Well a few months ago I bought a 2003 EVO I found here on EVOm. To say it was in poor condition would be an understatement. The car has 78,000 miles on it, which is one of the higher mileage EVO's I've seen come through.

The transmission was jacked, the transfer case was completely broken (ring and pinion) quite a few dents, looked like the car had been painted with a medium nap roller, tires were junk, the stock wheels were garbage, interior looked like it housed 10 homeless people, under the hood was even worse and the sunroof was broken.

The car was so bad when I got it I really didn't want to waste any time on it. We pulled it in, replaced the T-case, rebuilt the trans, installed our upper i/c pipe, EVO9 BOV, 3" turboback with an oval canister 3" Magnaflow muffler I had sitting around. Offroad pipe, BR inline boost controller, Race FMIC and a lightweight battery kit.

Robert Fuller was in town so he brought me a set of his Robi Spec springs, I grabbed a set of lower mileage stock struts and he did the install/alignment on the car.

I had about the Enkie wheels last year for my RS and mounted Nitto NT01's on them and they were still here at the shop, so we threw those on too.

When it was all done the car still had a non working sunroof and the paint/body was absolutely horrible. When I say it looked like it was painted with a medium nap roller I am not kidding.

I took it to my good friend Ron Luman's body shop, Rapid Autobody and dropped it off. To my amazement he didn't laugh at me, he said he thought it was just poor finish work and thought it would "buff out". Yeah right! Well he was right and it came out so good I had him fix the few dents and sunroof. What I ended up with is a very unique color on an EVO and the car looks really freaking good. Actually looks better than it needs to for what I want to use the car for.

Here are some shots of the car we took today:





Next up was to get the car on the dyno. That was a real mess and where the problems started that I'd like to warn some of you about.

The car for some odd reason started running on what sounded like 3 cylinders before I got it on the dyno. The things I found are typical of higher mileage EVO's and some things that some of you should start looking for and replacing.

First I pulled the plugs, still had Iridiums in it, I hate them. Two of them were wet. I put in some fresh BPR7ES's and gapped them. The plug wires were stiff as wedding night peter so I knew they were original. I went ahead and put on some lower mileage stock coils and new plug wires. Started the car up and it sounded fine. While I was doing this I noticed the spark plug galley had a lot of oil in it. The gasket under the oil cap was completely dried out and brittle, so I put on a new gasket, no more oil leaking.

I started running the car, not having any idea what to expect because the tune that was in the car was HORRIBLE!!! How this car never blew up is beyond me. Actually, the engine I can tell has been out and apart so maybe it did. Terrible tune.

I loaded in one of our base tunes for Stage 2 with a fuel pump, the car was too lean. Within the next few pulls I could tell something wasn't right, the fuel map was being set way to rich for the power it was making and the car was still lean. I pulled the fuel pump out and sure enough, stock fuel pump. I put in a used Walbro we had (can you see the pattern of used parts and stuff I had sitting around? I am trying to keep the cost down on this build). Next run the car richened up quite a bit and this was only at around 270 whp. A few runs later the fuel map still isn't making sense. My guess is the stock injectors are plugged up and not flowing well. I grab a set of new stock injectors I had, new fuel rail and new return line (came off a new EVO9 crate engine we had bought). Sure enough, that did the trick, the car was right in line with where it should be now and very rich.

It crazy what time/mileage/heat and a complete lack of caring or maintainence can do to an awsome car. What a shame.

By the time it was over I had the boost set at 21 psi peak and the car made pretty good power, 305 whp and 302 torque.

I have no idea what kind of gas is in the car and I am planning to use the car for road racing, for myself. I don't need to set it on kill............not yet anyway.

Here's a copy of the dyno chart:

 

I hit enter too soon.

One of my points of this thread was to make sure you guys are aware that over time the parts wear out and need replaced. You could have a car perfectly in tune and after a long time of injectors being plugged up, factory fuel filter getting clogged, plugs/wires becoming no good, your once perfect car and tune can go down hill quick.

These are high performance cars and need up keep or you will end up with a POS like I bought.

Luckily the car is in good hands now and I intend to keep fixing it. Some new carpet, carbon fiber front lip, front and rear undertrays etc.

I am working towards my NASA TT license and I intend to run at the Nationals this year with this car.

I have to keep the mods to a minimum or I will end up in a class I know I can't compete in.

 

That is a pretty sweet looking car Dave. Good luck on the rest of the build.


Mitch

 

awesome project you have in your hands there....what kind of turbo are you thinking about putting on?

 

man you have a lot of cars and projects if you need a sunroof, you can have mine free, just pay for shipping.

 

wicked!!
just shows what ridiculous amounts of experience can do..
a normal mech might have taken days of trial and error to sort that mess out.

 

WOW Dave that thing did clean up super nice man I remember how you were "almost" pi**ed you bought it.

Being a guy that has to diag a car is cool aint it

 

looks like laguna seca blue! nice

 

to me it seems like the aqua-green color off the M3's.

Nice to see this EVO in a good set of hands, I'm sure it'll always be in tip-top condition now.

 

now that you mention it, it does!

 

I like the color of the paint actually, not too shabby. I think evo vii tails would look really nice with it.
didn't know they offered the sunroof without the ssl package, cause the interior looks to be cloth.

 

In 2003 we didn't have any other option than you see there. I think the leather was the next year.

 

Nice, restoring it to it's glory, David. If the person u bought it from could only see it now.

Keep us informed on your exploits at TT and good luck


Also, thanks for the advice on some simple things to change/replace/look out for on our cars, as time goes by.

 

just a question but how much did you have to give for that thing david?

 

David, Will I will be building a set of custon struts for this project now? I'm sure we can trade for something...what do I need...about 450 hp.