Evo Revival- Ian0611's Story
Oct 24, 2011, 01:11 AM
#1
Evo Revival- Ian0611's Story
My Complete Newb Budget Build Story
Well I've been around EvoM for a little while now but I've never given a formal introduction. I guess I should warn you now that this story is pretty long. But if you're like me and you're trying to go fast on a limited budget, I think you'll enjoy this story. As you read through this you'll understand why I call it a revival. The car wasn't dead when I got it but it barely had enough life in it to call it an Evo. Read on and you'll see what I mean. Enjoy!!
About Me: I'm 30 years old, married, with our first child due in early January of 2012. I've been working at the Rockford airport for about 11 years now. In 2006, I was promoted to a supervisor position shortly before I got married. After earning my BA in Elementary Ed. in 2007 I was promoted again and given additional responsibilities as our department trainer. Although it's not what I went to school for, working at the airport is something that I've grown to love, and my company is paying me fairly for what I do so I can't complain. That being said, that doesn't mean that I make a ton of money... Far from it actually! I've had to try to revive this car on a limited budget and I think a lot of you can relate to that. If you're like me and are trying to own and enjoy your dream car on a limited budget, I think you'll not only enjoy this story, but hopefully you can learn from it too and possibly avoid some of the mistakes that I made.
Lastly, I should also add that before I got my Evo I knew almost nothing about them aside from what I had read in magazines and that they're a great car to use in Need for Speed Most Wanted
I really was a complete newb, not only to Evos, but to drag racing and modding as well. Furthermore, changing spark plugs was about the extent of my mechanical experience so I was probably a little crazy (and stupid) for jumping into this thing the way that I did! But looking back now, I wouldn't change a thing about my experience. Yeah, I've had some frustrating days, but I've also had a lot of fun days, and I've learned more about cars and myself than I ever thought possible in the process!
Now enough about me... on to the Evo!
August 2009- My wife graduated in the spring and got her first teaching job. Now that we were both out of school and working full-time it was time to reward ourselves with some new cars
We set a comfortable budget for ourselves of about $15K and started searching. I knew I wanted something fast so I searched for a number of different cars- Evos, STis , M3s, SRT-4s, etc. but all along, the Evo was always my first choice if I could find one for the right price. It didn't take long before I found an 03 VIII listed on Craigslist for $13K with about 75K miles on it.
Here's a pic after the first test drive with my old Contour SVT in the background:
From the moment I laid eyes on her I knew this would be my new ride. I loved the CF hood and JDM headlights and it was exactly the color I wanted! The mods at the time of purchase were an AMS LICP and FMIC, TBE with a test pipe, ebay exhaust manifold and O2 housing, boost gauge, and a rusted MBC. The previous owner informed me about a few of her flaws but I talked him down to $12K and basically bought her that day.
Little did I know how much work she really needed...
December 2009- Although the car felt good at first, for some reason the cold weather was making the car feel slow. I got on it one cold day in 2nd gear and blew a freeze plug out of the water pump which also fried out the alternator
When I first purchased the car in August, I was able to get an extended warranty through my credit union. So I called them up and they suggested I take it to the dealer. Long story short, after fighting with the extended warranty people and the dealership about several issues, the warranty company did cover it but it took almost a month for me to get my car back 
March 2010- The night I picked the car up from the dealer, after they finally fixed the water pump and alternator, the car began misfiring at idle as soon as I started it. The car was also only getting about 15mpg so I knew something wasn't right. I had joined EvoM in February and found out quickly that there was probably something wrong with my tune. Being that all these problems started after picking it up from the dealer, my guess was that they flashed it back to a stock ROM and I was right.
Since there are no tuners in my area I contacted the previous owner and asked him who to take it to. He suggested an Evo shop in the suburbs of Chicago that I won't name so we'll just call them "Shop 1". I took the car out to Shop 1 and had them install a Walbro 255, an Evo IX DV, and they then tuned it using ECU controlled boost even though the car had several exhaust leaks at the time.
Here are some pics of the first pics I took. Still no exterior mods done at this point.
April 2010- Ever since winter started, I kept hearing what sounded like a lifter ticking whenever I would start the car up when it was cold. Usually the tick would go away after a few seconds, but it was starting to last longer and longer, so I finally decided to call the warranty company up and take it in.
After all the garbage the dealer put me through the last time, I promised myself I'd never go back. So I took it to a local shop that supposedly worked on Evos before that we'll call "Shop 2". Initially the guy seemed fine but after talking to a guy at work about the place, he told me the guy got busted several years ago for running a chop shop!!!
I thought it was weird when the owner of Shop 2 asked me if he could keep the car at his house so it would be safe Needless to say, I got the car out of there as quickly as I could and took it to another local shop with a much better reputation.
Once the car got to the new shop he diagnosed the tick as a bad lifter. We fought for about two weeks to get the warranty company to cover it, but in the end they said no and basically told me to cancel the warranty. The shop owner ended up just Sea Foaming the car which actually made the tick go away for a while. While it was there, I also had him change out the leaking Megan exhaust manifold for a stocker.
