Lydia’s 85 Ford Crown Victoria was on its way to the crusher. It had led a long and productive life taking grandmas to the market and was continually needing one more $500 repair to this otherwise ok condition $500 car. Gas prices being at $4.00 a galon too didnt help.
After considerable thought, we held a raffle/pool on So Cal EVO to guess the time it would live at full throttle with no oil and no coolant on the dyno. Winning time 7 minutes and 29 seconds!
From Schooled Magazine September-October 2008 Issue
Over the next few issues, Schooled Magazine and Road Race Engineering (RRE) will take a stock 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and perform some serious modifications to show you what you can do to enhance your vehicle. This issue I hung out with the RRE crew as they modified the performance of the vehicle. By Russ Taylor
Intake Challenge
When choosing an intake system it is important to consider airflow. The more airflow the engine receives the better it will run. To find the best intake system for the Evo X, we wanted to compare three different systems to see what would give the best gain. With the three systems-the stock intake, Injen Cold Air and AEM Cold Air Intake- Schooled headed to Road Race Engineering (RRE) located in Santa Fe Springs, California to get the dyno results on which system would give the best performance gains. The dyno is a system that measures horsepower (WHP) of the vehicle.
I met up with Mike Welch, the master tuner at RRE, who has been tuning Mitsubishi vehicles for over 12 years. He was the perfect person to handle the intake challenge for the Evo X. We started with the dyno run to find the base numbers to compare against. The dyno placed 248 WHP with no modifications done to the vehicle with the stock intake system installed. Now that we had a baseline to judge by, we were then able to compare the two intake systems.
We started with the Injen (www.injen.com), and the results were depressing. There was only a 2 WHP gain. Considering that the unit retails at over $400, this was definitely not a very good bang for the buck.
We then tried the AEM intake (www.aempower.com) which increased the vehicle with a power gain of 26 WHP. With the cost of the intake at $285, this was a huge gain for a low price. AEM’s engineers took a different approach and designed a power-producing enclosed airbox. The airbox is constructed from cross-linked polythene. AEM’s revolutionary DRYFLOW synthetic performance air filter is the first cleanable, reusable performance air filter that does not require oiling to filter and trap dirt.
Even though the Injen unit looks considerably nicer with polished pipes than the AEM intake, the 26 WHP gains made our choice obvious- to go with AEM for the project.
Custom Fabricated Exhaust by RRE
To help with the airflow for the vehicle, RRE made a custom fabricated exhaust system. Art Thavilyaei, one of the RRE crew, pieced together what later would become a custom fabricated dual exhaust system.
RRE decided to use 3” piping going into dual 2.5” piping for the rear section, and the process was amazing to watch. They start by removing the stock exhaust system. A jig is used to hold the new piping in place as measurements are taken and airflow is considered. Once each piece is measured, it is then cut, ground, and welded in place with the use of the jig. Each bend and weld in the exhaust system potentially decreases the amount of airflow from the engine. Art took his time to ensure that the end product would produce the greatest amount of airflow from the vehicle.
After several labor-intensive hours, Art finished with the placement of the exhaust system only to have to remove the entire exhaust to perform the finishing welds. He completed the welds to perfection, and he placed the finished exhaust on the EVO X. Mike ran the car on the dyno and saw a 17 WHP gain over the stock exhaust. The total cost for the exhaust system like this from RRE is $650. It gives the vehicle solid power gains and sounds a lot nicer.
With the AEM Cold Air Intake and the custom fabricated exhaust by RRE, we saw a total 45 WHP increase on the vehicle. “The best bang for the buck is the intake and exhaust,” says Mike. With a total of 45 WHP gain, Schooled Magazine would have to agree.
In the next issue Mike will perform a custom tune and will add some additional performance parts to get the most gains possible out of the Evo X. You don’t want to miss the next issue of Schooled!
The S-Empire/RRE Nissan S13.5 ran with Formula D at Portland International Raceway from July 25th-27th. Joon ran with Chris Forsberg, Tony Angelo, and JR Gittens. On Saturday Joon gave a ride along to one of the P.I.R. staff and she had a good feedback. It was a successful event!
