The Evolution of Eva
Thread Starter
Evolved Member
iTrader: (41)
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 4,690
Likes: 128
From: Massachusetts
The Evolution of Eva
Well, I have almost had my car for 3 years now and I am proud to say that I am quite fond of her. Eva has a special place in my heart and almost always puts a smile on my face. Every once in a while, as with most girls she does something that pisses me off, but hey you win some you lose some. At the end of the day I would not be able to live without her.
When I first got the car it was the fastest thing I had ever driven however shortly later the mod bug caught up with me. I spent countless hours doing research on here to make sure I was making wise decisions finding the parts that would be best for my application. I acquired the some basic bolt-ons such as TBE, EBC, intake, fuel pump, evo ix dv, licp etc. and shortly after had the car dyno tuned by a local “reputable” shop.
After the tune the car ran ok but had a couple of bugs that needed to be sorted out. For whatever reason in certain conditions under partial throttle the car would hesitate or bog, then pick back up. I went back to the “tuner” and told him my situation and explained that it did not use to do this so it must be tuned related. He seemed cool about it and scheduled a time to go road tune it. Upon road tuning I was able to replicate the problem a couple of times. He tweaked some things however we were not able to alleviate the problem. This was right at the end of the summer so time quickly ran out as I had to go back to school. As we left off he told me he was going to look into it, talk to some friends and we would take care of it when I got back.
I came back for winter break and he has nothing new for me so I assume that I am going to have to accept it and forget about it. A couple of weeks later my car blows out the freeze plug in my waterpump. The car had 14000 miles so I took it to the dealer and they replaced the waterpump under warranty. Get the car back everything seems fine until two weeks later where I blow my headgasket. I am bummed out as I take it back to the dealership where they look at it and decide to void my warranty. So now I am pissed to say the least and out of time again because I had to go back to school two days later. I had the car towed back home, where she sat in the garage until spring break. Were these two incidents tune related? While I cannot give a definitive answer, I have been told that detonation lifts heads so therefore a crap tune could have absolutely caused it.
Anyway this gave me two roughly two and a half months to gather some research and attempt to replace it myself. I enjoy wrenching on the car dirtbike etc. and had done all the installs myself up to this point so I figured I was capable. At the same time I did not want to mess anything up so I figured I would see if any locals would be willing to lend me a helping hand. This is where I came in contact with Paul(1slowevo). Over spring break Paul assisted me as we put my car under the knife. He was very knowledgeable and quite the worker. We got everything back together and once again eva was breathing. My spring break was about to come to a close so the car was to go back into storage. I knew what the car really needed now was a proper tune.
Paul got me in contact with Mike(MRTurco). I would say this was the turning point in my car’s life. Mike has been an absolute asset to me. Both my dad and my brother are not into cars unfortunately so I feel like Mike has been my older brother when it comes to cars. He got the tune all sorted out and my car was finally running the way it should. Always wanting more power I decided I wanted to put in some new cams. I was originally going to install a new set while replacing the headgasket, however unfortunately a set which I purchased through this site didn’t turbo out to be what they were advertised so I left them out. I finally acquired a nice set so we threw them in and the car was retuned once again. The chart below shows where she stood at around 23psi.
I really wanted to autocross the car and time was running out in the summer so I only managed to get in one event. The car was awesome. All I can say is that it was an absolute blast! Soon enough it was time to go back to school. Once again with all this time away from my car, I was able to make educated decisions on what direction I should go with the car. At this point, I wanted to focus on the suspension. I picked up some bilsteins with Espelir springs from a local. I also purchased a Perrin RSB and end links. Suspension was installed in a snap thanks to captian turco beasting it. The car was realigned and I also got a new set of rubber. I loved the factory advans however she is now rolling on star specs which has been great thus far.
This past summer we cranked up the boost a little more while turco worked his magic. I made it to three more auto-x's where the car did very well. My car has an external dump so therefore it is pretty loud. The group that I ran with had mentioned the noise however the car was running strong so I didn’t bother thinking too much of it. Unfortunately at the last event they booted me after my third run for the noise…This brings me to the end of my past summer and to where I am today.
I had to fly back home this past week to have surgery hence me writing this novel. I was able to take the car out for a good ride on my last day before I went back. I logged a couple of 3rd gear pulls so I could throw this into VDR. I would say the results speak for themselves. My ACR-R is a little finicky and takes a lot of trial an error but we got the boost dialed in quite nicely. Below are two different runs. My second run the boost spiked a little higher which probably accounted for the jump in torque. It typically spikes around 26psi and holds 21psi to redline. It sounds hard to believe on the stock 8 turbo, but I think the external dump and the ACV-R are doing their job nicely.
