This has gotta be the most counter-productive weekend I had in a long time. Watched 10 episodes of Gundam 00 back to back to play catch up wiv my colleagues. Freakin kickass anime, with fantastic visuals; but I personally think the main protangonists are all a bunch of emo-wussies. Then, spent the rest of the time playing Quake Arena after pcnuts passed me a copy last Friday. Wooohhahaha... yeah... I'm a sad case... hahaha...

Oh yea, btw, the part I ordered from Proton's motorsport division; R3, arrived several days ago. And it didn't come in an exactly modest sized box... it's huge... gaaa... :-)

Some of you may remember the last tweak on my car at Speedworks, and my dissapointment when I decided not to install their muffler to complete the Stage 1 modifications. But I couldn't help it as the muffler they offered me sounded like Thor, God of Thunder gargling a mouthfull of shotgun slugs... even when the engine is only idling. Yes, it was that loud... and my eardrums screamed in protest.

Sticking with the stock exhaust was like a thorn stuck underneath my skin as I knew even with all the changes I made, the improvements won't be fully realized without a proper rear section. And this is why this part made by R3 caught my eye. This is the same rear section which came with the limited edition Waja MME.

I spent quite a bit of time sourcing for this R3 muffler, searching the many online stores, and making dozens of enquiries before I ended up by chance, finding a contact number on the R3GISTER website which led me directly to one of the commercial operation managers for the R3 division at Proton; Daryl.

He's one cool dude. After a number of email ping pongs, the price he gave me was more than satisfactory compared to the other quotes I got, and I was immediately sold. But I had to bear a rather hefty POS LAJU delivery charge since I was ordering this directly from the Proton factory. And a muffler ain't exactly the lightest thing in the world.

I got the part overnight after making the payment. Thanks heaps for the quick service Daryl!

This is what it looks like when I opened up the box... yum yum...

From the online information I gathered, I found out that R3 have ties with Speedworks. And some of the parts found in the R3's catalogue, were manufactured by them. This was confirmed by the stamp I found on the bottom of the muffler, which indicated that it was made in Australia. And Speedworks are an Aussie outfit.

But after making this discovery, I entered dumbfucked mode for a moment. What if this muffler ended up even louder than the last one? I can't live with a loud-mouth like that...

But I hated the stock muffler which came with my car more. Aisk... maybe I have Napolean Syndrome... but that doesn't really make sense since I ain't exactly kecik... so mabbe I'm just kiasu...

So it was off to the workshop.

Die oso die la... dun care liao.

The nice thing about this R3 part is that it's plug and play. No additional modifications needed, no additional ah beng weldings needed either. Just take off the old muffler and plug in the new unit. It's that simple. Heck, I could even do it myself, but I don't have enough trust on the crappy jacks which came with my car. I don't wanna be crushed underneath almost one and a half tonnes of metal before I even have a chance to test the new muffler.

The swap didn't take long, and voila, it's in. Time to turn the key and see if the muffler is of the Vengaboys boom boom boom variety. I grit my teeth and prepared myself for the worst. I heard a low rumble as the engine fired up... then it tappered off to an almost stock sounding hum. I was relieved. No doubt the exhaust note is now 2 or 3 notches lower than the original muffler, and it barks like a Rottweiler when you gun the throttle, but I could live with this one. And as a bonus, it looked way nicer, with the Euro type muffler tip.

But what about the performance gains? It's only been a day, but my early views on this muffler is rather mixed. The first thing I realized was, the new R3 can I installed shifted the torque curve of my car slightly higher into the rev range. Meaning that it now feels a little slugglish at the lower rev range... which kinda dissapointed me a bit coz city driving will be less gratifying. But things really open up when the rev meter starts climbing up. Tat means you need to play around with the throttle more.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

But I can live with this... ^_^

If you're interested in Proton R3 parts, they're having a promotion at the moment with up to 45% worth of discount. For more info, you can get in touch with :

Daryl Lam
Manager, Commercial Operation
Motorsports Division
Tel No : +603 51911055 Ext 2814
Fax No : +603 51955370
H/p No : +6012-2131691

And no... R3 ain't givin me no commision for pimpin them... :P