Delays to the Sakura, back to the Kawada---for now, but hey I ain't complaining

So why the delay in getting the Sakura Cero Ultra? Well Bryan lives in Klang, and I live in KL . our schedules often don't line up . So i guess next round is 1st week of November to get the Ultra in my hands.

I took a day off on Friday 23rd October 2026. Went to SACC for a round of R & R with the Alcyon II.

Little did I know the changes I made the last time transformed the car to the best it has EVER been. Which makes me reluctant to retire it. But why has it performed better and what has changed ?

First lets see a top view of SACC track, and where I had consistency problems before.

See the numbers marked 1 ,2 ,3 and 4. 

At curb 1, I always had problem of clipping the curb that my car goes flying and thus losing time, because of that I lose the rhythm and flow of the 2nd curve which affects the curb no3, which if you hit it will cause the car to fly into barrier. Next is no4, previously I could never get the car to flow nicely at this apex to the straight losing a split second of time. 

This time I am able to consistently come super close to curb 1, brake hard at 2, turn out of 2 and link to 3 very smoothly on power. Once i reach 4, i was coming from middle of lane and hugging no4, very closely, linking seamlessly to top speed.  

So what has changed ?

I changed a more precise chassis with more cutouts hence more flex.

Out of all my designs this chassis has the most flex. The flex is more especially at the rear. Did both the increase in precision and flex improve the handling? Modern cars do have a huge amount of flex with ultra narrow upper decks. 

Next,  I moved the rear shock mounting position on lower arm from center hole to outer hole, and  I used 240g/mm springs. This makes the shocks harder, and also solved the rear end bottoming out, it also made the car so much more consistent to drive and worked well on SACC high traction surface. Front Springs is 325g/mm

So just these few changes and the car was soooo gooood.

After tear down for maintenance, I found that the TRF 416 rear belt was wearing down after 30 packs and starting to hammer on the rear pulley, so lesson learned, change rear belt every 30 runs.

See the right side pulley which is for rear belt. It is more worn than the left one. 

New hollow pin and new center 0.8mm pin inserted for strength. I find these pins will fail around 30 packs. 

The pins were also taking a beating, so I changed new pin and reinforced it for the rear one. 

I will be running the Alcyon II next on the 8th Of November. Hopefully with a repeat of its performance like on this day.