When In Rome…
One of our 4G Eclipse customers in Rome asked for some Road/Race stickers with his order for springs and exhaust. He was nice enough to send us a pic!
Joon Maeng – Formula D Long Beach
On Friday afternoon at the Formula D opening event at Long Beach here in Southern California Joon qualified 21st to make it into the show on Saturday.
On Saturday morning after the morning practice and warm up session we heard some odd ticking noises from the valve cover area. On further inspection we found that the LS7 had a broken valve spring. :-/ Joon was not able to get into the top 16 for the main event.
Kevin @ Nexus Visuals is Joon’s videographer and he put together this video of the weekend:
Click here for more pics from David Karey @ AM Drift and the RRE crew: (more…)
Erica Ocampo – RRE Formula D Umbrella Girl
Erica Ocampo is our official RRE Umbrella Girl for the Formula D season this year competing with Joon Maeng’s LS13. You will remember her from last year’s Mitsubishi Owner’s Day and also from the cover of DSport with Tim Smith’s EVO X.
Check out her website here : http://www.ericaocampo.com/
Joon Maeng Formula D Press Day
Joon’s first runs giving rides to the media and tearing up the streets at Long Beach’s Formula D Press Day in the Lucas Oil/RRE LS13.
Joon Maeng @ FD Tech Day
Joon passed the Lucas Oil RRE LS13 through tech inspection this last weekend for the runup to the 2013 Formula D season. Here are some pics from the tech day and an interview with wreckedmagazine.com.
Change That Belt
So do you think it was time to finally change this serpentine belt? :-P Maybe this is why Mitsubishi recommends changing it every 30k miles. Heat can really shorten the life of rubber parts. This 40k mile serpentine belt lived its harsh life in Bakersfield. The serpentine belt os the one long belt that drives the A/C, Power steering, water pump and alternator. Important stuff for sure. Cracking on the inner ribs of the belt or a brown color means it is time!
RRE Eclipse GS 2.4 MIVEC Underdrive Pulley Kit
RRE Eclipse GS 2.4 MIVEC Underdrive Pulley Kit
$189 plus $11 shipping for USPS Priority Mail within the lower 48 states. If you are looking to get one shiped to somewhere else, contact us for a price with shipping included.
This pulley kit has yielded an improvement of 6-7 whp and 9 ft/lbs of torque in dyno testing. Both the lighter construction and smaller size helps improve power. Kit includes a new belt and the pulley. Everything that you need. Fits all 2.4 liter Eclipses and Galants from 2005 through 2014
1G GSX – E85 – Sam Dyno Tuning With DSM Link
Sam here at the shop tuning with DSM Link on Kris’ 1G GSX track car is running a used stock 6 bolt long block from a used 1G 140k mile auto DSM he picked up. FP 3065 (GT35R-ish sized) bolt on style turbo. The fuel pressure was dropping big time once the boost got up past 30 psi. With a Walbro 255 lph pump not keeping up, with the car still on the dyno we put in a Walbro 400 lph fuel pump, reset the base pressure and Sam went at it some more. That fixed the fuel pressure problem. There is a bit of surge on the spool up, nothing we could do about it. It is just there on a longer pull on the dyno.
MotoIQ and the RRE Toy Drive
MotoIQ just did a nice writeup about the RRE City Of Hope Toy Drive that we did back in December. Here is the article about this event and other charity in the automotive aftermarket industry.
Coco Zurita and the Death of a GoPro
We were hanging with Coco Zurita @ the Extremespeed AWD Challenge @ Streets of Willow Springs. Coco was doing some filming with videographer Dylan Pfohl. We put a Go Pro Hero camera on the rear bumper looking at the rear suspension. Things were mostly safe and out of the way, just forgot about the front tires firing rocks back at the camera :-P
Watch the tire move about the rim, even half way up the rim. Also note how much the rear differential moves in its soft rubber mounts. How much the hydraulic piping for the AYC clutches jumps around near the rear sway bar.
About half way into the video the rocks start to take their toll. The outer case and lens gets messed up, finally getting blown away completely. Then the camera lens starts taking direct fire.
