Could driving in still Cebu get worse?

Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer

CONGRATULATIONS to Edmel Engine Rebuilding for the opening of their new facility, the Bosch Diesel Service. It is a state of the art service center that specializes on the repair of cars equiped with Bosch diesel technology. Most of the common rail turbo diesel vehicles use Bosch diesel technology.

Once these engine start to have problems with their common rail systems, no one could properly fix it or diagnose which part is the problem. Trial and error was the only method to address problems before.

Now Edmel’s Bosch Diesel Service can diagnose, adjust, repair and overhaul common rail injection systems, in line fuel pumps, governors, injectors and nozzles. This now makes the maintenace of common rail diesels easier, cheaper and precise.

WAZE SURVEY. In the latest survey by the Waze app, Cebu is now the worst city in the world to drive in. The factors they considered in the survey were the following: traffic, road quality, road safety, road safety and socio-economic factors such as fuel prices and cost of cars. The sad part is there is nothing on the horizon that is in place to solve this problems. In Cebu City Mayor Tom said in he would focus on traffic and garbage when he got the news that he was stripped from police supervision. Until now, he has not done anything to improve our traffic situation, in fact in previous columns last month, I wrote about the difference between how traffic is being handled in Mandaue City as compared to Cebu City.

It is already September, our Mayor should stop talking about his opinions on what he percieves to be the mistakes of the previous Mayor and start working to make Cebu better. Our Governor has not done anything either. We desperately need new road infrastructure going North, South, East and West. Nothing on the horizon for that. If nothing will be done very soon, Cebu would become one of the worst places to live in.

TEST DRIVING A CHEVY. I just came from an event of Chevrolet, where they made me test drive the all new Trailblazer SUV and the Colorado Pick Up Truck. This media launch was for the whole South East Asia. Motoring Journalists from all over South East Asia flew to Cebu. All of us were booked in Mactan Shangri-la Hotel. We tested the new vehicles in a drive from Danao City to Danasan Eco Adventure Park. I will give a full review of these new cars soon. All I can say is that both the Colorado and the Trailblazer is a very big improvement from the previous models. But because of the traffic situation in Cebu the journalists were ferried on a boat from Mactan to Danao. That is how bad the traffic in Cebu is.

TUNING A SUBARU. Last week, I had the privilege to tune a very powerful Subaru STI. A client of mine from out of town sent his car here with a fully built engine by IAG Performance in America. The engine was built durable enough to handle over 1000hp. Our target was to get to the 700hp mark. The turbo choses to do the job was a Comp Turbo. This was the first time I was asked to tune a car with so much potential hp. Of course, I was excited. With an engine with a potential power of 700hp, extra care has to be taken in tuning it. The battle plan was to start slow and gradually get to our horsepower target.

I started the tune at around 18 psi of boost pressure for our baseline and to feel first the engine and the turbo. The first dyno pull immediately impressed. The base run was and impressive 460 horsepower. To put hings into perspective, a stock engine with a stock turbo at 18 psi of boost pressure will at best give 330 horsepower. After looking at the data, I knew this engine still had a lot in it. I continued on tuning at 18 psi of boost pressure to see the horsepower capabilities at low boost and got it to produce a whopping 570 horsepower. That number is unheard of at 18 PSI of boost. This meant that the Comp Turbo flows a lot of air and the IAG built engine is very efficient.

It was time to turn up the boost. Since the fuel injectors can only flow so much, I ended up with 28psi of boost. The first pull with the higher boost level immediately was 695 horsepower. After, optimizing the tune, the final number was 742 horsepower! A four-cylinder 2.5-liter boxer engine producing that much horsepower. Incredible!