Dyno your car, perhaps?

In the 1,700-sq. meter facility along Quezon Avenue, I and several other colleagues in the motoring press are observing a technician attach some beefy looking straps to a brightly painted Mazda Familia. It’s not your everyday Familia either. An assortment of scoops on the hood and airdam, decals everywhere, and expensive alloy wheels indicate that there’s something special under the hood, and indeed there is: aside from some work done on the cams and intake, it’s got a turbocharger attached to the thing. "What’ll it do?" is the question we all want to find out, and pretty soon they fire up the engine and the front wheels turn over a pair of heavy steel rollers. Hamster-like, the car moves up the rev range, 1st gear, 2nd gear, 3rd gear, the rollers whirring underneath like a giant treadmill, a big LCD panel to the right of the car reading out two sets of numbers: power, and wheel speed. The numbers begin to creep up, 40, 60, 80, 100, 160… until finally it’s time to cool the car down and troop back to the lounge, the Familia’s owner quite happy with how his car did.

To the average consumer, horsepower ratings might be just another number to throw around in the back of the head while negotiating the numbers that really matter to the dealer, such as interest rate and monthly amortization. But to the bona fide enthusiast, horsepower is golden. Like money and your manhood in inches, more is almost always better. And for these guys, SpeedLab can now see how your ride really measures up. But be prepared for some surprises, because what you think your car’s good for might not actually hold true in the real world.

Using a chassis dynamometer, SpeedLab can accurately measure any front- or rear-drive vehicle in the market today. And because it measures power at the driven wheels instead of from the engine (which is the common method quoted in car brochures), motorheads who must know their car’s true potential finally have the option. And from there, I gather, one can have a baseline with which to add improvements to the powertrain, since SpeedLab is also a one-stop shop for several other high-zoot mods, such as Bilstein, K&N, Unichip, H&R, Koni, Z.Speed, and Nitrous Express. Imagine what your car could do with a nitrous system! A turbo! A cone-type air filter! I must confess, I wasn’t 10 minutes looking at the mods on display and watching the Mazda on the dyno and I was already drooling with the what-if’s for my car.

Indeed, the boys of SpeedLab — Sydney Ang, Arvin Lim, and Ferman Lao — are onto something, and that is the burgeoning market of tuner cars. That is, the hundreds of speed-obsessed car owners in Metro Manila who’ll be only too happy to shell out a small fortune for their Civics and Lancers and Imprezas and what-have-you just to have a car that will A) possibly beat at least a Boxster S in the quarter-mile and B) silence all the naysayers about their car being "all show and no go". With their facility, a car owner could conceivably roll on the dynos for a baseline run, try out a bolt-on this or a bolt-on that, tweak the ECU or cam gears this way or that way, then compare the end result with the baseline, taking out the guesswork that’s been common practice for years in this niche market.

As Sydney related to us after the Familia’s run, the weakest car they dyno’d was a Peugeot 206, with power at the driven wheels a measly 60 or so horses. After they’d attached a cone-type air filter, a quantifiable 3 to 4 horsepower was added. Splitting hairs? Not really, since the improvement could mean the difference between merging back into your lane safely… or not at all. For academic interest, completely stock owners could also have their cars dyno’d just to see how much power is lost from the engine through the accessories and transmission before it finally reaches the wheels, since manufacturers dyno their engines without the water pump, A/C, alternator, or other accessories attached. Late model Civics and Vios sedans have been put on the dyno, and (pleasingly for Honda and Toyota), the power loss has been only around 10%, whereas other cars typically lose 18 to 25% from the manufacturer’s horsepower rating.

Aside from the dynamometer, SpeedLab (376-46-48/51) also prides itself on being a full service automotive shop, offering wheel alignment and camber/caster services, underchassis tuning, engine rebuilding, oil change, performance parts installation, and even corner weighing. But let’s face it; this isn’t your neighborhood talyer. It’s a serious place to go to for the serially obsessed car enthusiast. With that dyno waiting for your car to roll over it, the tuner car market just got a lot more serious.

Here’s some of what you guys had to say from last week’s Backseat Driver inbox.

I just saw a policeman driving a colorum van. I don’t know his route but I think the LTO, LTFRB or the TMG should take some action. — 09174558748

Lamp posts along Commonwealth Avenue after Litex Road up to Regalado is not functioning. Visibility is poor. — 09176203448

Our transportation system should have more buses, like in Korea, Japan, most of Asia, the USA, and Europe. People there walk far just to get to a bus stop. Why can’t Filipinos walk too? It’s 2007 and the country is still using a salvaged war vehicle as its main source of public transportation. — 09167660911

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