Part I is here.
Text by James Singer
Photos by Mike W
Prep
[it isn't the camera, it is rosacea]
I am a pretty average guy as far as driving cars on the track goes. I am also a pretty average guy in the sense that this economy has taken its toll on my ability to indulge in track days. As a result, I prep my car painstakingly before going to the track to avoid breaks and other disasters. This month, before going to the track I changed out my blown Read the rest of this page »
| Girl’s Tank Top | S,M,L,XL | $20 |
| Kid’s T-Shirt | S,M,L,XL | $15 |
| Mechanic’s T-Shirt | S,M,L,XL | $20 |
| Hat | S,M L,XL | $25 |
| Lanyard | $ 5 | |
| Emblems | $ 3 | |
| Small Stickers | $ 3 | |
| RRE Bag | $ 5 |
Girl’s Tank top
Kid Shirt
RRE tuned EVOs took first place in both the Street Class and Modified Class of the season opening event in the Extremespeed AWD Challenge Time Attack this last weekend. We brought out the shop truck and tools and an empty trailer for support.
Gevorg took 1st place in Street Class with a 1:33 in his RRE tuned daily driver white EVO 9.
RRE customer Kevin Fairley was fastest in Modified Class at 1:31 in his EVO 9 track car. He recently changed to a BBK Full turbo from CBRD and is pushing 480 whp on E-85 on a stock long block.
Kevin was running with his new side exit exhaust that we just built. It sounds incredible!
Results and points from the day:
Watch your underhood temps with the EVO X. Mitsubishi had to move the turbo to the back of the motor with the EVO X to make it easier to pass the newer emissions regulations. This puts the catalytic converter closer to the turbo. Already in some European markets Mitsubishi had put a pre-cat in the down pipe of the EVO 9. While solving their cold start emissions problems, this makes for headaches for guys running track days, guys running large turbos and also concerns for people running headers.
Here are some heat failures we have run across lately:
Tubular headers with a plastic valve cover. In 2010 plastic valve covers started showing up on the 4B11 motors. Probably cheaper, they seemed to do the job well enough. They just don’t deal well with heat from a tubular header. We have seen three of these failures. Even when using the factory heat shield wrapped around the headers, if the heat can concentrate up through a gap near the valve cover it will melt.
Lose bolts:
This customer installed stock frame upgrade turbo came loose. The heat shooting out through the small gap at the flange burned a hole through the factory heat shield. Then it proceeded to melt the wire harness and seriously toasted the AMS pump unit. Hopefully the fuses that all blew protected the really expensive bits.
A few of the track regulars from So Cal EVO go together this year to organize their own time attack competition. Rules and classes by and for the people! With points for various mods and some HP caps, they divided it up into a “Street” class and “Modified” class. Street cars are limited to roughly 400 whp and 5 points. Modified cars are capped at 500 whp and 10 points.
RRE volunteered the Dynapack AWD chassis dyno to be the official dyno for the series. We hosted a dyno day/BBQ to kick off the race season before next weekend’s opening event at Willow Springs Raceway.
Here are some pics from the event. Along with some dyno charts from a couple of the cars that will be running.
http://www.extremespeedtrackevents.com/
Joon is back and we got some great pics and a little video from his trip down to Panama. Enjoy!
Here is his write up on the event:
http://www.joonmaeng.com/2012/02/16/formula-drifting-in-panama/
We picked up the March 2012 issue of DSport with Tim Smith’s EVO X on the cover over the weekend. The magazine also comes with a DSport 2012 Motorsports Guide in the package. Flipping through it and “Hey! I know that car!” They have a nice track action shot of the RRE Project RalliArt sliding around the Streets of Willow Springs. Nice article too about how to get started tracking your car from autocross to open track days and getting into Time Attack.
Lod, Art, Ruben and Joon just finished up prepping Joon’s S13.5 for the Formula D drift demo and stunt show in Panama City, Panama on Feburary 5th. They added some heat protection around the turbo and swapped Joon’s MotoIQ grip road racing setup back to drift.
Lod put the 240 turbo on the dyno for a clean up tune with the AEM EMS and knocked out a solid 400 whp/375 ft lbs of torque on the RRE Dynapack dyno on 91 octane.
We still get quite a few DSMs through the shop. In addition to the ones that have always been running, we get some 1Gs that have been sitting somewhere for a long time but are still in decent shape otherwise. For one reason or another the owner decides it is time to get it dusted off, drag out all the parts that have been collecting over the years and finish that project. This is what you get when a car sits for 6 years :-P
We end up replacing the fuel pick up assy, the pump, filter and injectors. If you let it sit, safest is to at least keep the tank full I hear.
I picked up the newest issue of Modified Magazine last week and I was looking at the cover. Checking out the CBRD EVO they had there and wait, what? Hey! RRE’s favorite up and coming drifter Jack Reynolds got his 240 (with a Dart V8) pictured at the bottom! We have been helping Jack as much as we can. He is a great kid and he slides that beast with no fear. Modified Mag has a nice series of articles this month about how to get into drifting and time trials. Congratulations Jack!
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