"Chen Xiangbei speaking, will you take the extra twenty thousand or not?"
The urging voice of Sunshine Hui came from the other end of the phone; scheduling a race with this prick really drags on. Even picking up the phone takes forever without a word.
Faced with Sunshine Hui's urgency, coupled with Ma Minghan's murderous glare when he and Hu Lingfei were coming downstairs, Chen Xiangbei roughly guessed what was happening.
Since the other party is eager to stir things up, not taking advantage of this mentality to bleed Ma Minghan a bit more would be a disservice to dealing with such scumbags!
"Two thousand extra is not enough, five thousand and we have a deal."
"Five thousand? You cheeky bastard, you really know how to make a lion's demand!"
"Chen Xiangbei, I'm warning you, don't push your luck. Professional drivers don't even charge ten thousand for a race. Do you really think you're the South Cloud Mountain Car God?"
Sunshine Hui was there at Nanyun Mountain that day, witnessing Chen Xiangbei's victory over Qin Lianjie, making him the new South Cloud Mountain Car God.
Still, that price is a bit too high. He really had the nerve to ask for five thousand more.
"Take it or leave it. If not, I'll hang up now."
Chen Xiangbei wasn't going to put up with Sunshine Hui, and as he spoke, deliberately pulled the phone mic away, creating the illusion of hanging up.
"Fine, you win. I'll add another five grand, but you have to set the time now."
Sure enough, faced with Chen Xiangbei's opportunistic demand, Sunshine Hui quickly compromised; after all, it's not his money.
"Send five grand over as a deposit. We'll race next month."
"I'll contact you about the location and method later."
This time, Chen Xiangbei hung up immediately, not wanting to waste another breath on Sunshine Hui.
Walking beside him, Hu Lingfei, surprised by the conversation, asked, "Chen Xiangbei, when you talk about a race, do you mean a car race?"
"Yeah, just don't tell my mom."
While admitting, Chen Xiangbei didn't forget to add a word of caution.
"Aren't you working part-time at a repair shop? How come you know how to race?"
Lately, Hu Lingfei had been gathering a lot of information about Chen Xiangbei, including his part-time work at Liang Chi's repair shop.
"Fix a lot of cars and you'll know how to race, the principles are similar."
"Are they really similar?"
Although Hu Lingfei didn't understand, common sense told her that repairing and racing cars are two different things; Chen Xiangbei was slightly misleading her.
"You could say that."
Chen Xiangbei continued his rogue style, knowing he couldn't pull it off but lying through his teeth nonetheless.
"You're lying to me~~!"
Hu Lingfei pouted and muttered.
In response, Chen Xiangbei just smiled and pretended not to hear, brushing it off.
...
So a few days passed uneventfully. Deeply agitated, Ma Minghan eventually gritted his teeth and wired over five grand.
Although this maneuver made him look like a fool, being both stupid and wealthy, he had to "endure humiliation and bear a heavy burden" to get his revenge.
Also, Ma Minghan wasn't afraid of Chen Xiangbei not honoring the deal, knowing the consequences would be serious!
On Thursday night, Chen Xiangbei received a call after school. Liang Chi mentioned that the Subaru Impreza's modification parts had been shipped from Hong Kong Island and that he should drop by if he had time.
Upon hearing the news, Chen Xiangbei didn't hesitate and headed straight to Liang Chi's repair shop.
After all, no driver can resist the allure of a performance-tuned car.
Inside the repair shop, the storeroom housing the Subaru Impreza was brightly lit, with a pile of modification parts already laid out on the floor.
"Uncle Liang, this is quite a setup. What's the plan for the mods?"
Hearing Chen Xiangbei's voice, Liang Chi responded without turning his head, "What else? Of course, we're building it to match Han Han's race-spec Volkswagen POLO."
"No major engine overhaul needed, just tweak the ECU to lift the factory limits, and it'll reach 320 horsepower, which is enough."
"We're mainly focusing on the turbo, suspension damping, central cooling system, and chassis stability."
Chen Xiangbei didn't question Liang Chi's professional modification suggestions, nodding seriously to show his approval.
He then asked, "Uncle Liang, what's the current performance of Han Han's race-spec Volkswagen POLO?"
All Chen Xiangbei knew was the data Han Han had shared publicly on Weibo in 2018, but it's now 2008, so the car's performance must be quite different.
"Last year, Han Han's Volkswagen POLO, which won the CCC championship, had 300 horsepower and peak torque of 400 Newton-meters."
"However, this was under the CCC race rules which limited the turbo boost to 2.5 Bar. If there were no restrictions, breaking 400 horsepower wouldn't be a problem."
"But if he's racing with a high-schooler like you, he definitely won't disable the POLO's boost limits and should stick to its race-spec performance."
Liang Chi had interacted with Han Han before and knew he was fair and wouldn't use vehicle performance advantage to bully a high school student just for a win.
Three hundred horsepower and four hundred Newton-meters of torque, that's the professional racing performance Chen Xiangbei was up against!
After hearing Liang Chi's description, Chen Xiangbei nodded slightly and replied, "As long as there's no big gap in paper performance, even with Han Han's racing advantage of sequential ignition, I can still win this race."
"How do you know about sequential ignition?"
Liang Chi asked in surprise, knowing that such a system is considered race-spec exclusive, untouchable for civilian or street racing, and Chen Xiangbei shouldn't have access to such information.
The so-called sequential ignition system was an early racing engineer solution to overcome turbo lag.
In simple terms, it works by not closing the engine's throttle, keeping the engine and turbo under constant high-pressure, high-temperature condition, ensuring a steady exhaust flow to drive the turbo, naturally eliminating lag.
But the drawbacks are clear, too. For sequential ignition to work properly, an experienced racing engineer must custom-tune the ECU.
Otherwise, it would turn into a "noisily revving boy racer" mode, only achieving exhaust popping instead of reaching true race-spec boost standards.
Additionally, the sequential ignition system makes the engine and turbo conditions severely harsh, causing significant wear and tear. In race vehicles, it's okay as teams pay for parts, treating them as consumables.
But for civilian or street performance cars, it's unlikely they can afford to replace the engine frequently.
This means that even if Chen Xiangbei's Subaru Impreza exceeds Han Han's race-spec Volkswagen POLO in horsepower after modifications, it will still lag in power output and handling response.
After all, with a couple of million dollars and an entire race team's modification, it's not easy to surpass with mere hundreds of thousands in parts.
In some sense, it's about using one's "hobby" to challenge another's professional car modification.
Of course, it's just that Liang Chi and Chen Xiangbei's skills far exceed the hobbyist level, possibly best described as grassroots team level.