My GF got herself an Evo 9 MR. It has the original OEM suspension on it. She is looking to stiffen it up a bit and make it a bit more solid feeling on the street, with some occasional track days here and there at CotA through Edge Addicts. She bought herself some Ohlins coilovers, but doesn't have them on yet. While she has everything apart, she wants to do sway bars, and end links.

Can someone recommend a good setup that will fit this kind of purpose? She still drives this car to work occasionally, so losing the street-ability is not what we're after.I don't know sh*t about Evos. So I'm trying to help her find a good setup. From reading the forums, It looks like Perrin 25mm used to be a go-to, but it seems that you can't buy those anymore. In actuality, it seems like a lot of the options that were popular for this car, are no longer out there. Whiteline sells a 26mm front / 24mm rear, as well as a 26mm rear. But that seems a bit unbalanced.

Anyway, I'm really out of my element when it comes to Evos. So here I am. Any help is appreciated.

 

Congratulations to your GF on the evo, you are a lucky man! I would actually recommended keeping the OEM sway bars and end links unless they are damaged. Upgrading the rear sway bar to a stiffer one will help the car rotate a little better, but at the cost of traction. What you really want to help the car rotate is a 1.5 way rear differential build. Check out companies like TRE and Shep for their rear diff upgrade services for true power oversteer. Upgrading the front sway bar will help with turn in response, but it's harder to change than the rear sway bar. The front and rear sway bars don't necessarily need to be the same thickness for a balanced feel. The Ohlins do amazing on this car, great choice of coilovers!

 

Thanks for this! It's not always easy finding good parts or info for cars that are this old. I do have a follow up questions if you don't mind. Aside from the coilovers that she's already bought. Are there any other suspension components that are worth replacing? Bushings? Front strut bar, adding a rear strut bar? I know there is also this weird trunk stiffening cage thing that I've seen in my searches as well.

 

Congrats on getting into the Evo platform. Its pretty rewarding and there is alot of information on it. I'm not an expert on suspension but will offer you my opinions based off what I've learned and experienced in the past 7 years. I've taken my car from stock to built and tried to keep it as streetable as possible. I just wanted more of what Mitsubishi gave me.

I'm running an 8/9K setup and a 26mm bar on soft and feel its well balanced. The evo can understeer or power oversteer with power.

If you are going to track the car you may want to decide on what tires/size you will run as this can impact spring rate choices. I didn't want to roll my fenders so I'm going with a sticky 245-255 tire for the occasional track use. I chose normal spring rates so the car drives well on the street. I also don't drive 10/10ths so don't need a huge tire/high spring rates.


You may also want to look into an ACD flash before you do an upgraded rear diff. Its alot more forgiving and still changes the way the car manages power to the rear. An upgraded or restacked rear diff will chatter a bit at low speeds and feel like its binding at times. Its still a good modification at some point but I personally would start with the acd flash first. Myself and a few other close friends tried the same flash and it had the same effect on each car even with the stock /upgraded diff. Lighter steering feel, power oversteer,better handling.

English Racing and Tscomp have an ACD flash program. I have an ACD tuning flash ( no longer in business) and the file looks much different then other files. I did try two different companies files and ended up staying with the acd tuning flash. This was 6 years ago so things may have changed. Either way, the acd flash is cheap and works well.

A few links that may be helpful down the road.

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...evo-8-9-a.html


https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...y-factory.html

http://www.teamrip.com/evolution-4-9...uild-services/

I wouldn't change the bushings as it will add noise . You would see better gains with a sticky tire IMO. Whats really neat about the Evo is it was rally raced for decades and the platform is well sorted. You don't need to upgrade as many things as other platforms.

I would recommend something along these lines
Check the maintenance of the car. Timing belt kit, compression,boost leak test, TB seals, spark plugs gapped to .018-.022 (depending on boost level) Slight overfill of ACD tcase and rear diff.
Possible retune by a reputable shop/tuner. You are paying them for a file they've worked on for years and their track record.Getting a ecu flash cable and laptop to pull logs or changes things slightly is a good idea.
Decide on track tire and size, then decide on spring rates. Ohlins or your build advisor should be able to help you. Typically auto x spring rates are higher then track spring rates because of rotation and speed.
Performance alignment ( @Dallas J has a good recommendation on settings )
ACD flash
If more rotation is needed try a 24-26mm RSB on soft. ( You are giving up traction so don't get carried away on stiff settings)
Restack rear diff
Upgraded rear diff and cover ( TRE makes a nice one with a sight glass )
Bushings ( handling improvement but noisy)
Cage

Decide what your power goals are and work towards them methodically. There are a number of reputable shops/advisors that have a proven track record with this platform.
A few gallons of 100+ octane is cheap insurance for track days on your investment.
E85 is wonderful if you have stations close by, and enough pump/fuel injector. The car will run alot cooler and have more knock protection.