Joon will be attending the Formula Drift Monterrey Mexico Competition next with the S13.5 on August 22nd-23rd. We are upgrading the turbo and getting prepared to have a powerful and reliable drift car for the Formula Drift Mexico event. The S13.5 will be loading in the F.D. Rig on August 13th.
July 20th, 2008- Road Race Engineering/Motorsports finished 3rd in the FWD Class at Redline Time Attack, Auto Club Speedway–Fontucky, CA. This was the debut of the Road Race Mitsubishi Eclipse Time Attack Car.
[This is a picture of Tallini driving really fast. Notice the blurriness of the background.]
Here are some picture from Performance Nissan Show presented by HKS at the Orange Show Speedway on April 5th. The RRE S13.5 was presented and was performing drift demos that day for Formula Drift.
The other pictures are from this past weekend @ Formula Team Drift Competition. The RRE S13.5 was presented from April 16th through April 20th. Joon had drift practice on Thursday until Saturday. Sunday was competition day. As a 3 car team for this competition, one of the car (Z33) was out because of mechanical failure. We did our best as a 2 car team, ( Robbie Nishida and Joon) but were deducted points for having only 2 cars.
Joon passed the Formula Drift Pre Tech held at Super Autobacs. We displayed the vehicle from 9 A.M. -6 P.M. Here are some pictures.
Romel De La Cruz from Florida sent in this pic of his license plate from his 98 Eclipse GS-T. Welcome to the 12 second club!
Not all Lancer Evolution VIIIs made it into public driveways. Some were destined for other fates, the most common of which being something we journalists know intimately as “press car” status. In most cases, press cars are destined to be crushed after their short test phase, because they are released before seeing approval from the Department of Transportation and the EPA. It sounds like a sad story, but really you’d be hard pressed to find a rental car as abused as most press cars are.
Think about it. These things are driven by hundreds of different people for one week at a time, with no concern whatsoever for break-in miles, warm-up time or anything else of the kind. If you think the Evo on these pages has ever slowed for a speed bump or been rubbed with a diaper, you are sorely mistaken. Press cars age in dog years. A press car with 20,000 miles on it is already gone. That’s not to mention that this particular press car started life in rainy mainland Malaysia and went on to a career in racing before evolving into the wide-body race car you see before you.
So you’re looking at an anomaly-the press car that just won’t die. Not because it hasn’t wanted to a few times in its life, but because it’s had too many Dr. Frankenstein owners force it back to life when all it wanted to do was call its long career in. In the hands if its current owners, Road Race Engineering (RRE) in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., it won’t be facing its demise in the jaws of a metal junkyard monster any time soon. According to RRE’s Mike Welch, “We don’t get rid of cars, we race them until they reach the end of their life cycle, then we own them some more.”
This Evo VIII started life at RRE as a race car back in 2003. This isn’t your typical story of a car that started small and moved on to the big modifications. The car had barely been in the RRE garage for a week before stock parts were torn off. The stock turbo was ditched in favor of a GReddy turbo kit and front-mount intercooler, while the factory suspension was tossed and replaced by a system from JIC. A four-wheel big brake kit from Stoptech with four pistons on each caliper and 355mm rotors all around got the party started right. Finally, a custom sheetmetal intake manifold from Magnus helped to increase airflow into the engine.
But as the American Evo aftermarket developed, Road Race Engineering was afforded a larger list of specialized components from which to choose. In addition, RRE developed many custom parts itself, like a cast turbo manifold-less prone to breakage than a tubular unit. The GReddy wastegate was exchanged in favor of an external unit from TiAL, while the GReddy Type-S blow-off valve was left to vent into the atmosphere. Intercooler piping leading to the GReddy core was replaced with a custom set from RRE. While Road Race was fabricating, it belted out a custom downpipe to guide hot air out of the turbocharger and into a Magnaflow exhaust. Being as inventive as the guys at RRE are, a Subaru up-pipe was used on the other side of the turbocharger and a custom intake was quickly fabbed up.
The turbocharger would be blowing boost into a 2.4-liter engine, machined out by Millenium Motorsports in Temecula, Calif. Before the new block was bolted to a Cosworth head, forged Wiseco 9:1 pistons were installed on top of forged Eagle H-Beam rods to keep the bottom end from turning into a boiler room for hot metal projectiles. The rods were then fastened around a balanced and counter-weighted crankshaft using ARP rod bolts.
