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I figure since I am now going on my 7th year of ownership its finally due time that I create a build thread on my car.
I originally purchased my car in Oct of 2011 from Murdock Chevrolet in Bountiful, UT. I was the 4th owner of the car. The car when I received it had approx, 47k miles on it. It was lightly modded with a Full 3" exhaust. Open O2 dump, 3" ETS FMIC w/licp, DEPO JDM Evo 9 tail lights.
I didn't take long for me to start modding the car. I had already had a set of 18" Bronze 5zigen ZR+ plus wrapped in Hankook Ventus Evo 12 wheels and tires ordered before the car even arrived. It wasn't long after than that I had started to making some modifications to the engine bay, tinting the windows, and lowering the car on tein springs with whitelines front and rear anti sway bars on it.
The appearance of the car has over gone a few chance threw out the years of owning it as well
In its lifetime the car has had the following wheels:
- 17x9" Rota Grids (these wheels started off black with a red lip, then became blue, and then bronze)
- 17x8" Black RPF1s
- 17x9.5" Silver RPF1s
- 18x9.75" Bronze XXR 527s
- 18x8.25" Silver XXR 520s
- Stock Evo 8 Enkei
- Stock Evo 9 Enkei
When I first got the car I have to admit that I was one of those people that swore up an down that I would never go all over and mod the car overly crazy. Threw out the years I kept changing things around. The car had the factory Evo 8 turbo with the 9.8 hotside on it. I had put about 10k miles on the car with minor bolts and decided I wanted to go a little further with the car. I got a set of hks 264 cams and aem cam gears and had them install when i did the 60k timing belt service. Along with that installed a 10.5 hotside and a set of 1000cc injectors. I had STM port my stock intake manifold, purchased a Buschur Throttle body and got a PPI ported and ceramic coated exhaust manifold. Being in Boise if you own a DSM or Evo there was only person you took your car too for tuning in you wanted it to be fast. So I took it to Jake Montgomery (A.K.A Evil_Eagle) to have it tuned.
After a while I wanted a little more out of the car. I found a guy locally selling an Evo 9 turbo so I picked it up. I also ditched my HKS cams for a set of Kelford 272 cams w/ Kiggly Springs and retainers, Kiggly HLA pressure regulator, ITM revised lifters, and a set of ARP 2000 Headstuds. The speed bug had bit me hard. So I upgrade to a dw301 fuel pump, purchased a fuel lab fpr kit, a ETS 3.5" FMIC, and a set of PTE 1250cc injectors. I took the car back to Jake and had him set the up with the Tephra mod on the stock ecu. Active no lift shift and set me up with map switching. On E85 the car made 453awhp and I managed to run an 11.7 @ 116mph.
After a while I a start to notice a decent amount of power loss from my car. I pulled the stock 9 turbo off to find that the turbine housing had gotten the infamous crack in it. At that time a friend of mine had an EF4 turbo that he was selling that I got from him. Once I got that turbo I ran into a whole mess of issues. The turbo was machine off center from MAP Performance from the get go. I had sent the turbo back to them and I had the upgrade the turbine wheel and replace the housing. When I got the turbo back I put it on the car not checking the tension of the wastegate actuator so it never built more than 15 psi of boost. That was the last straw that I had with that turbo and decided to part ways with it.
After I sold the ef4 I decided that I was done dealing with stock frame turbos and was ready to move on to a t3 platform. I sold my ETS 3.5" FMIC, my ported intake/exhaust manifolds, ported throttle body, and PTE injectors. From there I found a member selling a RRE Race ***** Stealth Kit with a GT3076r that was complete with a Halfe Cast Manifold, Tial 44mm wastegate, RRE LICP, and all of the water and coolant lines, I then upgrade to FIC 2150cc injectors, boomba racing fuel rail and a walbro 450 fuel pump, Purchase a JMFab Drag Intake Manifold w/Boomba throttle body and JMFab UICP with a Tial 50mm Bov, and a 4" ETS anodized black FMIC.. During the removal of the EF4 I punctured my radiator so I replaced it with a Mishimoto Evo 4-6 style radiator. Upon tuning the car on the new setup Jake was having issues with my front O2 sensor. Some how I managed to kill the front O2 sensor. At this point the Evo was long from being my daily driver so I decided in lieu of getting a new sensor I would purchase a used AEM V1 Ecu instead. When it was all said and done the end results of the car looked like this.