At this point I thought I had all the bugs worked out but boy was I wrong
May 2010- Ever since joining the forum in February I was always intrigued by the thought of learning to tune, so I started reading just about every thread possible that was related to tuning. At first, I was scared to death to even try hooking up a Tactrix Cable But the more I read and talked to people, the more comfortable I got and I eventually bought my first Tactrix Cable in May of 2010. I started out by just doing some logs in Evoscan because I still had no idea what I was looking at in EcuFlash, and things slowly progressed from there.
Pic of the Engine Bay May 2010. The manifold and IX DV were the only changes from the day I bought it:
May 31st , 2010- This was not only my birthday but it was also my First Track Day. Byron Dragway is only about 25 minutes from me so I was stoked to finally get this thing on the ¼ to see what she could do. Plus, since it was my birthday, I made a bunch of my family members come out and watch.
Video of my very first pass (Gotta love my dad's commentary at the end):
http://youtu.be/aw_Km9EDKBs
I had a decent launch (for my first time) but I missed 3rd and ended up with a 15.33 @ 86.44mph with a 2.03 60’. Unfortunately the rest of the day didn’t go much better. I’d never driven an AWD or turbocharged car before the Evo and combining the two meant that I really had no idea how to drive this thing. My launches were horrible the rest of the day and my best pass of the day was a 15.0 @ 95mph with a 2.31 60’.
Obviously the car still had some major issues and so did my driving!
June 2010- After my first track day was a huge FAIL, I realized it was time to quit being scared and start figuring out what was going on with my tune. The very next day I posted this thread https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ec...ming-maps.html The comments that followed obviously confirmed what I suspected... The Tune from Shop 1 was JUNK!!!
I called Shop 1 a few days later to talk to the owner about it, sent him an email with a copy of the tune and he agreed to cut me a good deal on a wideband install and fix the tune for free. The wideband install was important because it meant that I was now one step closer to being able to do the tuning myself. After the car got retuned, it did feel better and it appeared to be making more power according to VDR, but there were still a lot of issues that I was unaware of that were holding me back.
July 10th 2010- I went back out for my second track day hoping that with the retune things would go much better. Things did go better but I was still SLOW! My best for the day was 14.28 @ 93.52MPH with a 1.967 60’. Obviously the car was running better and my driving was also better but I was still nowhere near where I should be. Probably the best part of this day was that I got to meet some pretty cool guys in Devin from Boostin’ Performance, Joey (Evosick2332), and Jason (AngryEvo8). Devin was still working at Strictly Modified at the time and talking to all three of those guys let me know that that’s where I needed to take my car the next time something went wrong. Devin was also kind enough to take a quick look at my tune and give me a couple of tips on some things that needed to be changed.
Here’s a few pics. The black IX is Joey’s ride before it became the “Junk Box.” I’m pretty sure he was still breaking in the new motor with the FP Black.
Joey let Jason (silver Evo) borrow his Volks to see if he could break into the 10’s on the FP Red.
Things were starting to look up... Or so I thought!
Well I've been around EvoM for a little while now but I've never given a formal introduction. I guess I should warn you now that this story is pretty long. But if you're like me and you're trying to go fast on a limited budget, I think you'll enjoy this story. As you read through this you'll understand why I call it a revival. The car wasn't dead when I got it but it barely had enough life in it to call it an Evo. Read on and you'll see what I mean. Enjoy!!
About Me: I'm 30 years old, married, with our first child due in early January of 2012. I've been working at the Rockford airport for about 11 years now. In 2006, I was promoted to a supervisor position shortly before I got married. After earning my BA in Elementary Ed. in 2007 I was promoted again and given additional responsibilities as our department trainer. Although it's not what I went to school for, working at the airport is something that I've grown to love, and my company is paying me fairly for what I do so I can't complain. That being said, that doesn't mean that I make a ton of money... Far from it actually! I've had to try to revive this car on a limited budget and I think a lot of you can relate to that. If you're like me and are trying to own and enjoy your dream car on a limited budget, I think you'll not only enjoy this story, but hopefully you can learn from it too and possibly avoid some of the mistakes that I made.
Lastly, I should also add that before I got my Evo I knew almost nothing about them aside from what I had read in magazines and that they're a great car to use in Need for Speed Most Wanted
I really was a complete newb, not only to Evos, but to drag racing and modding as well. Furthermore, changing spark plugs was about the extent of my mechanical experience so I was probably a little crazy (and stupid) for jumping into this thing the way that I did! But looking back now, I wouldn't change a thing about my experience. Yeah, I've had some frustrating days, but I've also had a lot of fun days, and I've learned more about cars and myself than I ever thought possible in the process!Now enough about me... on to the Evo!
August 2009- My wife graduated in the spring and got her first teaching job. Now that we were both out of school and working full-time it was time to reward ourselves with some new cars
We set a comfortable budget for ourselves of about $15K and started searching. I knew I wanted something fast so I searched for a number of different cars- Evos, STis , M3s, SRT-4s, etc. but all along, the Evo was always my first choice if I could find one for the right price. It didn't take long before I found an 03 VIII listed on Craigslist for $13K with about 75K miles on it. Here's a pic after the first test drive with my old Contour SVT in the background:
From the moment I laid eyes on her I knew this would be my new ride. I loved the CF hood and JDM headlights and it was exactly the color I wanted! The mods at the time of purchase were an AMS LICP and FMIC, TBE with a test pipe, ebay exhaust manifold and O2 housing, boost gauge, and a rusted MBC. The previous owner informed me about a few of her flaws but I talked him down to $12K and basically bought her that day.