The aforementioned Cosworth head seems to be the hands-down choice for all who race Evos. Maybe that’s because the only work teams have to do is unwrap the cellophane, bolt it on and race. It comes with a 272-degree camshaft for both the intake and exhaust sides of the valvetrain, stainless steel polished and oversized valves and polished combustion chambers. The valves stay seated with proprietary valve springs and retainers. Finally, a pair of cam gears from AEM was added to regulate valve timing events. Cosworth also clearanced the stock oil pan and a Setrab oil cooler was installed to keep temperature down during long race days in the California desert.
To keep the race car reliably fueled, RRE turned not to the aftermarket but to a car that has been on race tracks since the ’60s in some form or another, the Porsche 911. In this case, the Evo employs a Bosch external pump from the vaunted 930 Turbo in conjunction with a Denso internal pump, which in tandem provide fuel to a set of RC Engineering 1000cc/min injectors.
Since this Evo was built before the days of the American Evo RS, it was absent a limited-slip differential up front. RRE remedied the loss by installing a locking LSD from Quaife. To ensure all the power made it to all three differentials, a clutch and lightweight flywheel from Quartermaster were used.
Peak Performance of Lake Forest, Calif., teamed with Advanced Suspension Technology (AST) to provide a set of competition coilovers, while RRE teamed up with Progress Suspension to create the kind of anti-roll bars an all-wheel drive car equipped with copious amounts of rubber would need to rotate on the track. The rear bar measures 27mm in diameter.
The massive rubber comes in the form of 335/30/18 Toyo Proxes, wrapped around gargantuan 18×10.5 Enkei NT03+M wheels. Because of the APR wide-body kit, the wheels have a 25mm offset, something otherwise uncharacteristic of cars coming from the island of Japan.
Inside, Racetech carbon-kevlar seats occupy an otherwise lonely cockpit-stripped and roll cage equipped in-house by RRE. Carbontrix stepped in to add firewall and floor panels, but only because they serve a purpose on the racetrack. You might care about a good audio system, but the guys at Road Race couldn’t care less. To our “sound system components” question, they simply responded, “Magnaflow 3-inch exhaust, no interior.”
This thing was built to go fast, not impress the girl on roller skates at your local Sonic. And go fast it does-driver Robert Tallini has already taken home the gold at the ’04 FIA Mexican Championship (Open Class) as well as the Redline Time Attack in Fontana, Calif., (Overall Winner). If there’s such a thing as a car having nine lives, this one wrote the book. It’s been rebuilt more times than we can count and it’s attended SEMA as many years as the Evo has been alive in the states. Thanks to Road Race, it doesn’t look like it will be disappearing off the scene any time soon, either.
A short story for Univision in Mexico on the road racing border series that we often run in. Mike W in the #37 Eclipse GST and Jason Steiinhart in the #15 Eclipse GSX get some good screeentime. Incar footage in Mike’s Eclipse.
We had an opportunity to check some corner weights on the new Eclipse. You have heard that this is a heavy car, it drives like a heavy car… well guess what? It is a heavy car :-P
This GT is a non-sunroof regular stereo model and had a half tank of gas.
Side to side balance is pretty good but it is 63% of the weight on the front.
Put a 200 lb driver in the driver’s seat :-P
Curious as to what some of the individual parts weigh? How about 43 1/2 lbs of A/C parts.
The door window assembly, 25 1/2 lbs
Mostly gutted out. Lighter but still a big pig.
Out of curiosity we weighed a stock non power seat. EEeek! 54 lbs.
Why is the 4G Eclipse so heavy? Safety. The Eclipse shares the base platform with the Galant and the Endeavor. This combined with the newer side impact safety regulations give you the stiffest and safestEclipse ever made. The chassis is thick and double walled just about everywhere. Every support and brace is as thick as a frame rail. On older Eclipses these inner braces and supports were half as many and just thin Sheetmetal. Add in something like 8 air bags too. Then the boat anchor 3.8 liter steel block and you got your 3600 lb car.
