Recommend your mod path: Evo X
Evolved Member
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 621
Likes: 0
From: Texas
I did the Usuall , CAI, ETS Cat back exhaust , ETS intercooler pipes upper and lower. all with in about 1 months of each other . obvious power gains . my attemp at some Dyno time on a RWD dyno didnt work out like it did on my VIII ,but the car pushed over 265 hp and 280 Tq and that was just cresting to 6000rmp before we ran into dyno / car issues. but very happy it was making 265 with just 2 wheels on the dyno.
The Cat back was the most noticeable. and wt loss as well.
CAI was a maybe but did sound better.
Intercooler pipes also made an obvious improvement. cant wait to hit a 4 wheel dyno this summer.
I think the ECU flash is a must !! everyone got 50hp or better with just that.
Keep the info comming. I was happy to hit 350 HP on the Dyno with my VIII but I think I would like to see 400 on the X before I am done. this will be the DD we are hoping for.
The Cat back was the most noticeable. and wt loss as well.
CAI was a maybe but did sound better.
Intercooler pipes also made an obvious improvement. cant wait to hit a 4 wheel dyno this summer.
I think the ECU flash is a must !! everyone got 50hp or better with just that.
Keep the info comming. I was happy to hit 350 HP on the Dyno with my VIII but I think I would like to see 400 on the X before I am done. this will be the DD we are hoping for.
Cone filter first, IC pipe, then cat back exhaust. I say thats a good order to start. My car isn't gonna be crazy when its done. But I expect to complete the exhaust manifold to cat. The rest of the intake and piping work including intercooler. And a mbc.Of course a great tune to get the most out of all the mods would follow. That's about it for performance.
The best bang for the buck: Exhaust
The best bang for the buck: Exhaust
Last edited by EvoXstylin; Jun 12, 2008 at 06:28 PM.
Evolved Member
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,849
Likes: 1
From: USA
I thought we could get a thread going for those of us who have experience modding Xs and have dyno results with different parts. What has worked for you? What hasn't worked for you? What order did you put your mods on? Would you do the same again?
Baseline: 222whp
Drop in filter: +9whp on best run, but inconclusive run to run
Tuning: +52whp (w/o MBC, but global gain)
Cat-back: +17whp
downpipe and test pipe: +6whp
MBC: +21whp, but only from 6800rpm and up.
Keep in mind these are peak values.
Here's my overall observations so far of parts I have on my own car
1) Tune: Since the factory mapping is so rich it caused a Mitsu issued reflash to be released to make the car not break up at higher RPM, of course a tune is going to produce the most results. My opinion: Best bang for the buck, period.
2) Cat-back: I got a good gain out of mine, and it was barely any louder than stock. The stock cat really kept things quiet. My opinion: Great bang for the buck.
3) Test pipe and downpipe: I gained a little torque in the middle, but at my power level, the car didn't get any astronomical gains. I did have a mini muffler put in the test pipe to help muffle sound, but its straight through and very tiny, so I cannot imagine it killing much power at all. The test pipe and downpipe are probably good groundwork mods, but all they really did was make the car louder and help power a bit. My opinion: Its the next best thing to do after the cat-back, but the law of diminishing returns is starting to set in.
4) Panel high flow filter: Initially, this seemed like a good part. Its not really as repeatable as the paper one was on the crappy stock tune, but I don't think it was bad either. Some people have reported crazy gains with this mod, but I didn't see it. On the very best run, it made 9whp over the stock run. Still, not a bad bang for the buck if you were planning to wait on a tune. If you plan to tune immediately, the stock paper filter will probably take you anywhere you need to go and not be a restriction whatsoever. My opinion: Skip it and save your money for something else unless you just want a lifetime washable filter.
5) Manual boost controller: Initially, this gave me a bit of gain at super high RPM, but on a drive by wire car, the cons well outweighed the pros of this mod. They cause CELs, high EGTs at partial throttle & high boost, and limp modes. As cars are tuned, I believe the X community will have substantially less users with MBCs since the car is CAN & DBW based and the factory solenoid setup is nicer than the older cars. Also, ECU based boost control has much better control, has several RPM dependent adjustment points, and correction for different load cells. ECU boost for the win. My opinion: Run away screaming.
