Yea, it’s a very fun track, I miss it!

Here is my last trip to the 5 mile:

 

Thanks, for the video. Much appreciated it. I had to chuckle a bit at the mistake with the cone, other than that very nice driving and it looks fun. I also miss my tracktime with the Evo. It’s been two and half year since I drove mine the last time. First I need to tell all the stories before I’m telling you what’s going on nowadays.

 

Dirty Evo (13.12.2016)

Like every winter, our car gets dirty. Here I’m showing you my dirty one. It was time for another car wash.

 

Evo X Strip & Weight Reduction Attempt (23.12.2016)

After the thorough cleaning, I parked the car nicely in the middle of my parent’s garage.



And ZACK I’ve removed it and it looks interesting without the rear bumper.



I was planning to remove more useless weights but it still needs to be a daily 5 seater. I’ve removed the subwoofer in the trunk and sold it a long time ago. This time I wanted to remove the speakers because I never listen to any radio or music. I still had to find out which one I need to keep it because for the moment it was important for me to be able to listen to the navigation system. After a couple tries with engine startups, I found out that I could remove everything except the driver’s door. Just after I’ve done with the audio weight removal, my dad just scolded at me because of ***** on the floor (he just put new panels recently).



After I cleaned the floor quickly, I disconnected the battery and continued my weight removal trip. This time I tried to remove all interior trims and panels to check out what I could optimize. I even removed the headliner. Here are some snapshots of the process.





I also wanted to remove the carpet to remove the floor mats. But I didn’t have enough time for this because something came up in between and hindered it.

So I decided to continue the weight reduction another time and just cleaned the rear. When I removed the taillights, I saw a lot of dirt hidden there.



Now, it looks like factory new.







Since I’m at this point with nearly gutted Evo, I was curious how it would sound like. So I wanted to do a test drive with my fiancée. When she saw it at this state for the first time she was like: “OMG, what have you done with it?? Looks like a piece of junk!” I’ve just face palmed myself and told her this: “Because F***cking Racecar!” She was still not happy with that. Anyways, I put her in the passenger seat and I started up the car. Woah, it sounds much louder than it was before. When we went on for a drive I was rather disappointed. It only sounds great, like a racecar when I put my foot down to let it scream. But if I need to keep it at speed limit, meaning I mostly have to let it roll, you’ll be able to hear only the road noises which are extremely annoying. As I use my Evo as a daily it will be 90% of just rolling around. I wouldn’t want to risk overstepping the speed limit just to enjoy the racecar feeling/noises since the fine here in Switzerland is very steep. At the track it would be really cool but there I had to be realistic. How often will I be at the racetrack compared to the street driving? This is why I’ll have to put everything back together. Here’s a quick video of how loud it is just by revving the engine.


Here’s a picture of the gutted Evo before I put everything back on. Before the test drive, I had to put back the door panels to be able to use electric window switch since it was too cold to drive with fully opened windows.

 

Oh that's interesting, your rear crash bar is completely different from my USDM 2011 MR. Same bumper cover though as far as I can tell. The USDM CT9A was also different but so was the bumper cover.

 

Yea, both front and rear jdm bars are different, but I assume you already knew about the front.

 

You talking CT9A, CZ4A or both? Which ever it is though, I wasn't aware. Doesn't surprise me, different crash test standards and what not. You would think it would be cheaper to just design one that works for all markets, but I guess that's not the case.

 

CZ4A. JDM front bar also has the tow hook threaded hole where ours doesn’t

 

As far as I’m aware the US version has beefier crash bars to fulfill stricter requirement than the JDM and EDM. I’ve also seen that most German Cars like Audi, BMW etc. have additional sheet metal as reinforcement especially at the rockers.

 

Snow Fun (05.01.2017)

When we finally had enough snow at our place, I didn’t want to miss this chance to have fun after work. Here are some pics and videos (I had to keep the video short not to give away any hint of the location, here it’s forbidden to do something like this and I could get heavy fines, I know it’s stupid but yeah it’s Swiss…).











After a couple days, my fiancée was at my place and we just made a little trip and of course the fun shouldn’t fall short.