First Drives: Shaking down my RRE built EVO VIII at Streets of Willow for the first round of the AWD Challenge
[Part IV in a series]
words by James Singer
stills by CaliPhotograpy
video by my GoPro and Aldric’s GoPro
In previous blog entries, I have said that I am a pretty normal guy that is trying to track his car without going broke while maximizing fun. I started writing about my experiences while running NASA’s HPDE series from HPDE1 to 3. After that, I started trying out some time attack competitions with Extreme Speed in their AWD Challenge. Since starting out, I have had some ups and downs. I have gotten a lot of support and even some hook ups but I have also shattered a piston due to my own stupidity. However, I did not give up and this is the next chapter with a new set up for 2013!!
1st Annual RRE Toy Drive To Benefit City of Hope 2012
Words by James Singer
Pictures by tons of different random people (but all the best ones are taken by David Karey because he actually knows what all the knobs and buttons on a DSLR do).
Rossy had an idea to get a bunch of people together for a toy drive to benefit the kids at City of Hope in time for Christmas. The result went WAY beyond expectations. The event was a huge success. There were a bunch of DSMs, EVOs, some drift cars and even one STi that showed up. Also, Joon Maeng was on hand signing autographs while his car was filled to the brim with toys that he and Rossy
Updates From A Track Wannabe [Part III in a series]
Rough Times Edition
by James Singer
check out the novel after the jump!!
Joon Maeng – American Real
Joon’s Sponsor MAV TV shot a promo video of Joon here at the shop, they have it up now!
Joon Maeng was born in Seoul, Korea and moved to the United States at the age of nine. His passion for speed and cars began early in his childhood. Since then, he has remained loyal to his passion through the sport of drifting. When he’s not racing Joon manages Daily Udon & Sushi restaurant and builds drift cars.
MotoIQ – Dyno Detectives
We are the official dyno for the MotoIQ Pacific Tuner Car Championship. We got called on to confirm the legality of one of the competitors. While at the shop they also wrote up a little bit if a shop tour article. Read here for the full article and pics.
4B11 Timing Chain – Good, Bad and Ugly. (mostly ugly, not so much good)
The 4B11 motor that comes in the 2008+ EVO X and 2009+ Lancer RalliArt does not have a timing belt. It has a timing chain that turns the cams. The computer keeps track of how much the chain stretches over time. It will tell you when it is time when all the systems are working properly. If you get the triangle warning light and the car has a rough idle, it might have jumped a tooth or two. A couple more teeth jumping means that valves and pistons start crashing together. If your chain has been confirmed to be stretched and you have a rough idle, don’t drive the car at all.
A recent customer never did a full service and rarely changed his oil in 80k miles. The timing chain stretched enough to jump quite a bit. It bent the intake valves, when the piston came up it smashed the valve stems into the guides to where they broke off. One of the valves got bent into a perfect little taco. It was able to get knocked back into the intake manifold for an out of the park home run. Here is a new redesigned timing chain (with less links to rub against each other) that still will stretch prematurely if you don’t change the oil enough:
How much stretch it takes to make everything crash:
Head damage:
Seriously… dude! Change your oil more often! (more…)
Black Fuel Pump Relay Problem – EVO X/RalliArt
The following applies to the 2008 through 2013 EVO X and 2009 to 2013 RalliArt. It has been known for quite some time now that the fuel pump relays are complete crap in the EVO X and RalliArts. Swapping out to the better blue fuel pump relay is included with a dyno tune here @ RRE.
I had a 2010 X come in for a tune last week. The car had basic mods just installed so it should have been good for a “before” pull as-is on the dyno. After the before pull I’ll put in a 3 port solenoid and do the blue relay swap at the same time. Before the full pull I tipped into the throttle at 3500 rpm to check boost and AFR. It was super lean almost 12:1 afr. For a drop in filter and cat back exhaust it should have been high 10s or low 11s at least.
So I went straight for the fuel relay and swapped it with the blue one. AFR went right back to where it should. Bad black relay caught red-handed. So I figured cut it open to see what exactly is going on in there.
Cut open relay:
Lever assy that the coil pulls sideways and pushes down on the contacts:
I can only guess someone had the bright idea to make a low profile relay by laying the coil on its side. When energized it pulls a lever sideways that pushes down on the contacts. (more…)
And It’s Andre’s EVO IX For The Win!
