After reading a few threads on dynos stock and with various mods, it seems that you need to spend quite a bit on the Lancer to get any real gains. I've seen people dyno-ing from 90hp to 126hp. I realize the conditions (and dyno) affect the accuracy.

That said, what do you think would be the most worthwhile and cost-effective mod? I'm leaning more towards investing in suspension components (full coilover seems worthwhile). My bro got a cold air for his echo, and it sounds a lot better and seems to give a little more punch, but IMO not worth the money he paid for it.

Let's just stay away from forced induction. I'm biased towards N/A for some reason. I just think it would be awesome to have an N/A car that's pretty fast. I prefer responsiveness, rather than having turbo lag.

Anyways, looking on Road Race Motorsport's website I see lots of mods for the lancer.

ROAD/RACE Race Series Aluminum Flywheel-4G94 $489. Does the flyhweel actually make a noticable difference? I know it's not going to cut a second off your 1/4, but when driving the car it must be much more responsive? Is it WORTH spending $500?

How about the motor mounts for $289? I do drive my car hard, would you consdider motor mounts necessary even for N/A? What about tranny mounts? And for a car with 54k KM on it, when should someone start thinking about those?



Road Race Lancer Forged Piston $699 -- are these worth getting if you're staying N/A? Would you get any noticable difference in sound and performance of your engine? thats $700.. then there's the PAUTER RODS they say to get ($799) if you get pistons..

I won't go through all the mods, you get the idea. What do you think?

 

from all that ive heard the piggy back is the best mod you can do short of a turbo. I dont know anything about the flywheel....dont have it, dont know anyone that does. But the piggyback gives you roughly 15% hp gain. And its cumulative. So it builds on other mods.

So if you have headers, exhaust, cold air intake and then slap on a piggy back it will give you 15% more hp than what you had with just the headers, exhaust and intake alone.

Suspension mods are however a great idea. Although I do not autoX many here do and stand behind our cars as being great handlers for autoXing.

As for the rods and pistons....yeah they'll help a bit, but its very expensive and not necessary in my opinion until you've exhausted all other forms of N/A bolt ons...

 

I think the piggy requires you to be retuned for your mods, but I am not sure.....

There are lots of DIY "free" mods that you can do but to be honest with you, there is not anything that will be cost-effective and produce gobs of power. I usually go with the "three" mantra:
- If it is good and cheap, it wont be fast.
- If it is good and fast, it wont be cheap.
- If it is fast and cheap, it wont be good.

Without spending gobs of money, you can upgrade the suspension somewhat to get a firmer and mroe responsive car during turns. You can do DIY cheaper stuff instead of paying to do it, for example, with motor mounts and bigger throttlebodies. However, if you are interested in making power NA, I would suggest starting with H/I/X (header, intake and exhaust). THis wont make gobs of power (and probably in your opinion, wont be worth it, so it may be a moot point) but it is teh starting point of making power NA.

More importantly, shop around. What may be 200 bucks at one store might be 50 bucks in actuality.

 

thanks timdog
so i'm probably right in leaning towards suspension
the lancer already handles really well as it is, even with crappy tires it can take a curve, but higher speed handling is pretty mushy with stock suspension :P

so if I get the oz mounts and get tein ss coilovers + sway bar, I'm good?

 

airquez... i know, i will definitely shop around, I'm just thinking to later this summer when i will actually have the money to spend, so i figure'd i'd best start doing some research now.
so it's best to start off with intake/header/exhaust?

So, let's say I will be doing one thing at a time.. the logical order would be:
-intake
-header
-exhaust
-piggy back
-?

Assuming I go with the 4 above, could I expect a 15-20whp increase or is that unrealistic?

 

For the suspension do the drop for sure. And then get the RDDesigns FULL SET Special. It's on of the best deals for our car around and makes the handleing so much better.

For power upgrades do the whole Intake, Header, Exhaust. Then you can get a ported intake manifold. Then bore out your TB. There's a ton of stuff you can do for an N/A application.

Fox

 

Read here about piggy's vs other engine tuning

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=133141

I'll edit in a second for other engine mods.

WADAD

 

Thanks for the quick responses everyone, I'm checking out those links. I was looking at Road Race's suspension parts... how about sway/strut bars? Those are not expensive and seem to make a big difference?

Can anyone clear those up ... what does what exactly? What's the difference between a strut/sway/tie bar, and is it well worthwhile to get all of them? I take it a lancer with the full coilovers and all the sway/strut bars must be quite some fun...

 

The rear sway bar is the most cost effective and best suspension mod, and the first you should do. Also buy the perches, fyi there are some guys on these forums that will custom make you perches for way less then what some retailers sell them for and they are just as good just cheaper.

The sway bar reduces body roll and tightens the rear of the car so that you have much more control in corners. All of the bars from the front strut to the tie bar all connect two factory points together. They all function to make the car stiffer. This stiffness translates into tighter turns at higher speeds, and better control at higher speeds.

Fox

 

Here's a list of complete NA build up.

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...ht=sirlancelot

WADAD

 

shingen, thank you - so basically all the BAR mods work to stiffen the car, so each one makes it a little better, starting with the rear sway bar which makes the most difference (since an ES doesn't even have one to begin with, I guess). make sense, no wonder the ralliart is so tight

WADAD, thanks - I have saved this one, so I will be sure to build up my lancer the right way! I hope I won't be seduced by the dark side and go turbo in the end.

 

I don't think the piggy back is the way to go, save your money and get the AEM EMS, or the Greddy E-Manage. You'll thank yourself later on down the road. The piggy back is pre-tuned, and not custom tuned to your car and it's mods like the other two can be, plus if you live where there can be drastic weather changes like I do in northern Ohio, the piggy back has been known to have its share of problems.

 

Yeah, after reading a few threads on this I will definitely opt for the e-manage or something similar, I think.

my mods are going to wait till a little later though, I have to fix my bumper and tint my windows first then I can get the suspension ,brakes etc.

I'm actually pretty anxious about getting better brakes.

 

all your questions can be answered and more with a search so try that first before starting a new repetitive thread.

and dont by the motor mounts from rrm, they are ridiculously overpriced. you can get them for a fraction of the price from www.deyemeracing.com and be better.

 

I'm late, but looking at your first post,

flywheel - waste of time. Just helps you rev quicker. Not gonna do much as a first mod.

motor mounts - get them cheaper from Deyeme. And again, not worth it. Especially in the beginning.

pistons - RRM made some great N/A pistons, but they're sold out. The ones you see are just forged for the turbo/nitrous crowd. And pistons and rods are probably only needed for turbo - or when you make tons and tons of N/A HP.

Best bang for the buck - probably a header. RRM makes a shortie header, RPW and Kamikaze make long-style headers with attached downpipes. It's the way I'd go if I was starting over.