Little did I know how much work she really needed...
December 2009- Although the car felt good at first, for some reason the cold weather was making the car feel slow. I got on it one cold day in 2nd gear and blew a freeze plug out of the water pump which also fried out the alternator
When I first purchased the car in August, I was able to get an extended warranty through my credit union. So I called them up and they suggested I take it to the dealer. Long story short, after fighting with the extended warranty people and the dealership about several issues, the warranty company did cover it but it took almost a month for me to get my car back March 2010- The night I picked the car up from the dealer, after they finally fixed the water pump and alternator, the car began misfiring at idle as soon as I started it. The car was also only getting about 15mpg so I knew something wasn't right. I had joined EvoM in February and found out quickly that there was probably something wrong with my tune. Being that all these problems started after picking it up from the dealer, my guess was that they flashed it back to a stock ROM and I was right.
Since there are no tuners in my area I contacted the previous owner and asked him who to take it to. He suggested an Evo shop in the suburbs of Chicago that I won't name so we'll just call them "Shop 1". I took the car out to Shop 1 and had them install a Walbro 255, an Evo IX DV, and they then tuned it using ECU controlled boost even though the car had several exhaust leaks at the time.
Here are some pics of the first pics I took. Still no exterior mods done at this point.
April 2010- Ever since winter started, I kept hearing what sounded like a lifter ticking whenever I would start the car up when it was cold. Usually the tick would go away after a few seconds, but it was starting to last longer and longer, so I finally decided to call the warranty company up and take it in.
After all the garbage the dealer put me through the last time, I promised myself I'd never go back. So I took it to a local shop that supposedly worked on Evos before that we'll call "Shop 2". Initially the guy seemed fine but after talking to a guy at work about the place, he told me the guy got busted several years ago for running a chop shop!!!
I thought it was weird when the owner of Shop 2 asked me if he could keep the car at his house so it would be safe Needless to say, I got the car out of there as quickly as I could and took it to another local shop with a much better reputation. Once the car got to the new shop he diagnosed the tick as a bad lifter. We fought for about two weeks to get the warranty company to cover it, but in the end they said no and basically told me to cancel the warranty. The shop owner ended up just Sea Foaming the car which actually made the tick go away for a while. While it was there, I also had him change out the leaking Megan exhaust manifold for a stocker.
At this point I thought I had all the bugs worked out but boy was I wrong
May 2010- Ever since joining the forum in February I was always intrigued by the thought of learning to tune, so I started reading just about every thread possible that was related to tuning. At first, I was scared to death to even try hooking up a Tactrix Cable But the more I read and talked to people, the more comfortable I got and I eventually bought my first Tactrix Cable in May of 2010. I started out by just doing some logs in Evoscan because I still had no idea what I was looking at in EcuFlash, and things slowly progressed from there.
Pic of the Engine Bay May 2010. The manifold and IX DV were the only changes from the day I bought it:
May 31st , 2010- This was not only my birthday but it was also my First Track Day. Byron Dragway is only about 25 minutes from me so I was stoked to finally get this thing on the ¼ to see what she could do. Plus, since it was my birthday, I made a bunch of my family members come out and watch.
Video of my very first pass (Gotta love my dad's commentary at the end
):http://youtu.be/aw_Km9EDKBs
I had a decent launch (for my first time) but I missed 3rd
and ended up with a 15.33 @ 86.44mph with a 2.03 60’. Unfortunately the rest of the day didn’t go much better. I’d never driven an AWD or turbocharged car before the Evo and combining the two meant that I really had no idea how to drive this thing. My launches were horrible the rest of the day and my best pass of the day was a 15.0 @ 95mph with a 2.31 60’. Obviously the car still had some major issues and so did my driving!
June 2010- After my first track day was a huge FAIL, I realized it was time to quit being scared and start figuring out what was going on with my tune. The very next day I posted this thread https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ec...ming-maps.html The comments that followed obviously confirmed what I suspected... The Tune from Shop 1 was JUNK!!!
I called Shop 1 a few days later to talk to the owner about it, sent him an email with a copy of the tune and he agreed to cut me a good deal on a wideband install and fix the tune for free. The wideband install was important because it meant that I was now one step closer to being able to do the tuning myself. After the car got retuned, it did feel better and it appeared to be making more power according to VDR, but there were still a lot of issues that I was unaware of that were holding me back.
July 10th 2010- I went back out for my second track day hoping that with the retune things would go much better. Things did go better but I was still SLOW! My best for the day was 14.28 @ 93.52MPH with a 1.967 60’. Obviously the car was running better and my driving was also better but I was still nowhere near where I should be. Probably the best part of this day was that I got to meet some pretty cool guys in Devin from Boostin’ Performance, Joey (Evosick2332), and Jason (AngryEvo8). Devin was still working at Strictly Modified at the time and talking to all three of those guys let me know that that’s where I needed to take my car the next time something went wrong. Devin was also kind enough to take a quick look at my tune and give me a couple of tips on some things that needed to be changed.