 

@msdss Hello

Stick w/the basics on your sway bar choice. For sure, there is no need to change out the front sway. leave that as stock (due to reducing an already understeer prone chassis). You can always get an adj lower bracket which offers a stiffer setting

Go w/the a Whitleline 24mm rear bar & that will serve ya well for many applications including track day work

Aftermarket strut bars will not offer anything over stock. Keep the front stocker unless you want some enhanced look. No need for a rear upper strut bar. Actually does little to nothing (certainly nothing you would ever feel). But, if youre looking for some mechanical bling, ok to add a rear upper (lol, ive got one. Its handy for tying things down in the trunk)

 

Thanks! She has wanted one ever since they came out, but it's only recently that she's been in a position to buy one. Though I'll be honest with you when I say that I have no idea what an 8/9K setup means.

For the most part, it's just a weekend toy. But it still needs to get her to work if she feels like taking it. I think track days are going to be more of a special ocassions kind of thing. Mostly she just takes it out to destroy all of her Subaru friends. Currently she is still on the stock BBS wheels with PS4S in OEM sizes. Very good tire.

Damn. Neither of us had any idea that reflashing the ACD was even a thing. We'll be diving into these links for sure. We do know the 6spd in the MR and the transfer case are kind of dog ****, so we planned to ship them off to Shep to be upgraded. Now that we know the rear diff can be improved as well, we'll have to look into that too. Great info. Thanks!

Yeah, the first thing we did when we got it home was send it to a shop that specializes in Evos. The previous owner had done some significant changes that were not only poorly done, but were actually hazardous to the lives of anyone driving the car. I can expand on that if anyone is interested, but in the end, she has a very solid, and surprisingly fast car. This is why we wanted to start looking at suspension, since the power element is pretty well established now. That, and a few suspension upgrades are a lot cheaper than the next stage in the hunt for more power. But this is a pretty solid list that you've created. Thanks!

Speaking of E85 though... We are interested in looking for an ECU upgrade that will allow us to run a flexible fuel map. So we can run 93 or E85, or any mix of the two. But as far as we've read, the Evo's ECU doesn't support anything like this. It's one or the other. So we were looking at maybe switching over to a Haltech ECU. But that is a long ways down the road I think.

 

Haha. Yeah, I was trying to tell her to plan out all of her parts, and not to modify things just for the sake of having something to tinker with. But I don't blame her. Who here doesn't love buying **** for their cars?
After all of these fantastic responses, I think she's going to throw on the Ohlins and call it a day. No sense throwing money at a problem that doesn't exist.

Thanks for your help!

 

There is some good advice in here.

One thing I'd like to mention, however obvious, is unless you or your chassis tuner are really experienced with the platform, suspension setup changes are often best served one at a time so that you can determine what did what.

Get those Ohlins on there, go do a track day, and make some notes.
"This is what the car did that I like"
"And this behavior I did not like"

Each time you make a change even if it's a small one, make some more notes.

And go from there. Like you said, don't fix what don't need fixing

 

If I was starting from stock again knowing what I know now, I would 100% upgrade rear diff and rear swaybar first. Then max out front camber in the 2deg range on stock struts and set rear in the 1.5deg range.

I still remember the first rip on an upgraded rear diff from 10 years ago. Car kicked sideways out of a parking lot and my buddy and I just looked at each other like whoa, rad!

 

If you got the stock 10/8 Ohlins RT then first thing is to swap the springs and put those 10 at the rear and 8 at the front. Will work with stock ARB as with a whiteline it will be a bit too lively at the rear...

 

Correction you can run a flex fuel setup on the evo 9 as I have it on my car tuned by Tscomptuned u will need the fiftronics kit to run flex fuel on the stock ecu I believe him and boosting performance are the only tuners that know how to do that check them out so u don’t have to get a stand-alone

 

English Racing can do it too.

 

Any so cal shops doing the flex fuel setup?