Parts I've seen on other Evo Xs
1) Intercooler pipe kit: These lean out the airflow reading, so they will increase power on a stockish car. I have not yet seen a tuned car with these, so the jury is still out.
2) Aftermarket intercooler: Again, will change AFRs, but I have a hard time believing that the stock IC cannot keep up with the crappy stock turbo.
3) Open element air intake: IMO, these are not good. The MAF in these new cars is more sensitive to the one in the VIII/IX. I've seen two Xs with these, and they idled like total crap on the stock tune. With the hood closed, they are not a sealed unit like the stock airbox, and I suspect they will ingest hotter air and produce less "real" whp. The stock airbox on this car is more of a straight shot than the one on the VIII and IX, and I have personally seen VIIIs go 125mph in the quarter mile with the stock airbox and stock paper filter, so they can't be too much of a restriction here either by the look of things.
Jury is out/things I have not seen personally, but lots of speculation
1) "O2 housing": The correct term for this is a "Turbo exhaust outlet housing", since the front O2 in in the DP. This made good power in the VIIIs and IXs, and it should here too. The stock turbo drops boost so fast; maybe this could help a little bit
2) Aftermarket fuel pump: This car supposedly has 660cc injectors, but on this tiny turbo running a mere 16psi by the rev limiter, I am seeing close to 90% IDCs. That is way too high IMO. I have read that a Walbro 255 is not a drop in replacement without some modification, so I would want a drop in.
3) Turbocharger: The cylinder head is baller on this car. Peak power sustains to ~8000rpm even when boost has dropped substantially. A 16G 4G63 could never claim that. I think a bolt-on 20G with a healthy hotside would turn this car into an absolute rocket.
Finally, the biggest hinderance to this car in my eyes is the weight; It is a full 300 pounds heavier than the IX! I know its easy to pull a lot of weight from the back with the sub, exhuast replacement, mini battery kit, and spare, but I would love to see someone pull weight front to preserve the awesome weight distribution this car enjoys compared to previous iterations.
Please feel free to add anything you have found in your testing or ideas. Let's all work together to get the Evo 10 moving as fast as we would like it to be!
Baseline: 222whp
Drop in filter: +9whp on best run, but inconclusive run to run
Tuning: +52whp (w/o MBC, but global gain)
Cat-back: +17whp
downpipe and test pipe: +6whp
MBC: +21whp, but only from 6800rpm and up.
Keep in mind these are peak values.
Here's my overall observations so far of parts I have on my own car
1) Tune: Since the factory mapping is so rich it caused a Mitsu issued reflash to be released to make the car not break up at higher RPM, of course a tune is going to produce the most results. My opinion: Best bang for the buck, period.
2) Cat-back: I got a good gain out of mine, and it was barely any louder than stock. The stock cat really kept things quiet. My opinion: Great bang for the buck.
3) Test pipe and downpipe: I gained a little torque in the middle, but at my power level, the car didn't get any astronomical gains. I did have a mini muffler put in the test pipe to help muffle sound, but its straight through and very tiny, so I cannot imagine it killing much power at all. The test pipe and downpipe are probably good groundwork mods, but all they really did was make the car louder and help power a bit. My opinion: Its the next best thing to do after the cat-back, but the law of diminishing returns is starting to set in.
4) Panel high flow filter: Initially, this seemed like a good part. Its not really as repeatable as the paper one was on the crappy stock tune, but I don't think it was bad either. Some people have reported crazy gains with this mod, but I didn't see it. On the very best run, it made 9whp over the stock run. Still, not a bad bang for the buck if you were planning to wait on a tune. If you plan to tune immediately, the stock paper filter will probably take you anywhere you need to go and not be a restriction whatsoever. My opinion: Skip it and save your money for something else unless you just want a lifetime washable filter.
5) Manual boost controller: Initially, this gave me a bit of gain at super high RPM, but on a drive by wire car, the cons well outweighed the pros of this mod. They cause CELs, high EGTs at partial throttle & high boost, and limp modes. As cars are tuned, I believe the X community will have substantially less users with MBCs since the car is CAN & DBW based and the factory solenoid setup is nicer than the older cars. Also, ECU based boost control has much better control, has several RPM dependent adjustment points, and correction for different load cells. ECU boost for the win. My opinion: Run away screaming.
