When discussing the spool-up and high-end flow characteristics of a given turbocharger, the term “wheel trim” may pop up. If you’re in the market for a turbocharger upgrade, comparing new units, or are...
September 3 2010 / No comment / Read More »RM sold five cars in Monterey for more than $2 million each with the top spot 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C Lago Speciale Teardrop Coupe going for a cool $4.6 million dollars. ...
August 27 2010 / No comment / Read More »With million dollar cars on track and in the concours shows, some going for up to four million dollars in the auctions, enthusiasts show up to Monterey in waves. The cars entered fall...
August 27 2010 / No comment / Read More »A project car is all about the cursing, over-your-head budget, and time spent under the hood. They’re bought used, worked on for countless hours, and then put up against competitors that cost more...
August 23 2010 / 4 comments / Read More »The stock twin-turbocharger system was re-installed, converted to boost non-sequentially, but didn’t produce as much power as White liked. The final answer was a huge single GReddy T78 turbocharger kit....
August 20 2010 / 1 comment / Read More »The History Garage museum is designed to honor production cars from the 1950s through the 1970s, as well as past racing machines. The Corolla WRC car and GT-One Le Mans car are rare...
August 18 2010 / No comment / Read More »
This particular Lancer Evo 9 was born as a Sport Compact Car magazine project car. From those days on, this trusty Mitsubishi saw the skidpad, figure-8, drag strip, road course, autocross, track days, and time attack competition.
To go fast, and we’re talking Porsche ass kicking fast, Project 240SX would need a lot of camber. Strut-type front suspensions like to have large amounts of static camber on account of their horrible camber curves.
Driving the car is also a revelation, with less creaks going up driveways and a noticeably smoother ride over broken pavement. Project 240SX may well see extra bracing and bars soon enough but for one afternoon’s worth of work and less than $100, we’re not complaining.
Faster on track than a Porsche 911 Turbo while using full tread, wet weather capable street tires. Once we play further with spring rates, alignment and other adjustments, we’ll be able to pick up even more speed. Simply. Badass.
Project Evo IX’s last track outing did not go well. On top of being outgunned power-wise in the Street AWD class (our 350whp stock turbo setup always is), we discovered that our rear limited-slip differential had given up the ghost.
We knew that we wouldn’t have the time or the budget to strap on a bigger turbo or a fancy carbon fiber rooftop before we left. We’d be facing 600whp monster Lancer Evos again with our daily driven 350whp (on race gas) street car. Not a problem for the constant underdog OR team, right?
We like rear-wheel drive cars, especially sports coupes. Contrary to what you might think, because of Project Civic and the success of Project Evo IX, we prefer our cars to have two drive wheels out back and a healthy engine up front.
After the last two time attack events at Willow Springs International Raceway, two things have been bothering us – how can we make Project Evo IX faster and how can we do it without spending a lot of cash? By optimizing the car as much as we could
Project Civic was, oddly enough, born in reverse. It shot out of the womb full-grown, ready to vote and enlist in the army. Most of our project cars begin as bone stock factory fresh vehicles or sport just the minimal of modifications.
Project Civic was begun with the sole purpose of going to the track on weekends. Our intent was to have in the project garage a car that was street legal and yet could deliver cheap and reliable driving speed on weekends.
When we last left off on our 1995 EG chassis Honda Civic project car, it was an unsorted jumble of parts that held big potential and lots of small issues. Outfit with a 211whp custom built 1.8-liter Acura Integra engine
An engine swapped 240SX can easily make 300whp+, fit decently sized rubber underneath itself, has more parts available than you could ever imagine, is cheap to buy and weighs less than a Ford Mustang. Sounds good to us.
We didn’t take the Formula One world championship, run through the Monte Carlo rally or convince the ALMS to make an exception for our entry. We’ve been storing up our dwindling cash reserves since the last two time attack events and planning for what’s coming up next this season.
A completely stock engine is coupled with a turbo-back exhaust, ECU tuning and Greddy boost controller, JIC coilovers, Whiteline roll center kit, Ferodo/Performance Friction brake pads, custom modified APR wind splitter, Recaro seat and Voltex rear wing. If it seems like we went insane with our budget, we didn’t.
The last time you read about Project Evo IX (Part 6), we won the Street AWD class at the Super Lap Battle Willow Springs event. Our Mitsubishi project was loaded down with only the best in factory stock equipment – stock engine, brakes (with pads), turbo, intercooler, piping, cams, ECU, body and airbox.
The dust has settled and we’re honestly too happy with our results to hide them, we’ve won Street AWD at the Super Lap Battle Willow Springs qualifier event. With just a few days, albeit long days, worth of work, we’ve gone from bolt-on street car to time attack competitor.
Lancer Evolutions are not slouches, even in factory form, and commuting through stop-and-go traffic in an Evo does a disservice to the car itself. But competing in time attack, i.e. time trial, competition so early in its development was not on the books for Project Evo IX.
In our last few installments, Project Evo IX saw minor modifications that didn’t, in our opinion, affect its day-to-day drivability at all. A stiffer and lower suspension system added a bit more impact harshness, but it was definitely useable. But none of them were real “racecar” modifications.
Front-wheel drive Hondas are like Legos. There’s a big bin of parts that you can just grab from and stick together to make new and exciting multi-colored cars. It’s fun for adults.
Ok, so we’ll level with you. These modifications aren’t technically street legal here in California. Tired of getting hassled and pulled over for driving modified or “altered” vehicles, we’ve strived to lean more on the side of stealth.
![The Four Million Dollar Car Club – RM Auctions At Monterey [w/ VIDEO]](http://octanereport.com/upload/image/cache/3558_trnsFeatured.jpg "The Four Million Dollar Car Club – RM Auctions At Monterey [w/ VIDEO]")