Here’s a few pics. The black IX is Joey’s ride before it became the “Junk Box.” I’m pretty sure he was still breaking in the new motor with the FP Black.
Joey let Jason (silver Evo) borrow his Volks to see if he could break into the 10’s on the FP Red.
Things were starting to look up... Or so I thought!
Last edited by Ian0611; Nov 17, 2012 at 11:25 PM.
Oct 24, 2011, 01:11 AM
#2
Late July 2010- The last weekend in July was our airshow at the Rockford airport. My company is very involved in the show each year. We provide all of the fuel for the show and also hangar about 90% of the performers including the headlining act each year. The Thunderbirds were the main act in 2010 and I was hoping all week that there would be an opportunity for me to get some pics of the Evo with the Thunderbirds. My opportunity came on the Friday night before the show was supposed to start. One of the Thunderbirds had some maintenance issues and it was sitting in our back hangar all by itself. My 12-hour day finally ended around 10:30 that night and even though I was dead tired and it was raining out, I knew that was probably my best and only chance to get the Evo next to a Thunderbird. I asked one of the mechanics if it was OK and he said it was fine as long as I didn't bring the car in the hangar (funny how the military can tell me what to do in my own hangar ) Anyway, so here's a couple shots with the Thunderbird. They didn't come out very good due to the rain and poor lighting but I'm still glad I got to get something.
August 2010- Just when I thought things were getting better they got worse again! Since it was obvious that the car wasn't as fast as it should be, I decided it was time to do my first real performance mod Tired of looking at the nasty wannabe-HKS Ebay intake and stock UICP, I decided it was time to find a new intake and UICP. I wanted to stay with the stock routing and it didn't take long before I found a used Fujita F5 UICP and intake on EvoM for a good price. I probably should have mentioned this sooner but now's a good time to let you know that I know almost nothing about working on cars 
However, I think I'm a fairly intelligent guy and this job looked simple enough, so I went to work and about two hours later I was ready to rip! Wellll... not quite
After installing the Fujita UICP and intake the car would nearly stall anytime I would come to a stop. Me, in all my newbness, didn't realize that the car needed to be retuned for the new intake and UICP, but fortunately the good people of EvoM came to the rescue One individual inparticular was a huge help to me. Appauldd was kind enough to not only help me try to figure out what was wrong, but he also basically retuned my car on a Tephra V5 ROM for free and really helped me get going in the right direction with my tuning. By this time, I had also added an OMNI 4 Bar map sensor and I was at the point where I had everything that I needed to to do the tuning myself, including a decent understanding of how to tune. The only thing I needed was a decent base tune to work off of and that's exactly what Appauldd gave me!
October 2010- Once again, just when things were looking up, they came crashing back down! I'd been spending a lot of time tuning the car, and one night while I was out tuning I noticed a large spike in the RPMs as boost came on. The RPMs then fell sharply and rose again. So as you probably already guessed, my clutch was toast
After meeting with Joey, Jason, and Devin earlier in the summer I knew Strictly Modfied would be the next shop that I called when I needed something for the Evo and they didn't dissappoint. After a few phone calls to Cisco, he cut me a good deal on an ACT XTSS clutch and flywheel combo and promised they could have the job done in one day. The turnaround time was very important to me because it takes me over an hour to get to their shop and I can't really afford both the time and money it would take to drop the car off one day and have to come back out to pick it up another day. Koza and Eric did an amazing job putting the new clutch in and performing an oil change in about 4 hours and I was able to make it back for a half-day of work
November 7th 2010- Doing the clutch in mid-October didn't give me a whole lot of time to break it in for one last track day, but I drove it as much as I could and managed to get enough miles on it for a couple of final passes before winter set in.
My first pass didn't go so well- 14.45 @ 102.85 with a 2.34 60' Clearly my driving still stunk, but the encouraging sign was that this was the first time I'd ever trapped more than 100MPH
Second Pass- 13.74 @ 103.26 with a 1.933 60' Wow! Finally I'm in the 13s
Third Pass- 13.532 @ 103.73 with a 1.808 60' O' Man! You can imagine my excitement here!! That's almost as fast a stock Evo! And check out that sub- 2 second 60' huh?? The sad part of course was that I had all these bolt on parts and was running about 27psi
The track was packed that day and those were the only runs I got in. I went home that night feeling both encouraged and frustrated- encouraged that things were obviously getting better but still frustrated that the car wasn't running nearly as fast as it should.
October 2010 - February 2011- Because I was still unaware of some of the issues that the car had, I made the decision that the only real way for me to go faster was to do some more modding. In October of 2010 I got a great deal on an old-style FP Green from another forum member and I spent the rest of the winter searching for parts to support it. I also spent a good deal of time working on my tune and improving my tuning skills.
