Broquet WRX STI & EVO 6 shoot out in 246Km/h street racing - Motor Trader

Singapore Motor Trader 2001


Singapore enthusiasts who want to explore the limits of their driving ability and to exploit their sporty machines can only do so in Malaysia - to be exact, at its race circuits like the ever popular Pasir Gudang and the simply spectacular Sepang. With Malaysia's excellent North-South Highway, high-speed runs from and to Singapore are also possible, although there's no getting away from the dangers and difficulties posed by surrounding traffic, road conditions and speed traps.


Now imagine a series of well-paved roads that stretches over a distance equivalent to that between Tuas and Pasir Ris, with no traffic, no traffic lights, no speed cameras, no posted speed limits. The roads comprise long, perfect straights that make a beeline for the horizon, fast sweepers that let you see two hundred metres ahead and plan your assault accordingly, tight corners that slow you down but keep your adrenaline up and plenty of laybys for the necessary mechanical and reality checks.

The above is all very real. The unreal bit is that it isn't some far-flung place in northmost Malaysia, but a sunny island just 20 kilometres south-east of Singapore or 45 minutes away by ferry from World Trade Centre. We're talking about Batam Island here, arguably one of the best kept motoring secrets in Singapore.

It isn't all great new though, like most good things in life. Firstly, there's no way to ship your car over to Batam just for a weekend so you can shoot your very own episode of Best Motoring, unless you're very rich or very well-connected to the Batam authorities, preferably both. Secondly, the so-called "premium" grade petrol on Batam is a posted 90-octane leaded, which means that your car needs its own barrel of good-quality petrol if it's not to suffer engine knocking and/or knocked-down performance. Thirdly, you have to make your way through a horde of touts and taxi drivers at the Batam ferry terminal, which is an experience that lies somewhere between amusing and distressing.

On Batam, distress is having the right car for the good driving roads there - like a 276bhp Subaru Impreza WRX STi or Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI - and the wrong petrol for it. Singapore Refinery Company certainly won't sell you drums of 98-octane petrol from their office and distilling some of your own in the backyard of your bungalow is harmful to your health, which leaves precious few options.

One is to use octane boosters, but they don't boost the actual quality of the fuel. Another is to drive with reduced power and poorer emissions, which is okay if you drive a Proton something but is bad news if your machine is a turbocharged Subaru something.

But thanks to the fitment of a Broquet Top Fueller and the addition of four eight-pellet Broquet in-tank units, both proven to make the most of lousy petrol and maximize engine performance, in addition to professional on-site tuning by one of the most skilled WRX tuners from Singapore, the Batam WRX STi here drives like the car it's designed to be.

The owner of the WRX STi test car told us he wanted factory-standard performance from his car running on sub-standard fuel, which is exactly what we experienced on Batam. With us on board, he did two noisy but seemingly easy top-speed runs, one an indicated 245kmh and the second 246kmh, while our brief but often foot-to-the-floor drive revealed a well-tuned WRX STi with all of its 276 horses present and accounted for through the seat of the pants. A proper dyno test to confirm the actual horsepower would be good though. Otherwise, our little Batam event involving the WRX STi was an impressive display of Broquet technology and top-drawer tuning overcoming the limitations of poor-quality petrol.