Parts I've seen on other Evo Xs
1) Intercooler pipe kit: These lean out the airflow reading, so they will increase power on a stockish car. I have not yet seen a tuned car with these, so the jury is still out.
2) Aftermarket intercooler: Again, will change AFRs, but I have a hard time believing that the stock IC cannot keep up with the crappy stock turbo.
3) Open element air intake: IMO, these are not good. The MAF in these new cars is more sensitive to the one in the VIII/IX. I've seen two Xs with these, and they idled like total crap on the stock tune. With the hood closed, they are not a sealed unit like the stock airbox, and I suspect they will ingest hotter air and produce less "real" whp. The stock airbox on this car is more of a straight shot than the one on the VIII and IX, and I have personally seen VIIIs go 125mph in the quarter mile with the stock airbox and stock paper filter, so they can't be too much of a restriction here either by the look of things.
Jury is out/things I have not seen personally, but lots of speculation
1) "O2 housing": The correct term for this is a "Turbo exhaust outlet housing", since the front O2 in in the DP. This made good power in the VIIIs and IXs, and it should here too. The stock turbo drops boost so fast; maybe this could help a little bit
2) Aftermarket fuel pump: This car supposedly has 660cc injectors, but on this tiny turbo running a mere 16psi by the rev limiter, I am seeing close to 90% IDCs. That is way too high IMO. I have read that a Walbro 255 is not a drop in replacement without some modification, so I would want a drop in.
3) Turbocharger: The cylinder head is baller on this car. Peak power sustains to ~8000rpm even when boost has dropped substantially. A 16G 4G63 could never claim that. I think a bolt-on 20G with a healthy hotside would turn this car into an absolute rocket.
Finally, the biggest hinderance to this car in my eyes is the weight; It is a full 300 pounds heavier than the IX! I know its easy to pull a lot of weight from the back with the sub, exhuast replacement, mini battery kit, and spare, but I would love to see someone pull weight front to preserve the awesome weight distribution this car enjoys compared to previous iterations.
Please feel free to add anything you have found in your testing or ideas. Let's all work together to get the Evo 10 moving as fast as we would like it to be!
I agree on all counts, but as we have argued about this over the phone it will continue here
: I still think that the WORKS drop in filter has to help a little bit. Granted once tuned it's benefits of leaning out the rich factory tune are gone, but just with how much more freely it flows it seems impossible to me that it wouldn't help spool by a tiny amount. I already know your comeback for this so there's no need to respond 
, but I'm just going to be stubborn on this one. 
Evolved Member
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 510
Likes: 0
From: Oklahoma City
IMO a tune is the best mod out there regardless of who you go with. You can say this tune is better than that tune or vice versa, but from the numbers people are pulling some amazing numbers out of a tune 55-65 hp bump on 91 oct that is sweet just 10 dollars per hp (You can feel a 50hp Jump). HKS or K&N dropin would also be high on my list just 32-55 dollars for 8 to 16 hp if you can afford an EVO you can afford this plus it really smooths the car out up top after 2nd reflash. Exhaust would be my 3rd option just to help turbo spool faster to get power a little more power down low and for the deeper sound. After that Im waiting to see results from other stuff.
My personal experience.......
3" Intake w/ Open Element Filter (no idle problems at all)
2.5" Upper Intercooler pipe (hot pipe)
3" Lower intercooler pipe (cold pipe)
2.75" Griffin Intercooler Core w/ custom end tanks.
3" resonated test pipe
3" custom exhaust 1 18" resonator, 2 12" resonators (no muffler)
(ALL PARTS custom made by Road Race Engineering)
Made 355whp / 349 torque on 91
Just got done installing:
Whineboro 255lph fuel pump
RC 1000 CC Injectors
Going to be installing in the semi near future:
AEM Water/Meth kit
Custom GT3076 Turbo kit/O2/Down Pipe
Then re-tuning on higher boost.
All tuned by ECUTek
Thanks,
Chris
3" Intake w/ Open Element Filter (no idle problems at all)
2.5" Upper Intercooler pipe (hot pipe)
3" Lower intercooler pipe (cold pipe)
2.75" Griffin Intercooler Core w/ custom end tanks.