Last edited by cficare68; Jul 6, 2018 at 04:14 AM.
Do to a medical issue I was forced to move back home to West Virginia. About 4 months after I moved back home I was at a car meet and my car started acting up and shuitdown on me. I tried to start it again and nothing. I got out popped the hood and there sitting on top of my timing belt a chunk of my balance shaft belt. The belt had snapped and wrapped it self around the timing belt. Upon tearing down the motor i found that not only did it bent about every valve on the intake side of the head it managed to put a hairline crack in my kelford 272 intake cam as well.
I had the head checked out and thankfully everything was fine on it other than the valves. I toyed around with the ideal of just putting new belts on the car, installed a new head gasket and valves then calling it a day. But instead I decided to what most people do when they break there stock motor and build it. I though long and hard about what I was going to do originally my plan was simple. Keep it a 2.0 liter. T3 manifold with an HTA3586r. While I was talking to a friend of mine in Boise he made me an offer on a short block he was getting ready to build that I couldn't refuse. So the 2.0 liter went out the window for the following:
Standard rod 2.4
- JE Pistons 8.5:1 .20 Over
- 150mm Manley Turbo Tuff "Lightweight" rods
- 100mm Manley Turbo Tuff Crank
- ACL Bearing
- Arp 625+ Headstuds
- Copper O-Ringed block
- Turned down balance shaft delete
As far as the head is considered I sent it too him and had him install bronze valve guides, new valve seals, and supertech intake valve as well as inconnel supertech exhaust valves. I decide to stick with Kelford Cams and went with there 276 High lift cams. Looking at the specs I felt they would pair nicely with the 2.4 Motor. While looking on the forums I came across a good deal on a T3 stm forward facing manifold and licp so I purchased that. Instead of going with the HTA3586r I ended up picking up Gen 2 6466 from a friend mine in South Carolina with extremely low miles on. I had a friend local to me polish the manifold and sent the compressor housing to a friend back in Boise for powder coating. I couldn't have been happier with the end results.
Alongside of the new motor, turbo, hot parts kits I upgraded and switched out quite a few other items. I ditched the stock e-brake for an STM staging braking kit and pieced together my own abs delete kit. I also purchased a mishimoto half size radiator and race thermostat. In lieu of running the stock ignition system I upgrading to 300m coils and a dynatec arc-2 cdi system. I replaced the walbro 450 fuel pump for a custom build walbro 450 double pump and replaced the factory fuel line with a 8an feed and a 6an return line. Since my 44mm tial had issue ripping diaphragm in it so I replace it with a new Precision 46mm wastegate instead. I also replaced my Megan test pipe and catback with an English racing vacuum activated cutout and a Buschur racing catback.
Since i was about 5 hours south of Buschur racing i decide to take my trans there. I had Buschur rebuild my transmission with a 4.11 final drive, Evo 9 1st and 2nd gear, Evo 8 3rd and 4th gear, and JDM Evo 8 5th gear., with a TRE Billet transmission oil cooler adapter. I replaced my stock lsd swapped t-case with a buschur t-case (which i had to removed cause i killed it in 300 miles), and got rid of the comp twin disc i had at the time for an exedy triple HD clutch kit.
Even though I liked the look of the RPF1s on the car I got tired of them. Plus it seems like every Evo out there has them. A couple years ago I came across the Cosmis MR II wheels and feel in love with them. I came across a deal on a set up new one that i could pass out and picked them up.
Jul 6, 2018, 01:40 AM