Andre was in the shop the other day for some service work and sporting his RRE license plate frame. Here is a pic of his new personalized license plate on his super clean Electric Blue EVO IX.
Joon Maeng- FormulaD Las Vegas- Lucas Oil RRE LS13 Premiere [updated]
Joon Maeng debuted his new LS2 powered S13 at the Las Vegas Formula D this weekend. We just finished building the new car over the last month and a half. Joon lost his ride in the Nitto Tire RX8 with Ron Bergenholz just before the Seattle Formula D round.
Joon had a S13 bare shell in the wings waiting and all the guys at RRE chipped in with some serious long all nighters to get the new car built and running.
Lucas Oil and American Real TV have always been a personal sponsor of Joon. They both are really helping to get Joon to the last two races of the FD championship this year.
The S13 is wrapped with one side as Lucas Oil
And the other as American Real TV.
After being let go from Bergenholtz Racing, Joon Maeng decided to continue as a privateer in the Lucas Oil/Nitto Tires V8 S13 240SX. This car was a plain 240SX body shell that was built into the LS2 V8 beast you see here in just over a month and a half.
Nitto Tire, Sam’s Auto Land, Parts Shop Max, Feal Suspension, Westech Performance, ACT and many, many other companies stepped in to help Joon make this happen.
With some final suspension adjustments Joon qualified 12th Friday night with a clean 82 point run. With the new course layout it was a night of big upsets.
RRE mechanic Lod Tongkul is Joon’s crew chief and RRE fabricator Art Thavilyati (more…)
LEET Roll Cage Build – Part 3 – Prep and Paint
We last left off on this roll cage build with finishing all the welding. Now it is time for the cleanup, prep and paint.
All unnecessary seam sealer and sound deadening gets removed to lighten things as possible. We trimmed off any brackets and tabs. Most small holes get covered and smoothed over with metal tape for a cleaner look.
All the bare steel on the roll cage and welds needed to be cleaned and prepped with a light acid wash.
Everything gets masked off nicely. The floor gets cleaned and roughed up with sandpaper and a Scotchbrite. Blow all the (more…)
RRE @ Mitsubishi Owner’s Day 2012 @ Mitsubishi Headquarters – Cypress, CA
Another MOD and another great event as usual. We brought cars, the RRE Girls, the RRE Dynapack AWD Dyno Contest, parts displays, shade, robots, a kid’s play area and more shade for the July heat. We teamed up with our partners Road Race Motorsports and Zeitronix to fill out the Road Race Pavilion with non stop action.
We pulled out all the stops this year. Rossy scored a coup and got Danielle Lo and Erica Ocampo from two of our recent DSPORT cover cars along with our regular RRE models Holly Lee and Michele Yee to come out.
Danielle and Erica were signing magazine covers of their respective shoots with Ben Denkers’ red EVO 8 RS and Tim Smith’s blue EVO X.
Holly and Michelle brought the party and had the most fun. MORE PICS!!! (more…)
RRE Dyno Contest @ MOD 2012
RRE ran the dyno contest @ MOD like we do each year. This year was nuts. Started off the first pull in the morning @9am with Reggie’s black EVO 9 pulling 575 whp. A couple years ago that would have been enough power for a 1st place.
Next up was Mike S. also with his Graphite Grey EVO 9. He was tuned by Reese and laid down the gauntlet early @ 971 whp. Here is a video of the pulls and awards ceremony shot by ReefsRally
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZK8LQp1iGg[/youtube]
Another GG EVO 9 owned by Shaun and tuned by RallInspired knocked out 810 whp that was only good enough for 3rd place for the day and the second highest torque @ 699 ft lbs :-P These were all relatively short pulls at roughly 6 seconds of full throttle since it was pretty hot and in the direct sun. These are all tuned drag cars running E-85. We asked each owner what rpm they were comfortable starting the pull at and what rpm to stop the run at.
Speaking of the heat, we needed a little assistance hustling the cars on and off the dyno. RRE Girls Erica and Holly were gracious enough to assist as possible!
Then Loya Racing brought out their 92 Eclipse GSX. Last year it was suffering from an ignition break up but this year it (more…)
