Hello all. My name is Bill and I just bought an 04 Evo, fully loaded with 7500 miles from a firend of mine for $22k. I have owned nothing but Hondas my entire life. I have an 03 S2000 which I was currently building till the Evo came up. Here are pics of my S2000.(for anyone that cares)




I have A LOT of parts still in transit from Bulletproof which i'm going to sell in order to build the Evo. Here are a cuople of crappy pics of the Evo.



I used to do most of the work on my S by myself and for some reason I feel kinda hesitant with the Evo. I don't know what it is, but I am.

My first question is that the car has an Exedy Hyper single clutch in it. Is the clutch "supposed" to rattlle like that or is there something really wrong here?

Next question is that the previous owner had an SAFC and A Greddy Profec2 installed and he told me that he did not tune it on the dyno, rather by himself. I have no confidence in my friend from a "tuning" perspective. How damaging can this be to my car? I have called and left a message at AMS so I can get it tuned on a dyno sometime next week, should i still drivethe car till then?

This question sort of ties into the one above. Once in a while while driving on the expressway, the "Service Engine Soon" light pops up. Never under any specific circumstance, but usually it pops up on the highway. Never blinking, just steady. I asked him if he knew about this and he said he simply disconnects the battery and it goes away. I asked him if he ever bothered to see what it was and he said that he took the car into AMS(code not there due to battery terminal removal) and he stated that if the code was "relevant" it would've been stored in the ECU even if the battery was disconnected. Is this true?

Sorry for the dumb *** noobs questions, but this is a whole new world to me. Thanks in advance.

 

Congrats on your new purchase. You have raised some questions that cause me a few concerns. You should know that I do not claim to be more inclined to the mechanics of the Evo than others, but some of the things your "Friend" told you do concern me.

I'm not sure how your "friend" claims to have tuned the car himself, but that alone causes me great concern. I would inquire as to how he tuned this car and with what equipment. Unless he really knows what he's doing, which he apparently doesn't judging by the fact that the car throws CEL's and his solution is to D/C the battery, I would avoid driving the car as much as possible until you can get a proffesional tune. AMS knows what they are doing and can better guide you. As for the potential damage you may have acquired...it all depends on what your "friend" did or didn't do. The spectrum of potential damage is too broad to mention. Like I said, I would avoid driving it until you can get it tuned. As for the clutch, I have never heard of a clutch rattling to the point of raising an eyebrow. Why did your friend unload the car with so few miles? This whole thing seems a little suspicious to me and I sometimes wonder what kind of "friend" would sell you a car without warning you of these potential problems. I hope I am entirely wrong, but that is a purchase I would not personally feel very comfortable with. It just seems like he may not have been completely upfront with you upon selling the car. Good luck and I hope I am entirely wrong. Welcome to the Evo fam. Please post here what the outcome of this is.

I really am not a negative person, but I am concerned for you. The Evo's a great car and provided you don't have to dump a lot of money into her to make her run nice, you will love the car and you should have very few problems. Nice S2K!

 

Ouch. Sounds like you bought the car w/o really taking a good look at it! Hope it doesn't bite ya.

First thing I'd do would be to pull the CEL codes outta the ECU. I've got a device myself and use it all the time. Get used to those with Mitsubishi's if you plan to mod it...sorry to say. Tuned cars like to throw simple exhaust codes a lot, but they can be a LOT more severe, so check it out. A local autozone can pull it for free, or you can buy a device yourself. I'd stay away from the dealer for now...

Simply disconnecting the battery for like 2min and depressing the clutch resets the ecu. It'll clear any and all codes no matter what. Not recommended if you don't know what the codes are.

As for the clutch, that could be fine. I know others with double and triple plates and they rattle especially at idle; especially the triple disc. Not sure if the single should or not, do some searching. Search is your friend on this site!

I'd then think about yanking out that SAFC and A Greddy Profec2. That's just my opinion though.

