovely little Daihatu Copen? This little 2-seat Kei car is still on sale (though the one on the floor was badged “Ultimate Edition,” which could be construed in English to mean “last one,” though nobody on the stand could understand my question to answer it. In any case, this sure looks like its replacement.

But personally, I like the Copen design than this one.

And what's more? Power by a 2 cylinders engine!!!

Power comes from a two-cylinder turbocharged and intercooled engine rated at the max legal limit for Kei cars (64 hp — many of them lie) spinning the front wheels. To my eye, the Copen is far prettier. This thing seems to mix its metaphors — SUV-ish cladding in a tiny open car. Oh well. At least it has a retractable hard top.

Source: http://wot.motortrend.com/2011-tokyo-daihatsu-dx-previews-possible-copen-successor-140465.html