Pic of FP Green
Unfortunately, coming up with the finances to support the install of the Green proved to be a lot tougher than I thought. That winter I ended up performing a lot of maintenance:
- New tires- Continental DWSs which I highly recommend
- New brakes for the front- Hawk pads and Powerslot Rotors
- Swapped my catback to a TurboXS catback because mine somehow got a huge hole in it. Thanks to Jason, I could now roll in stealth mode
- Patched a hole on my O2 housing using some muffler goop
- Installed a used Evo 8 suspension that I bought from another forum member due to my struts being blown and the springs no longer being seated properly (probably from all the fun I had drifting in the snow
). I really wanted to get some lowering springs but due to the roads where I live, I decided to stay stock
Oh What Fun It Is to Drift
On the bright side, I did add a few minor exterior mods- JDM Taillights, JDM Amber sidemarkers, and a Rexpeed carbon fiber exhaust heat shield
) Anyway, so here's a couple shots with the Thunderbird. They didn't come out very good due to the rain and poor lighting but I'm still glad I got to get something. August 2010- Just when I thought things were getting better they got worse again! Since it was obvious that the car wasn't as fast as it should be, I decided it was time to do my first real performance mod
Tired of looking at the nasty wannabe-HKS Ebay intake and stock UICP, I decided it was time to find a new intake and UICP. I wanted to stay with the stock routing and it didn't take long before I found a used Fujita F5 UICP and intake on EvoM for a good price. I probably should have mentioned this sooner but now's a good time to let you know that I know almost nothing about working on cars However, I think I'm a fairly intelligent guy and this job looked simple enough, so I went to work and about two hours later I was ready to rip! Wellll... not quite After installing the Fujita UICP and intake the car would nearly stall anytime I would come to a stop. Me, in all my newbness, didn't realize that the car needed to be retuned for the new intake and UICP, but fortunately the good people of EvoM came to the rescue
One individual inparticular was a huge help to me. Appauldd was kind enough to not only help me try to figure out what was wrong, but he also basically retuned my car on a Tephra V5 ROM for free and really helped me get going in the right direction with my tuning. By this time, I had also added an OMNI 4 Bar map sensor and I was at the point where I had everything that I needed to to do the tuning myself, including a decent understanding of how to tune. The only thing I needed was a decent base tune to work off of and that's exactly what Appauldd gave me! October 2010- Once again, just when things were looking up, they came crashing back down! I'd been spending a lot of time tuning the car, and one night while I was out tuning I noticed a large spike in the RPMs as boost came on. The RPMs then fell sharply and rose again. So as you probably already guessed, my clutch was toast
After meeting with Joey, Jason, and Devin earlier in the summer I knew Strictly Modfied would be the next shop that I called when I needed something for the Evo and they didn't dissappoint. After a few phone calls to Cisco, he cut me a good deal on an ACT XTSS clutch and flywheel combo and promised they could have the job done in one day. The turnaround time was very important to me because it takes me over an hour to get to their shop and I can't really afford both the time and money it would take to drop the car off one day and have to come back out to pick it up another day. Koza and Eric did an amazing job putting the new clutch in and performing an oil change in about 4 hours and I was able to make it back for a half-day of work
November 7th 2010- Doing the clutch in mid-October didn't give me a whole lot of time to break it in for one last track day, but I drove it as much as I could and managed to get enough miles on it for a couple of final passes before winter set in.
My first pass didn't go so well- 14.45 @ 102.85 with a 2.34 60' Clearly my driving still stunk, but the encouraging sign was that this was the first time I'd ever trapped more than 100MPH
Second Pass- 13.74 @ 103.26 with a 1.933 60' Wow! Finally I'm in the 13s
Third Pass- 13.532 @ 103.73 with a 1.808 60' O' Man! You can imagine my excitement here!! That's almost as fast a stock Evo! And check out that sub- 2 second 60' huh??
The sad part of course was that I had all these bolt on parts and was running about 27psiThe track was packed that day and those were the only runs I got in. I went home that night feeling both encouraged and frustrated- encouraged that things were obviously getting better but still frustrated that the car wasn't running nearly as fast as it should.
October 2010 - February 2011- Because I was still unaware of some of the issues that the car had, I made the decision that the only real way for me to go faster was to do some more modding. In October of 2010 I got a great deal on an old-style FP Green from another forum member and I spent the rest of the winter searching for parts to support it. I also spent a good deal of time working on my tune and improving my tuning skills.
Pic of FP Green
Unfortunately, coming up with the finances to support the install of the Green proved to be a lot tougher than I thought. That winter I ended up performing a lot of maintenance:
- New tires- Continental DWSs which I highly recommend
- New brakes for the front- Hawk pads and Powerslot Rotors
- Swapped my catback to a TurboXS catback because mine somehow got a huge hole in it. Thanks to Jason, I could now roll in stealth mode
- Patched a hole on my O2 housing using some muffler goop
- Installed a used Evo 8 suspension that I bought from another forum member due to my struts being blown and the springs no longer being seated properly (probably from all the fun I had drifting in the snow
). I really wanted to get some lowering springs but due to the roads where I live, I decided to stay stock Oh What Fun It Is to Drift
On the bright side, I did add a few minor exterior mods- JDM Taillights, JDM Amber sidemarkers, and a Rexpeed carbon fiber exhaust heat shield
Last edited by Ian0611; Nov 6, 2012 at 11:42 PM.
