shiv and brett,

I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say this:

We love you

 

You might want to talk to your spies The EVOs didn't make anything close to the 220 wheel hp you guessed. That's more like what we saw with the pinging EVO VII import we dyno'd a few months back.

The three US EVO VIIIs we've tested (under nearly identical conditions) put down right around 180 wheel hp. That's only ~20 more wheel hp than a stock WRX. Hence my concern about the 271hp rating. Thes dyno figures would suggest closer to 255hp, IMHO.

A few interesting findings:

Peak hp occurs around 5500rpm, not the claimed 6500rpm. Peak torque is right around 4000rpm.

One of the three cars we tested ran 2psi less boost (17 tapering to 15 vs. 19 tapering to 17) than the others. It had a one month earlier build date (1/03 vs. 2/03), FWIW. It ended up making the same power as the other two higher boosting EVOs but with slightly less torque in the low end and midrange.

Our EVO VIII, for some reason, only has a 1bar MAP sensor. Strange seeing it in a turbo car that runs 19psi of boost. I would expect nothing less than a 3bar unit for the car. With the 1 bar MAP sensor, it maxs out (reads a full 5v) at 0psi of boost. Bizarre and pretty useless, as far as I can see. While I didn't check the other cars we tested, I suspect they are similarly equipped.

The car is especially knock prone at certain engine speeds. At least it is on the lovely 91 octane gas we run in CA.

The car runs a frequency-based MAF sensor. Not the usual 0-5v types seen on most other cars.

The car is under-advanced above 5500rpm. Adding just 1-2 degrees of timing at high rpm bumped hp by over 10 wheel hp without any detectible knock.

The EVO VIII's factory ECU is a bit more sophisticated that the older EVOs which had no type of active knock correction or smart ignition learning capabilities. Even the processor on the board is bigger These new ECU smarts will present more complications on the tuning end. But that's what we do so we consider it a challenge.

The EVO, like the WRX, is suseptible to MAF misreadings through intake modifications. We measured some pretty wild MAF errors when trying out different intake configurations.

There's a lot more info we've dug up during our tune-a-thon. Some of it we'd like to keep to ourselves for now and some we'll elaborate on on our website (http://www.vishnutuning.com/lancer.htm). There's nothing there right now but a pretty picture. Give us a couple of days and it'll start filling out. It's past midnight and we just came back from our first test drive of our mildly tuned EVO Lots more info to come....

Cheers,
Shiv
www.vishnutuning.com

PS. As mentioned earlier, all testing on all EVOs were done on 91 octane gas. I did test our car with slightly higher octane (by mixing in a couple of gallons of 100 octane) and found significant gains (6-9 more wheel hp). But still shy, IMHO, of the factory's claim. I think the car's short gearing, great turbo response, and strong midrange torque make it feel quite a bit more powerful than it really is. Still an awesome car. And it's bound to get only better as we get a handle on how to make more power safely.

PSS. Also, keep in mind that these numbers are from our Dyno Dynamics dyno which, while arguably more accurate, reads more conservatively (lower) than Dynopacks and Dynojets. While it's the best dyno for tuning, it's not the best "big number generator" that some people like

 

I'll just say. "Interesting..."

 

Thanks for the work Shiv. Keep working through these issues. I must say that I am a bit disappointed if Mitsu is running less. Of course each dyno reads differently.

As long as we can easily get power out of the car I'll be a happy camper.

 

Hi Shiv, do you think you could compare the pinging Evo 7 dyno against your new 8 just to see if the curves are similar? Since they were both tested at Vishnu's facilities, that's probably our best comparison to know where we stand compared to the JDM version. Did the JDM Evo use a frequency based MAF as well?

Although the Evo appears to be a great performance car, it would suck to know we're down a great deal of power from factory claims in stock form. It sounds like Mitsubishi might have half-assed the tuning of this vehicle to get it here. Glad we've got some tuners, such as yourself, to get around those problems though

Mark

 

Shiv,

1. When you mixed the gas was it equivalent to 94 octane or more towards 97?

2. Did you change the break in oil yet? I've heard the synetic oil was required to meet the 271hp.

3. Did you try reseting the ECU with the higher octane. (perhaps more timeing) Hopefully we get to find out the timing chart on the dyno runs!


thanks for the info.

PS. I just want to comment my car felt faster when i arrive in Michigan. I thought it may be because i'm breaking it in but when i think of it now perhaps is because I went from Chicago **** gas to the sunoco 94 in Michigan? If the car is properly tunned for 92, 94 shouldn't increase that much hp. But if the ecu decide to give me more timeing all bets are off.

Perhaps our cars were delayed due to emission recalls There were rumor floating around but people rather believe the carbon fiber wing thinging.

 

Interesting....

 

Sounds like the crappy Ca. gas is a little bit of the problem.
How were the cars broken-in? Also, I'm sure the #'s will go up some when more miles are put on them. I've seen cars with their best gains after 3000 or so miles.
I'm sure 271 is pretty accurate really, not over or under-rated. I'm sure they gave us the most hp they could really get while still staying conservative with the tune.

 

Hopefully this won't turn into another one of those Hyundai HP claim deals..... This is an EVO.... we should be beyond that!!!

 

Thanks for the great info. Shiv!
Looks like we're experiencing the same challenges with the EVO 8 & the WRX ECU.

 

Ralliart..... Hurry up and help with that ECU

As of now only know why the ecu isn't giving us HP. The new evo better not have super timing pulls when you mod it I only expect that from subaru, especially to protect their glass trans.

 

Well, my Evo "Feels" like it is ~220WHP... It is about as fast as my modded WRX was..

I am hoping by 3K miles it will pick up a little more.. I use 93 octane here..


If the car is over-rated on power, Will mitsubishi correct the problem? Cause i would expect them too. OR at least some sort of rebate. Or they better at least not give me **** about warrenty when i find the power on my own

 

Only the front diff is a SureTrac, the rear is a multi-plate mechanical clutch type diff.

 

There is a thread on a dynojet dyno session in the tech section:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...threadid=16115

 

Bummer, it sounds like a false horsepower claim by Mitsubishi.