 

Welcome to the site... I'm Ill Roller on s2ki.

When I got my evo it also had an exedy single on it, and it chattered like crazy. There's a slight noise at idle that didn't bother me, but there was a loud chatter when the car is decelerating that I just couldn't stand. It bothered me to the point where I went to the dealership and had a stock clutch installed. It still makes noise, but not as bad as before. I was told that the noise at idle is the result of a bad throwout bearing, and I think the chattering is just from a bad install.

As for the other two things, I'm still a noob to all this stuff too, but hopefully someone can help you out.

Hopefully you'll be happy with the evo. They're definitely not as nice as Honda's, but once you get around the little annoyances, you can have a lot of fun with them, and I don't have to tell you that you'll enjoy the power

 

For starters like boomn said i would take out the greddy and the SAFC, and sell them both and stat over. and simply get a Hallman Manual Boost Controller, and then get the other things you want, and the get it tuned, meaning ECU Flashed. I see you are from Illinois anyways so AMS wouldn't be that bad of a drive for you. thats my $.02 and welcome to the Family!!

Look at it this way when modding a car, when soemthing goes wrong/breaks, it means there is going to be money spent on upgraded parts, you may not like it at the time, but hey, it makes you come up with the money faster to get it fixed

 

s2000 looks sick. welcome.

 

Yeah, this sounds like a good idea, you'll make better power with a boost controller and reflash than with the greddy and SAFC. However, I'd reccomend against going to AMS unless you've got a lot of cash to throw away. I used to love the place back when they were getting started, but since they've hit it big they've become a bunch of ******. They tried to charge me like $600 just to get my muffler taken off of my exhuast, and have a pipe welded in place. I don't know if other people have had different experiences, but they treated me like **** both times I've been in there. I'm not sure what the other options might be, but I wouldn't trust them with my car.

 

Whats up guys. Thanks for the replies and i'm glad to be aboard. I've been wasting my time with the S2000 vesus Evo threads. How embarassing on both ends. Like school girls fighting over a boy.

Anyway, what i've found out since I posted last. My CEL is a random misfire. I don't know if it's due to the "self tune" my buddy did, or is it the ever normal problem of the dreaded "random misfire" that i've searched and read on. I stopped into AMS today and I quite frankly told them straight up that i'm a noob to Mitsu's. They were very helpful in answering all my question and even checked the boost controller to make sure the settings were'nt set to catastrophic.

I have an appointment on the 31st where they will flash my ECU and do a bunch of other things as well.


Pardon my dumb *** questions, i'm still trying to learn whats best for my Evo. I have'nt owned anything but Hondas my whole life.

Ill, good to see you on here.

 

just out of curiosity, do y ou have a boost gauge? and if so, how much bare you boosting to. If you don't have a boost gauge, SELL THE CAR!!! There is no way you can tune the car AND have a boost controller, w/out having a boost gauge, and if its the stock one, JUNK!!! get a new one.

 

The gauge shows 17 psi. One other question, if I have my ECU flashed, will there still be a need for the SAFC or not?

 

If you get a custom flash, you won't need the S-AFC. If you decide to go with a mail-in it wouldn't hurt to have the S-AFC to fine tune. But don't forget the wideband.

 

^^ +1 to that. Seeings how you are going to AMS to get flashed, they will have you all dialed in, so sell the S-AFC, and get some cash. Plus turn your boost up to 20 at least, your missing some spoolin time stock turbo on 93 i personally wouldn't go over 21-22 for boost. Mine is set 20 on the nuts

 

Dumb question, with every mod that I do to the Evo, will I then have to get it tuned every time?

 

If you want to get the most out of the mods then, yeah. So from the financial aspect, you're better off organizing your mods and then getting tuned after.

 

Not so much in the aspect of getting the most out of em, thats an obvious. Will the ECU compensate for the changes that I make, or in other words will it be safe to drive till I get it tuned? I'm real **** about my cars, just a thought if I decided to buy someting than install it.