alchemist, 2grand for you would equal about 5k for "the average joe" as you said. OmahaOZ, my best advice is KNOW what you want to do with the car. If you want to go fast but stay practical, save your money for a turbo. Don't spend your money on n/a mods because your just going to end up selling them and upgrading to something bigger. When buying mods, be sure to buy things that you can always or re-use if you upgrade your setup.. RRM's header, shortshifter, sway bar, exhaust and new bushings (sway bar, base, shift cable,hangers) is a good start and you WILL notice a difference.

 

Welll I'm not much on the import scene and I'm really satisfied with the car, definately... right now if I'm going to do anything its primarily just going to be clean up, I need to repaint the rear bumper and clean some scratches outta the passenger quarter panel... then this stuff will come up in the winter...

Thanks for the input and I will definately learn up on this N/A thing and see if I can't find a quality 4G block laying around to learn on...

 

Get the $30 short shifter on ebay, as well as some underhood shifter bushings. You'll need an aftermarket shift knob, but for the little money spent the car starts to feel like an actual performance car. I also believe changing the transmission fluid out out with redline full synthetic makes a world of difference.

Also the Lancer seems to respond the best to handling/suspension mods. Sway bar, tie bar, and strut bars tighten up the chassy, and improve handling.

Road Race just came out with their new piggy back. It hacks your ECU (So you don't have to reflash) and the new one runs on 89 octane instead of 91.

 

Yeah, I was going to say something about the new piggy "2". Able to run the lower octane, and get more hp (according to RRM)! Sounds good to me.

 

About the piggyback... I'm used to pumping 91 through my cars anyway, would it still do me much good?

 

using higher octane than is necessary is never beneficial. Many many threads about this here and elsewhere on the net and I've never seen a single logical argument in favor of using higher than recommended octane. The usual argument is "it's my car and my money so I'm going to put in the best gas I can afford" at which point I realize there's no sense in arguing if they're going to argue with facts

But then, you're used to higher compression, high performance engines so there's no faulting you for reaching for the 91 pump first. Now you get to grab the 87 pump handle (go ahead, it's ok ) and save $1.50 per fillup

 

Well around here is quality of fuel too... I'm picky about where to fill up but I do like a warmer burning fuel helps keep things purdy inside, just burns alittle warmer helps get rid of the crusty's especially in a car that won't see many highway miles...

 

It doesn't burn hotter. It resists detonation. Anything more than 87 in our stock engine doesn't combust fully and leaves carbon in the cylinder- it accumulates on the head and the valves. Ultimately it will start to accumulate on the valves and around the valve seals then you lose compression. Also, if the carbon (exhaust) backs up into the Intake Manifold (and it will- every used manifold I've ported- over a dozen between the G94 and G93- has exhaust residue in the runners and around the plenum opening) it will eventually foul your injectors. it's especially bad at non-highway miles because you don't have the high RPM and large intake charges to force the exhaust out.

The exahust that stays in the cylinder is non cumbustible and it takes up valuable intake air charge room so your'e hampering performance.

Volumes have been written on the topic just on this website so I'm not writing anymore. Go load up with a couple tankfuls of Chevron 87 and see if you notice a difference (you either won't- which is good- or things will get better).

 

That will work... Interesting things these fuel injected motors are... I don't know how you guys do it, I'll take a flat head screw driver and a carb any day

 

Ach!!! Stay away from your throttle body with those screwdrivers The BISS is a biatch to get reset properly. We use other computers to modify the signal to the main computer now (piggyback fuel management- eManage, SAFC-II, etc.)

 

Biss = ...?


EDIT: BISS = Base idle set screw - Goog's to the rescue.

 

wow, thats for clearing that one up. . I havnt done much to the performance of my lancer but ive read a lot of the forums and most people on here praise any suspension upgrade so that sounds like the first path to go down to me. www.rippmods.com makes a supercharger for the car as well if you plan to autox. theres some forums on here about that in forced induction if you wanna check that out. green is runnin about 194 whp on his auto sc. Congrats on buying a cool car

 

wait, if you plan to AX you need to get the rule book and find out what class your mods will put you in, then check out your competition while you run stock class. Maybe your group is like mine and you can do whatever you want and stay in class EXCEPT forced induction or non-DOR rated R-compound tires. Turbo and supercharger are generally going to put you into a class where you run with full blown race cars and you won't have any fun at all (unless you like losing, in which case stay stock and run in the race prepped class anyway, at least you'll save a lot of money )

AX is tons of fun, just get a gameplan together before you start.

 

Thats what I am going to do before I start ripping motors apart and adding FI... cause I think I wanna AX it... this thing handles awesome compared to my stang... but anything would be hard to steer when the front wheels are off the ground...

 

word on that, My first event was on all seasons with i/h/test pipe/e. w/ the test pipe my local rules put me in FSP. In other words cars with LSD semi lightweight and R-compound tires... needless to say i got my a$$ stomped