Mods as follows:
-HKS 272 Cams
-ARP Headstuds
-Vishnu DP with V-band custom “high flow” cat aka straight pipe run through it
-RMR catback exhaust
-Ported exhaust manifold(Thanks Paul)
-QTP External Dump O2 housing
-Perrin FMIC
-Ebay LICP
-Buschur Racing Intake
-Apexi AVC-R
-Walbro 255
-Evo IX DV
-Milspec Throttlebody shaft seals
-Heel2toe custom grouding kit(good for atleast 10hp
)
So now I am back at school researching and shopping around. The external dump is being replaced by a different o2 housing which means the car will need to be retuned again. I want to get some different springs because I think the Espelirs are too low for me. I hate when the car scrapes. She is going to need new brake pads and rotors so that will be taken care of as I am currently in the research process. Other than that I would love to settle down for a while and leave well enough alone.
If you have made it this far I applaud you. I was simply bored and felt that I wanted to share my story of eva. I want to thank the community on evom for helping me through the years. Without you all my car would not be nearly what she is now. I also want to give special thanks to Paul for helping me with the headgasket and Mike for helping me with pretty much everything else. It has been over 10,000 miles since the blown headgasket and the car has run flawlessly. I hope that she continues to be as reliable as she has been so I can continue to enjoy this beast.
(Sweeping lefterhander)
(Hard on the brakes. Painters tape fail...)
(In the rain before I got booted)
(Photo snapped yesterday from my blackberry)
Thanks for reading and happy boosting
When I first got the car it was the fastest thing I had ever driven however shortly later the mod bug caught up with me. I spent countless hours doing research on here to make sure I was making wise decisions finding the parts that would be best for my application. I acquired the some basic bolt-ons such as TBE, EBC, intake, fuel pump, evo ix dv, licp etc. and shortly after had the car dyno tuned by a local “reputable” shop.
After the tune the car ran ok but had a couple of bugs that needed to be sorted out. For whatever reason in certain conditions under partial throttle the car would hesitate or bog, then pick back up. I went back to the “tuner” and told him my situation and explained that it did not use to do this so it must be tuned related. He seemed cool about it and scheduled a time to go road tune it. Upon road tuning I was able to replicate the problem a couple of times. He tweaked some things however we were not able to alleviate the problem. This was right at the end of the summer so time quickly ran out as I had to go back to school. As we left off he told me he was going to look into it, talk to some friends and we would take care of it when I got back.
I came back for winter break and he has nothing new for me so I assume that I am going to have to accept it and forget about it. A couple of weeks later my car blows out the freeze plug in my waterpump. The car had 14000 miles so I took it to the dealer and they replaced the waterpump under warranty. Get the car back everything seems fine until two weeks later where I blow my headgasket. I am bummed out as I take it back to the dealership where they look at it and decide to void my warranty. So now I am pissed to say the least and out of time again because I had to go back to school two days later. I had the car towed back home, where she sat in the garage until spring break. Were these two incidents tune related? While I cannot give a definitive answer, I have been told that detonation lifts heads so therefore a crap tune could have absolutely caused it.
Anyway this gave me two roughly two and a half months to gather some research and attempt to replace it myself. I enjoy wrenching on the car dirtbike etc. and had done all the installs myself up to this point so I figured I was capable. At the same time I did not want to mess anything up so I figured I would see if any locals would be willing to lend me a helping hand. This is where I came in contact with Paul(1slowevo). Over spring break Paul assisted me as we put my car under the knife. He was very knowledgeable and quite the worker. We got everything back together and once again eva was breathing. My spring break was about to come to a close so the car was to go back into storage. I knew what the car really needed now was a proper tune.
Paul got me in contact with Mike(MRTurco). I would say this was the turning point in my car’s life. Mike has been an absolute asset to me. Both my dad and my brother are not into cars unfortunately so I feel like Mike has been my older brother when it comes to cars. He got the tune all sorted out and my car was finally running the way it should. Always wanting more power I decided I wanted to put in some new cams. I was originally going to install a new set while replacing the headgasket, however unfortunately a set which I purchased through this site didn’t turbo out to be what they were advertised so I left them out. I finally acquired a nice set so we threw them in and the car was retuned once again. The chart below shows where she stood at around 23psi.
