Ok, as we all know and love, mitsu has given us the grace of the new MIVEC engine in our 04 RA. I love the way this engine works, and the HP and torque that it gets. I traded in my mitsu eclipse for this car, and the ralliart would have blown it away on the road or track..... My question is, what is so special about the MIVEC? What is the difference between the MIVEC engine and a regular engine? Is the MIVEC comparable to the honda VTEC? I have been looking for information from mitsu but have been unable to find any good details about why this MIVEC engine is so diffierent from the rest. There has to be some technical differences between the MIVEC and a regular engine. Could someone who knows a little about it please fill the rest of us in.

 

Yes, the MIVEC is similar to the Honda VTEC, but a little more sophisticated. Both these acronyms refer to the variable valve timing aspect of these engines to allow more HP and torque across the entire RPM range. While most variable valve timing engines only have profiles for the low and high range, which results in a "kick" when the profile changes over - much like a turbo coming on boost, the MIVEC engine actually has three profiles - one for low, middle and high range. Because of this the transition between the profiles is very smooth and virtually unfelt, and the benefit to us is that it pulls all the way through the rev range. That's about as simple as I can put it. Hope this helped.

Adios,

Fusoguy