Oct 24, 2011, 01:12 AM
#3
March 2011- I held on to the Green as long as I could but as spring approached, it became more and more apparent that I wouldn't have the finances to install the Green anytime soon so I made the decision to sell it I ended up taking the money I made from the Green and purchasing a Spoolin' Up COP . After taking the car back out to Strictly for a boost leak test and an oil change, I was ready for race season to begin
Here are the current mods at that time- 8 turbo w/9.8 hotside, Fujita UICP and intake, AMS LICP and FMIC, Spoolin' Up COP, Ebay O2 housing, full 3" turboback exhaust, metal IX BOV everything else was stock including the manifolds which were also unported
April 2nd 2011- This was the first day Byron Dragway was open and it was all day test and tune. With the only real change in the setup from last year being the Spoolin' Up COP, I was really excited to see what kind of effect my tuning skills would have on my times. I was able to get 10 runs in that day with a new PB of 13.268 @ 105.27 with a 1.801 60' Still not as fast as I had hoped but encouraging since I had improved in just about every area of dragracing- quicker, faster, and a better 60'
April 9th 2011- I don't know how I managed to talk my wife into letting me go drag racing two weekends in a row but somehow I did It was another all day test and tune and by the end of the day there was almost nobody left and I was basically hot lapping the car! I got in 11 runs that day and I managed to improve on my times once again by doing nothing more than improving on the tune and my driving. I ended the day with a new PB of 13.012 @ 104.81 with a 1.753 60'
May 21st 2011- After getting the impression that my stock BOV was leaking and causing some problems I went ahead and bought one of the new Synapse DVs. I thought for sure that would help me gain that extra little bit I needed to break into the 12s but I only got four runs in that day and ended up actually matching my PB time even though I trapped almost 2MPH faster 13.012 @ 106.49 with a 1.788 60' (guess I should've did some bracket racing)
Over the course of the next few days all I could do was scratch my head and wonder why I still couldn't break 12s and then I figure it out. I thought the car was sounding a little louder than normal so I checked the hole that was on the O2 housing gasket and sure enough, my muffler patch goop was gone. It lasted a few months but I guess it couldn't stand up to the stress of 20+ runs down the 1/4.
At this point there was only one thing left to do... Fix the gasket permanently and upgrade to a IX turbo in the process
June – August 2011- June and July were spent mostly gathering parts for the turbo swap. For financial reasons and due to the fact that I daily drive my Evo, going with a IX turbo was an easy choice for me. I knew it would give me a nice little bump in power, but not so much that I was going to have to worry about blowing a motor any time soon. I ended up finding a great deal on EvoM for the turbo and I also came up with good deals on a MAP Short Runner Manifold, an FP 18 psi WGA, and some brand new ARP headstuds. Here’s the pics of the goodies:
MAP Short Runner Manifold
IX Turbo with FP 18psi WGA and E-Bay O2 Housing
ARP Headstuds
Everything ready to go the night before the turbo swap
August 8th 2011- Turbo Swap Day was finally here! I got up early, loaded up the car, and headed out to Strictly Modified. Once again, Cisco, Koza, and Eric came through for me Being that my car is a daily driver and I'm over an hour away from Strictly, the guys understand how important it is for me to get same day service and they didn't disappoint. We ran into a few hiccups along the way but they were still able to get me out of there by late afternoon. I definitely appreciate the guys at Strictly for all of the hard work that they put into my car while understanding my situation and still being willing to hook me up with a discount! Thanks guys! You guys ROCK!!! Here’s everything that that they did that day:
- Swapped my 8 turbo with a 9 turbo
- Ported the hotside
- Installed new headstuds
- Replaced the manifold studs which included removing and retapping a couple of the old studs that broke off
- Changed the oil
Engine Bay in it’s Current State
October 22nd 2011- After the turbo swap I had hard time finding time to retune the car and get back out to the track but the day finally came last Saturday. With the car running better than it ever has since the day I bought it, I went out and ripped several mid-12 second runs and ended the day with a new personal best of 12.63 @ 111.54 with a 1.74 60’ Even though it's not quite as fast as I had hoped I'm still proud of the fact that I did it without changing a single thing from the way the car drives on the street every day!! My trunk was still full of all my junk including two tool boxes, a 12" sub in a box, and an amp. I also didn't mess with the tire pressure which was about 32psi in every tire. So the car is a legit stock turbo, 12-second street car without question
Here’s a video of one of the runs- not the fastest but still decent: 12.69 @ 111.64
http://youtu.be/lVBAFsWj6E0
What's Next??
Well, with the baby on the way the racecar is definitely going to have to take a backseat. I'm still thinking about trying to get back out there one more time this year to see if I can take her deeper into the 12s. I know it has it in her, I just need to improve my driving a little more.
The car does still have one issue that i'm trying to get figure out. For some odd reason I'm still getting this slight hiccup/misfire at idle. I've been dealing with this problem for quite some time and I've done a bunch of different things to get it to the point where it's barely noticeable. But it is still there, so I'm hoping to get it straightened out here soon.
As far as future mods go... Well, like I said, with the baby on the way the only for sure mod is to add that Recaro baby seat I still have some FIC 1050s that I picked up back in May so that I could go E85 but I'm holding off on putting them in until I get this idle issue figured out. I did try to install them back in September but they ended up making the idling problem worse so I went back to the stock injectors for now.
