Can't wait to hear more!

 

Any updates on this guys? I hate the seating position in the X. Please tell me there is another solution. Or do I have to drive to Washington State and pay $800 for that custom 1 3/4 inch extension fabrication as stated in this thread?

 

Would give just about anything for this for the stock steering wheel. Damn thing could not be further away.

 

I shipped my steering column to Kito last year and he did a great job. I think with return shipping it cost about $400. I probably spent another $100 on shipping it to him, packing materials, and random other stuff. This is the best mod I've ever done. I think he got me closer to 2" but I can't remember exactly. Perfect spacing for me now on the street or track. My road course brake modulation is so much better now that I can sit far enough away from the pedals. I highly recommend contacting Kito. He did really quality work and he turned it around fast for me. Taking it out and putting it back in isn't bad provided you have the service manual.

 

How long does it take to break down and assemble the steering column? What if I have no idea what im doing? Maybe ship the car in a container to Seattle? Or is it cheaper to drive for 4 days?

 

just out of curiosity, how tall are you guys? lol, I find the Evo's seating position to be very comfortable for my arms and legs, I didn't even know that there was an existing issue

 

You can easily break it down in one weekend, and put it back together in one weekend. It was not difficult. I combined this with installing 4 point Schroth harnesses and running a wire harness for a backup camera so I had my interior completely gutted, and it's my weekend car so I did not need to rush it back together so I did it over several months actually. I really don't remember any difficult issues with the removal or reinstallation. I did need a 3/8" torque wrench because I could not get my 1/2" in there to torque the bolt between the shaft and the steering box. Basically everything you need to know is in the Maintenance Manual and one awesome How-To someone did on adding Bluetooth (It showed how to take the wheel off better than the manual). If you change your own oil and do your own brake jobs this will not be hard for you. Most time consuming part was removing the plastic wire support stand-offs from the electrical harnesses and re-positioning them to get the wires re-run cleanly. The wires were all long enough but I seem to recall I had to skip one of the stock support locations to make it clean and not pull them too tight or bend them at too tight a radius. Hardest part of the whole job was figuring out how to get the ignition shift lock cable all back together, as a little "tetrus" piece dropped out before I could see where it came from. If you have a GSR you might not even have that cable.

 

I'm 6'2" and to get close enough to the wheel to satisfy my HPDE instructors I had to get my seat so close to the dash that my legs were folded into the car at bad angles. It made smooth pedal modulation difficult at best, and by the end of the weekend my knees hurt really bad. First time out after the extension (and the belts) and my instructor complemented me on smooth pedal modulation. I know the belts made a huge difference too, but the comfort and ability to move my feet cleanly really all came from the wheel position change.

 

With Kito closed now, any other shops doing this?

 

I think his shop was closed back when I had him do the work, but I was able to find him using google. He was working for another shop at the time. I'll try and look for his e-mail, I think I have it in my work computer.

 

Try www.bykito.com

His e-mail back in August 2013 was kito@bykito.com

 

thanks Roger!

 

I wonder if the telescoping wheel from the outlander sport could be somehow adapted.

 

It would be awesome if it could, but you'll have to pay to find out. Your local dealer won't stock the telescoping column, and they won't order one for you to just look at and compare free of charge. You'll have to buy it, and it will be a non-returnable item. I kind of inquired about this at my dealer back in 2013, so forgive me if my memory is a bit foggy, but I want to say they even made it sound like willingness to pay for the column might not be enough, as they would classify it as a crash repair type part and they would need a VIN number of the vehicle, etc. Maybe if you had a friend that worked at a body shop you could get around that? Or maybe my memory is just wrong and it wouldn't be a problem at all. If you could find an outlander sport maintenance manual similar to the EVO one most of us have, you could possibly tell by appearances in the diagrams if they were similar, and then decide from there. Or you could try to find a salvage outlander in a junk yard.

As you'll find out, this is not the easiest of problems to solve. If it is just a minor inconvenience for you I'd say live with it. If you're like me, I couldn't drive the car comfortably on the track (the very reason I bought the car) so I needed a solution. I would have preferred a more elegant approach such as the telescoping column you referenced, but I would have had to blaze an expensive trail that possibly would have produced a non-solution. Given that choice I would have either procrastinated and never done it, or I would have wasted a ton of time and money. But Kito, and the original guy that brought his car to Kito and posted on this thread had already blazed the trail to a working solution that didn't cost too much money. It was a proven solution I was comfortable with, and I didn't really need adjustability for multiple drivers because my wife will never drive my EVO. It worked awesome for me.

I know if I ever sell my EVO I will be buying a stock column and taking mine out, for fear of liability issues if the idiot after me crashes and is too close to the airbag, and because if I ever were to get another EVO X I could swap in the extended column again for free.

Honestly, the simple solution is to ditch the airbag and get an aftermarket wheel and hub extender, but I wasn't willing to give up the safety of the airbag in such a small vehicle. I've been saved by airbags before, and I could not possibly think about removing one on a vehicle that would see a lot of street driving.

 

Cheers! Feel free to join in. Maybe Mitsu will have another to replace it and well all be on that forum.