I’m not a photographer anymore… I am now a corporate slave, working 6 days a week. The weekend of Araw ng Kagitingan, was a perfect date to bring my family out of the city and catch from fresh air. We had no definite plans, we only surfed the net for possible locations the night before. We looked at Cavite, Batangas, but most of them are either not that good or expensive. While surfing for Olongapo beaches, resorts like Shavens, Grand Seas, Arizona… and others, but most them are in Barrio Barretto and.. it might not be a good idea to bring a family in Barrio Baretto. hehehe. Then “Dungaree Beach” came up, it’s within Subic Bay Free Port, a decent beach with “white sands” and hopefully not much people. So that was pretty much the plan, look for a place to stay for the night in Olongapo which had a pool. The next day, we wanted to leave early, but it’s not always the case and we ended up leaving around 7:30am. Read more…
Mazda 323, Familia, Protege throttle body cleaning DIY
This article is by J@smin, a DIY guru from and taken from a forum discussion in MazdaTech Philippines. The topic resides inside the members area of the forum and I’m posting this in order to help newbies who would want to clean their throttle bodies, IAC valve etc.
MazdaTech is the pioneer car club in the Philippines catering to Mazda vehicles from the Mazda 323, Familia, Astina, Lantis up to the newest Mazdas, the Mazda2, Mazda3, Cx-5, Cx-7, Cx-9 and other Mazda or Mazda-based vehicles like the Kia Pride, Ford Lynx, etc. If you have a mazda vehicle, log in to MazdaTech Philippines website, be a member of the club and enjoy the benefits.
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Here in the Philippines, we call the Mazda 323 BG as the Mazda Gen1 mainly because it was the first Mazda passenger vehicle released in the Philippines. It’s a little bit strange that Mazda passenger vehicle were available starting 1993.
The good thing about the Gen1 Mazda 323 is that you can get them quite cheap, P40,000 or so for As-is and around P100,000 for a ready to roll one. Probably the best thing about it is that there’s a lot of exterior OEM upgrades available. Being Japan’s trashbin for quite some time now, JDM parts abound for this lowly mazda. In Japan, there’s the GTX, GTR, Interplay and Infini models; and then, there s the B-Spec series that Mazda used when it participated in the WRC. Also, Mazda Japan released a diesel version of the BG chassis, whose exterior apparently looks similar to the US spec familia.
Brake Master - An alternative shock / strut refilling shop
SHOP: BRAKE MASTER
LOCATION: EDSA (North bound) near corner Santolan
SERVICE AVAILED: Shock refill
PRICE: P350-500 YMMV
PRECAUTION: THIS SHOP IS NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED - hehe read on
Since June, I’ve started to notice some knocks and rattles up front. I hear a knock when I quickly turn the wheels and rattles when I drive into rough roads. A few weeks ago, the noise is pretty much apparent that my wife even notices it. During the time when I gave barney new (old) shoes, I also looked into checking up the suspension to see what was causing the rattle. The tie rod ends seemed fine, the ball joints seemed fine but when I shook the rack end on the passenger side, it rattled like crazy! Read more…
I was distressed at the state where barney’s cylinder heads were. [Click here to read my previous post. ] But I guess it’s useless to fret about it and better start the clean-up job.
I brought my attention first to the pistons. The top layer was pretty much like thin asphalt, a mixture of fine sand and unburned fuel. I took some kerosene, scrubbing pad and grit 800 sand paper. I soaked a rag with kerosene and placed it on top of the piston to soak it and loosen the sludge. I used a rag since you don’t want to flood the top of the pistons and let the kerosene soak into the oil seal. After a few minutes I used the scrubbing pad to gently scrape off the sludge. After removing most of it, I used a grit 800 sand paper to top it off. Here’s the outcome: Read more…
I’ve been itching to fix the idling issue that’s been hounding barney since time immemorial. It idles fine at 1k~1.2 rpm, with the fuel pump and radiator fan on. But if you start adding dim lights, headlights and even the aircon fan, the car dies. It sems that at idle, the engines power is quite low and not enough to sustain it’s rpm when there’s additional load.
I did notice that cylinders 2 and 3 are not functioning properly. At idle, even if you pull the plug wires out on both cylinders, it barely affects the rpm. If you pull out and inspect the plug, there’s combustion but it seems not too complete. hehehe.. hard to explain. Another thing, I noticed bubbles coming out of my radiator when I rev the engine. ohhhh! bad, very very bad! I might have blown my head gasket.
Solex Mikuni PHH40 sidedraft jettings for Mazda B5 DOHC Engine
After a week of fiddling, I was still could not make the carbs idle at below 1k rpm. It was still a good improvement from the 1.5k rpm idle I had before but I was hoping to bring it down to something like 800-900 rpm. Top end power wasn’t all to good either.. accelerating from around 3000-4000 rpm, i can feel a flat spot and moving from 5000 upwards was sort of a hill climb. Add to that, I was getting really bad mileage. 4km/liter in traffic and just 5km in the highway… GEEZZ! Something is still not right.
Solex Mikuni PHH40 twin side carburetor rebuild [PART 2]
It’s been two weeks since I cracked my carbs and it wasn’t easy looking for a replacement. It is quite true that these things are pretty much hard to find. Though I’ve seen a few on online classified ads such as sulit.com.ph, most of them are either too expensive or have been sold already.
I attended our Club’s FR (Familia Reunion) and the guest speaker was Mr. Vince Vital. He talked about engine modification and he pretty much answered most of our questions. After the talk, I approached him told him about my problem and asked what my options were. He mentioned that I can go for the bike carb route but according to him, you can get more power with a weber/solex setup. Then he mentioned that I should try contacting Mr. Fil Gulfin and ask if he has junk solex carbs that I can part out with. Mr. Fil Gulfin is or was a known drag racer during his days and his shop, “Gulfspeed racing” still continues to modify cars for street and track. It might be worth a shot.
Mikuni Solex PHH40 Carburetor overhaul and mishap
Ever since I got the car, I was having problems with the carb. I am getting pretty bad fuel consumption and I can’t idle anything below 1200 rpm. One day, I decided to take a look at the carbs including the manifold. I noticed that the flange that mounts the twin solex was not flat, it was curved outwards and it seems to me that I was suffering from vaccuum leak. I took the carbs out and did a little bit of cleaning and took some snap shots..