I really wanted to autocross the car and time was running out in the summer so I only managed to get in one event. The car was awesome. All I can say is that it was an absolute blast! Soon enough it was time to go back to school. Once again with all this time away from my car, I was able to make educated decisions on what direction I should go with the car. At this point, I wanted to focus on the suspension. I picked up some bilsteins with Espelir springs from a local. I also purchased a Perrin RSB and end links. Suspension was installed in a snap thanks to captian turco beasting it. The car was realigned and I also got a new set of rubber. I loved the factory advans however she is now rolling on star specs which has been great thus far.
This past summer we cranked up the boost a little more while turco worked his magic. I made it to three more auto-x's where the car did very well. My car has an external dump so therefore it is pretty loud. The group that I ran with had mentioned the noise however the car was running strong so I didn’t bother thinking too much of it. Unfortunately at the last event they booted me after my third run for the noise…This brings me to the end of my past summer and to where I am today.
I had to fly back home this past week to have surgery hence me writing this novel. I was able to take the car out for a good ride on my last day before I went back. I logged a couple of 3rd gear pulls so I could throw this into VDR. I would say the results speak for themselves. My ACR-R is a little finicky and takes a lot of trial an error but we got the boost dialed in quite nicely. Below are two different runs. My second run the boost spiked a little higher which probably accounted for the jump in torque. It typically spikes around 26psi and holds 21psi to redline. It sounds hard to believe on the stock 8 turbo, but I think the external dump and the ACV-R are doing their job nicely.
Mods as follows:
-HKS 272 Cams
-ARP Headstuds
-Vishnu DP with V-band custom “high flow” cat aka straight pipe run through it
-RMR catback exhaust
-Ported exhaust manifold(Thanks Paul)
-QTP External Dump O2 housing
-Perrin FMIC
-Ebay LICP
-Buschur Racing Intake
-Apexi AVC-R
-Walbro 255
-Evo IX DV
-Milspec Throttlebody shaft seals
-Heel2toe custom grouding kit(good for atleast 10hp
)So now I am back at school researching and shopping around. The external dump is being replaced by a different o2 housing which means the car will need to be retuned again. I want to get some different springs because I think the Espelirs are too low for me. I hate when the car scrapes. She is going to need new brake pads and rotors so that will be taken care of as I am currently in the research process. Other than that I would love to settle down for a while and leave well enough alone.
If you have made it this far I applaud you. I was simply bored and felt that I wanted to share my story of eva. I want to thank the community on evom for helping me through the years. Without you all my car would not be nearly what she is now. I also want to give special thanks to Paul for helping me with the headgasket and Mike for helping me with pretty much everything else. It has been over 10,000 miles since the blown headgasket and the car has run flawlessly. I hope that she continues to be as reliable as she has been so I can continue to enjoy this beast.
(Sweeping lefterhander)
(Hard on the brakes. Painters tape fail...)
(In the rain before I got booted)
(Photo snapped yesterday from my blackberry
)Thanks for reading and happy boosting
Last edited by heel2toe; Oct 21, 2010 at 08:22 AM.
Thread Starter
Evolved Member
iTrader: (41)
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 4,690
Likes: 128
From: Massachusetts
Oh I know you do. If I leave my car with you for a week I would probably come back and find that thing in the trash and either a MBC or a 3-port installed
Too bad I love it so its staying!
As for the powerband, I couldn't agree more. The setup is nice and responsive. Just look at how flat that torque is. I wonder who tuned that beast? He/she must know whats up
Too bad I love it so its staying!
As for the powerband, I couldn't agree more. The setup is nice and responsive. Just look at how flat that torque is. I wonder who tuned that beast? He/she must know whats up
Thread Starter
Evolved Member
iTrader: (41)
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 4,690
Likes: 128
From: Massachusetts
Absolutely, that is exactly what I was going for. When I am at home, the car is my daily driver so I was looking for a fun street setup. The car is also occasionally raced auto-x so quick spoolup and a meaty powerband was a must. I am not a drag racer so peak numbers were meaningless to me. Made great peak power nonetheless
My setup will be changed shortly as I will have a recirculated o2 housing in favor of the dump. Hopefully the only thing I will loose with this change is the extra noise that comes with having an external dump.
My setup will be changed shortly as I will have a recirculated o2 housing in favor of the dump. Hopefully the only thing I will loose with this change is the extra noise that comes with having an external dump.