3" resonated test pipe
3" custom exhaust 1 18" resonator, 2 12" resonators (no muffler)
(ALL PARTS custom made by Road Race Engineering)
Made 355whp / 349 torque on 91
Just got done installing:
Whineboro 255lph fuel pump
RC 1000 CC Injectors
Going to be installing in the semi near future:
AEM Water/Meth kit
Custom GT3076 Turbo kit/O2/Down Pipe
Then re-tuning on higher boost.
All tuned by ECUTek
Thanks,
Chris
my car is the car with i idle issue the car idles fine until the cooling fans turn on then it surges if i take the stainless maf tube off and put the orig plastic one one that problem goes away my guess would be that its just the stainless one is a larger dia so with that being said
my mods are in the order i have done them
turbo trix hard pipes and intake
ultimate racing turbo back without res or mini muffler
mon or tues next week installing aem water/ meth injection
sat 21st back to dyno4mance for tune
my base numbers at dyno4mance with intake and hard pipes and exhaust were 258.6 whp
so we will see what the water/meth and tune will turn out
my mods are in the order i have done them
turbo trix hard pipes and intake
ultimate racing turbo back without res or mini muffler
mon or tues next week installing aem water/ meth injection
sat 21st back to dyno4mance for tune
my base numbers at dyno4mance with intake and hard pipes and exhaust were 258.6 whp
so we will see what the water/meth and tune will turn out
my car is the car with i idle issue the car idles fine until the cooling fans turn on then it surges if i take the stainless maf tube off and put the orig plastic one one that problem goes away my guess would be that its just the stainless one is a larger dia so with that being said
my mods are in the order i have done them
turbo trix hard pipes and intake
ultimate racing turbo back without res or mini muffler
mon or tues next week installing aem water/ meth injection
sat 21st back to dyno4mance for tune
my base numbers at dyno4mance with intake and hard pipes and exhaust were 258.6 whp
so we will see what the water/meth and tune will turn out
my mods are in the order i have done them
turbo trix hard pipes and intake
ultimate racing turbo back without res or mini muffler
mon or tues next week installing aem water/ meth injection
sat 21st back to dyno4mance for tune
my base numbers at dyno4mance with intake and hard pipes and exhaust were 258.6 whp
so we will see what the water/meth and tune will turn out
For me the cone filter did nothing for me. Some days it would feel a little stronger but other days it would feel like a 20hp loss. I pulled it off an picked up a drop-in. No issues with it but I don't know if it really gained much.
I added an UICP and I didn't really feel much of a gain. The top end felt a little smoother but that's about it.
Next was a catback exhaust and that gave a slightly quicker spool. That seemed to have gained a little hp up top.
I dyno'd the three mods together and it was 4hp stronger than another guy with just a drop-in! Strangely enough, the AFRs were richer as well. That probably hurt any of the added power.
Now I added an intercooler and now I could feel some hp. I redyno'd the car and now picked up about about 23hp. The AFRs went even richer! I believe I was down to the 9.2-9.6 range. The boost stayed the same so I'm guessing with the cooler air temps, the ECU wasn't pulling timing vs the stock intercooler.
I picked up a MBC as my 2nd mod right after the drop-in but I wasn't able to gain much with this. I kept pulling this off and putting it back on trying to gain something but most of the time I just got frustrated with the CELs and the boost cut.
Definitely a tune is the way to go.
I added an UICP and I didn't really feel much of a gain. The top end felt a little smoother but that's about it.
Next was a catback exhaust and that gave a slightly quicker spool. That seemed to have gained a little hp up top.
I dyno'd the three mods together and it was 4hp stronger than another guy with just a drop-in! Strangely enough, the AFRs were richer as well. That probably hurt any of the added power.
Now I added an intercooler and now I could feel some hp. I redyno'd the car and now picked up about about 23hp. The AFRs went even richer! I believe I was down to the 9.2-9.6 range. The boost stayed the same so I'm guessing with the cooler air temps, the ECU wasn't pulling timing vs the stock intercooler.
I picked up a MBC as my 2nd mod right after the drop-in but I wasn't able to gain much with this. I kept pulling this off and putting it back on trying to gain something but most of the time I just got frustrated with the CELs and the boost cut.
Definitely a tune is the way to go.
Newbie
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 53
Likes: 0
From: Bay Area, SF, CA
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
r0ck3r
EvoM New Member / FAQs / EvoM Rules
40
Dec 5, 2006 01:30 PM