So that's my story. I hope you guys enjoyed it! Even though it's been a tough road with a lot of ups and downs I'm not at all mad about it. There are certainly some things I wish I would have done differently but that's the way life goes- you live and you learn. Had I not gone through some of the issues that I went through, I wouldn't have the knowledge that I have now, especially when it comes to tuning! Learning how to tune has become invaluable to me! I've saved myself a lot of money by learning how to do it on my own and it's also something that I really enjoy doing. The one regret that I have is not doing the turbo swap when I had that local shop replace the manifold the first time. However, at the time I really didn't know much about swapping turbos and didn't really see a need to upgrade so it is what it is. I'm just glad that when the opportunity came the second time around, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and Strictly helped me do it right.
I owe a great big THANK YOU to Appauldd and to Strictly Modified for all all that they did for me, and also to the entire EvoM community!! Thanks everyone for all of your contributions to this community and I look forward to being an Evo owner and a part of this community for many years to come
UPDATE 11-12-11
Well the weather turned out to be as good as you could hope for for the middle of November and with a little coaxing from Tyler, I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to run the Evo one last time before winter and that turned out to be a good decision
I only got three runs in, but I managed to run a new personal best of 12.524 @ 109.88 I also cut my fastest 60' ever with a 1.678 These runs were also done without making any changes to the car from street to strip- no weight reduction, no change to tire pressure, trunk still full of junk, etc!!
Here's the timeslip:
It was a great day for racing and that was my first run of the day. After that run I caught up with Tyler and things weren't going so well for him. The pulley on his A/C compressor decided to sieze up after his third run We were really looking forward to running next to eachother because our cars are pretty evenly matched, but I guess we'll have to wait until Spring. After we found the problem on Tyler's car he was cool enough to let me borrow his helmet so that I could get a couple more passes in. The track crew was all over me about not having a helmet on for the first run and I gotta say, it made me feel pretty good when he asked me where my helmet was before he gave me my timeslip Thanks again Tyler!!
I'm definitely looking forward to Spring now! Even with the baby on the way I know I'm gonna have to make it back out for a few more passes. I have a couple of ideas now of how to improve my 60' and maybe get a little more out of the tune so hopefully I can get into the low 12s. Also looking forward to some intense races with Tyler
New pics added 11/29/11 on Page 4!!!
Baby Pics Added 1/5/12 on Page 5
4/21/12- New PB of 12.322 @ 114.63- Details on Page 6
6/8/12- Airshow 2012 Pics on Page 7
I ended up taking the money I made from the Green and purchasing a Spoolin' Up COP . After taking the car back out to Strictly for a boost leak test and an oil change, I was ready for race season to begin Here are the current mods at that time- 8 turbo w/9.8 hotside, Fujita UICP and intake, AMS LICP and FMIC, Spoolin' Up COP, Ebay O2 housing, full 3" turboback exhaust, metal IX BOV everything else was stock including the manifolds which were also unported
April 2nd 2011- This was the first day Byron Dragway was open and it was all day test and tune. With the only real change in the setup from last year being the Spoolin' Up COP, I was really excited to see what kind of effect my tuning skills would have on my times. I was able to get 10 runs in that day with a new PB of 13.268 @ 105.27 with a 1.801 60' Still not as fast as I had hoped but encouraging since I had improved in just about every area of dragracing- quicker, faster, and a better 60'
April 9th 2011- I don't know how I managed to talk my wife into letting me go drag racing two weekends in a row but somehow I did
It was another all day test and tune and by the end of the day there was almost nobody left and I was basically hot lapping the car! I got in 11 runs that day and I managed to improve on my times once again by doing nothing more than improving on the tune and my driving. I ended the day with a new PB of 13.012 @ 104.81 with a 1.753 60'May 21st 2011- After getting the impression that my stock BOV was leaking and causing some problems I went ahead and bought one of the new Synapse DVs. I thought for sure that would help me gain that extra little bit I needed to break into the 12s but I only got four runs in that day and ended up actually matching my PB time even though I trapped almost 2MPH faster 13.012 @ 106.49 with a 1.788 60' (guess I should've did some bracket racing
)Over the course of the next few days all I could do was scratch my head and wonder why I still couldn't break 12s and then I figure it out. I thought the car was sounding a little louder than normal so I checked the hole that was on the O2 housing gasket and sure enough, my muffler patch goop was gone. It lasted a few months but I guess it couldn't stand up to the stress of 20+ runs down the 1/4.
