bradparis

Hey guys!

My name is Brad, new to the forums here, however I have been following the EvolutionM forums for a few months now gathering information about modding my car. I'm 21 years old from Edmonton, AB, Canada. I drive a lightning yellow 06 Lancer RA.

I have tons of plans for the car, and I'm really excited to get modding, so I thought I would create this thread as an introduction, and to come back and post to it after each mod I have done to see my progression.

I definitely went through the "buyers regret" of my car, since it is not an evolution and I am a huge evo fan. However at this time I believe my goals for the car are to make it a beautiful daily, and to eventually (maybe a year, or years?) down the road by an evo 7-9.

Car goals/expectations

Exterior:

My goals right now is to start with the exterior. I have already purchased a evo 7 wing, so I am waiting for that to get here, then I am going to wrap the whole car in a matte blue (including the wing).
Once that is complete, then I will purchase rims (matte black/gunmetal) to give the car a nice, aggressive look.

Interior:

I am going for a full blue look; on the interior I've purchased a blue deck, blue shift knob, and blue interior lighting.
I have a bunch more ideas for the interior, like 2x recaro racing seats (blue), replacing lights with blue leds, momo steering wheel with blue accent, and carbon fiber wrapping parts in the interior.

From there on, I think I will be happy with the look of the car. (I'd love to do the front end evo swap, but it looks too complicated from my research)

Power

I've gone ahead and made sure the car is up to good working standards, (purchased the car on low KM's) The last thing I will do before modding is to change the breaks. Unfortunately, the RA only comes with 162 hp, and to get that close to the evo would be insanely expensive. I'm thinking even just to bump it up 40 hp to 200 would be great, (I used to drive a '13 Audi A4 with 211 hp). While I wait until I can purchase an evo as a second car, I think that boost of power would keep me happy. I'm hoping I can achieve this without putting a turbo in, because it looks terribly expensive, which I would rather save this money for the evo.

Any suggestions for attaining this power would also be greatly appreciated, I have been following the forums and learning more about my car, however new information is always welcome .

Here are pictures of the car when I bought it from the dealership, so far.. all that has been done is removal of the "chevy farm badge" you can see on the back, and the lancer, and RA badge on the back, leaving only the Mitsubishi emblem left.

CrAnSwIcK

iTrader: (5)

my bet is getting 200whp without a turbo would cost more than actually turbocharging. remember, wheel horse power on the RA is like 145.

Really nice car by the way...I've been thinking about buying an Alberta owned RA to replace my rotting Ontario driven shell. There's more salt on the roads than snow down this way...

bradparis

Thanks for the reply Cran!

That is unfortunate, but you might be right.. from websites like RRM and others just small mods that add 5-8 hp cost quite a bit. How much did your turbo cost all in? I'm a huge fan of your build, so I would definitely take that into consideration.

I don't need a track beast, just need more power than it currently has. My overall goal is to make it an eye pleaser to be honest, and give it a little more power than it has. Maybe a few years down the line, I'll buy an evo and it will be a secondary car.. who knows.

Thanks man! It's definitely clean, which is why I paid so much for it. Bought it a month ago with 89k on the engine I'm actually from Ottawa, born and raised.. I know how much a pain it is buying cars there haha, if I ever move back home I'll bring a car over.

CrAnSwIcK

iTrader: (5)

Keep in mind when they say 5-8hp, it's more likely 5 than 8, so 3 at the wheels, lol. It does all add up, but you can't add up the advertised power reliably...like when they say one mod gives you up to 8hp, and another gives you up to 5hp, doesn't necessarily mean with both you'll get 13hp, but with tuning it is definitely more plausible. with basic bolt on mods, intake, exhaust of plus tuning 40hp should be pretty attainable, but whether but if you do that that through RRM, you're looking at about $3,000 Canadian...my Turbo setup initially cost me around $1,500, plus tuning, so $2k. I'm on my 3rd turbo now, so i'm probably closer to 2,500 if I subtract the other 2 turbos. Modding isn't cheap...that's why my advice is always, you want Fast, Reliable, and Cheap?...you can only pick two.

I can tell you right now, If turbocharging is not affordable, you can probably find a magnaflow cat-back cheaper elsewhere, and some OBX headers are about $300 versus RRM's $600. I would NOT buy their stage 2 head, or their intake manifold...get an intake manifold from a junk yard and have it ported locally, or do some research, buy a die grinder, and do it yourself. Have it flow tested if you can...cold air intakes are a given, though my opinion of them is that they probably heat up all that cold air with heat soak, so a nice wrap job is a good idea, or run a new intake location for the stock air box...RalliartN has written a nice guide on his, IIRC, when I was still N/A we both had the same tune, I had a short ram intake, he had his stock intake with his DIY mod, and we raced in the quarter mile, I jumped him on the launch cause I have an LSD, but he would always catch up. I wouldn't run a lightweight flywheel with a stage 2 or higher clutch it will chatter like a bastard. That, and a stage 2 clutch is good for like 335ft-lb or torque so unless you're making that kind of power, it's a waste of time and money, so i'm not totally opposed to a lightweight flywheel, though I don't use one.

The thing I stress the most as you may have noticed is tuning...and be aware that there are 2 ways for us 04-06 owners to tune (flash/reprogram) the stock ECU, so don't bother with timing boxes, piggy back ECU/ECM's, or "performance chips".

I use Fastworks (all-in-one software package written by hackish, who also has a spring sale every year, pricing is VERY reasonable), but there is a guy (merlin) who writes definitions for ECUflash (open source) and his prices are reasonable I hear, as well.

sflemming12

Edmonton represent! Hey Bradparis, nice car. See you got that super clean RA from the Chevy farm with only 89 thousand km! Gotta say I owe that car a huge thanks for being worth lots and I used the Kijiji add to argue with my insurance when they wanted to write my car off after my car got keyed the whole way around and then it turned into an unexpected rust repair. Oh well. You should come out to united cycle one Friday night. Otherwise ill see you on the streets ��

bradparis

Haha, no way! Such a small world we live in, isn't it? I think it is absolutely hilarious that you recognized the car, and that it helped you out. I'm glad the car helped you out in some sort!
Glad I grabbed the pictures before I sent it into the shop, I'm sending it to get plasti dipped blue on the body (plus evo wing I just picked up) and gold on the rims. It's going to look something like this (except matte blue):





I'd love to go to a car meet, I'm starting up a new job here and I'll be a little busy for the next little while.. but you should PM me and we'll exchange numbers and go to a meet one night. I'm from Ontario, so all of my car buddies are out there, need some car guys that I can learn from and meet up with.

CrAnSwIcK

iTrader: (5)

so random, lol...bring beer and a hockey stick!

*edit, I just noticed in the last picture there's an 06 OZ rally in the background...lol...is that one for sale? it's black and doesn't look rusty!

bradparis

Haha hey Cran, just noticed that too! This was at West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, don't know the owner unfortunately