At this point there was only one thing left to do... Fix the gasket permanently and upgrade to a IX turbo in the process
June – August 2011- June and July were spent mostly gathering parts for the turbo swap. For financial reasons and due to the fact that I daily drive my Evo, going with a IX turbo was an easy choice for me. I knew it would give me a nice little bump in power, but not so much that I was going to have to worry about blowing a motor any time soon. I ended up finding a great deal on EvoM for the turbo and I also came up with good deals on a MAP Short Runner Manifold, an FP 18 psi WGA, and some brand new ARP headstuds. Here’s the pics of the goodies:
MAP Short Runner Manifold
IX Turbo with FP 18psi WGA and E-Bay O2 Housing
ARP Headstuds
Everything ready to go the night before the turbo swap
August 8th 2011- Turbo Swap Day was finally here! I got up early, loaded up the car, and headed out to Strictly Modified. Once again, Cisco, Koza, and Eric came through for me
Being that my car is a daily driver and I'm over an hour away from Strictly, the guys understand how important it is for me to get same day service and they didn't disappoint. We ran into a few hiccups along the way but they were still able to get me out of there by late afternoon. I definitely appreciate the guys at Strictly for all of the hard work that they put into my car while understanding my situation and still being willing to hook me up with a discount! Thanks guys! You guys ROCK!!! Here’s everything that that they did that day:- Swapped my 8 turbo with a 9 turbo
- Ported the hotside
- Installed new headstuds
- Replaced the manifold studs which included removing and retapping a couple of the old studs that broke off
- Changed the oil
Engine Bay in it’s Current State
October 22nd 2011- After the turbo swap I had hard time finding time to retune the car and get back out to the track but the day finally came last Saturday. With the car running better than it ever has since the day I bought it, I went out and ripped several mid-12 second runs and ended the day with a new personal best of 12.63 @ 111.54 with a 1.74 60’ Even though it's not quite as fast as I had hoped I'm still proud of the fact that I did it without changing a single thing from the way the car drives on the street every day!! My trunk was still full of all my junk including two tool boxes, a 12" sub in a box, and an amp. I also didn't mess with the tire pressure which was about 32psi in every tire. So the car is a legit stock turbo, 12-second street car without question
Here’s a video of one of the runs- not the fastest but still decent: 12.69 @ 111.64
http://youtu.be/lVBAFsWj6E0
What's Next??
Well, with the baby on the way the racecar is definitely going to have to take a backseat. I'm still thinking about trying to get back out there one more time this year to see if I can take her deeper into the 12s. I know it has it in her, I just need to improve my driving a little more.
The car does still have one issue that i'm trying to get figure out. For some odd reason I'm still getting this slight hiccup/misfire at idle. I've been dealing with this problem for quite some time and I've done a bunch of different things to get it to the point where it's barely noticeable. But it is still there, so I'm hoping to get it straightened out here soon.
As far as future mods go... Well, like I said, with the baby on the way the only for sure mod is to add that Recaro baby seat
I still have some FIC 1050s that I picked up back in May so that I could go E85 but I'm holding off on putting them in until I get this idle issue figured out. I did try to install them back in September but they ended up making the idling problem worse so I went back to the stock injectors for now. So that's my story. I hope you guys enjoyed it! Even though it's been a tough road with a lot of ups and downs I'm not at all mad about it. There are certainly some things I wish I would have done differently but that's the way life goes- you live and you learn. Had I not gone through some of the issues that I went through, I wouldn't have the knowledge that I have now, especially when it comes to tuning! Learning how to tune has become invaluable to me! I've saved myself a lot of money by learning how to do it on my own and it's also something that I really enjoy doing. The one regret that I have is not doing the turbo swap when I had that local shop replace the manifold the first time. However, at the time I really didn't know much about swapping turbos and didn't really see a need to upgrade so it is what it is. I'm just glad that when the opportunity came the second time around, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and Strictly helped me do it right.
I owe a great big THANK YOU to Appauldd and to Strictly Modified for all all that they did for me, and also to the entire EvoM community!! Thanks everyone for all of your contributions to this community and I look forward to being an Evo owner and a part of this community for many years to come
UPDATE 11-12-11
Well the weather turned out to be as good as you could hope for for the middle of November and with a little coaxing from Tyler, I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to run the Evo one last time before winter and that turned out to be a good decision
I only got three runs in, but I managed to run a new personal best of 12.524 @ 109.88
I also cut my fastest 60' ever with a 1.678 These runs were also done without making any changes to the car from street to strip- no weight reduction, no change to tire pressure, trunk still full of junk, etc!! Here's the timeslip:
It was a great day for racing and that was my first run of the day. After that run I caught up with Tyler and things weren't going so well for him. The pulley on his A/C compressor decided to sieze up after his third run
We were really looking forward to running next to eachother because our cars are pretty evenly matched, but I guess we'll have to wait until Spring. After we found the problem on Tyler's car he was cool enough to let me borrow his helmet so that I could get a couple more passes in. The track crew was all over me about not having a helmet on for the first run and I gotta say, it made me feel pretty good when he asked me where my helmet was before he gave me my timeslip Thanks again Tyler!! I'm definitely looking forward to Spring now! Even with the baby on the way I know I'm gonna have to make it back out for a few more passes. I have a couple of ideas now of how to improve my 60' and maybe get a little more out of the tune so hopefully I can get into the low 12s. Also looking forward to some intense races with Tyler
New pics added 11/29/11 on Page 4!!!
Baby Pics Added 1/5/12 on Page 5
4/21/12- New PB of 12.322 @ 114.63- Details on Page 6
6/8/12- Airshow 2012 Pics on Page 7
Last edited by Ian0611; Jun 8, 2012 at 10:39 PM.
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Oct 24, 2011, 01:33 PM
#8
Don't worry man I won't. This is going to be more like a diary so it's taking a lot longer than I thought but I'll work on it some more later tonight. Things have worked out and I think people will enjoy reading about the process I went through as a complete newb to where I am today.