Luckily, there were enough snow for many days and I used every chance to do some off-road fun. I also took pictures to let you enjoy watching them.

 

Winter Pleasure (10.01.2017)

On this day, everything was perfect, blue sky and white snow everywhere. Here I finished work much earlier on purpose to live this moment with my Evo.





















By the way, I had to admit that my Evo sits way too low and because of wrong wheel alignment (it was still set up for the track) and the winter tires didn’t have enough profile left for the grip, I had trouble getting forward. Especially in the deep snow, the Evo moved mostly sideways instead of forward and the front bumper acted like a snow plow.

Here I’m going to tell you an interesting story about what happened that evening which made very clear about the mentioned issue.

At an evening, we had heavy snowfall and there were lots of fresh snow everywhere as we didn’t have this much for some years. There I had to go out with my Evo. My parents already told me that I’m totally insane because my Evo wouldn’t be able to move anywhere under this circumstance because it’s too low. I only countered like: “Pffh, I’ve got an Evo! It can do it! Because rally car!” and I took my brother with me as a cameraman to show off to my parents. As soon as we turned to the main road, I made a long drift there which was just perfect. No other cars around, fresh snow still laying there, no snow plow anywhere and we were alone. But I didn’t want to do anything stupid on the street to avoid any unnecessary trouble. So we went to my drift place and arriving there, my brother asked me if I really want to drift there because it’s already too much snow. I only told him to get out so that I could show him. There I just had my pink Evo glasses on and didn’t want to listen to anyone. I turned off the traction control, put my foot down hard and there we go! The Evo hit hard to the redline, black smokes shooting from the exhausts pipe with lot of noises, lots of snow pouring over my windshield which gave me great joy. But, looking from the outside it could be clearly seen that the Evo had trouble moving forward in the deep snow. For my brother it looked like a slow motion drift. After 30 seconds I got stuck and that’s it. I had to put down my Evo glasses to face the reality that I should’ve listened to the others. As soon as I got out, my skater shoes disappeared in the snow and I felt the coldness on my socks. This is the punishment for my ignorance. My brother walked to me and didn’t need to tell me anything because I already got it. Well **** happened and the best was that we didn’t put on proper clothes. Then I dig out the snow with my bare hands. My brother was just standing there laughing at me. Yeah, yeah what a lovely brother. His only help was giving me light from his smartphone. After a felt eternity I dug out most of the snow with my frozen off hands and tried to move my Evo out of this mess but it failed. Got out again, I checked the snow below the front bumper and noticed that it has already frozen. As if I wasn’t punished enough. It was impossible to scrape off the ice with bare hands. So I had to call to my dad that he should please come over here with a shovel and already warned him to give me a break with his famous comments. I was already too pissed and just wanted to go back home in the warmth. Because it would take some time for my dad to arrive, I used a little ice scraper for windows to scrape off chunk of frozen snow. Shortly there was a fire truck arriving and it stopped there. Well, seriously??? I saw firefighters getting out of the fire truck and walked towards me. I asked them in total amazement what they are doing here. The firefighters were totally confused and told me that they got an emergency call that a car has crashed down a slope towards the river. Then I told them that this place is further ahead and that everything is fine here. They went back to the truck and drove off while I went back to my Evo trying to free it from the snow/ice. A short while, the second fire truck appeared and I told them to keep on driving there where the accident is. Back to my Evo again, I saw a police car coming up and stopped there while I was scraping off the ice. Ah sh*t, now I’m in real trouble and was afraid that I’ll get high fine because of this “not controlled driving behavior”. I tried to ignore them and keep on scraping off in hope that they’ll go away very soon. Unfortunately, they kept on staying and I was really uncomfortable. I just walked without a single thought towards them. They moved down the window and I greeted them nicely with a good evening and asked them if they were here because of the accident. They agreed and I told them that the accident site is further down the road and I had to tell the same to the firefighters before. I also told the police that everything is fine with me so that they shouldn’t bother about me. They were laughing because it was clear what I did before. I told them that I only need to free my Evo from the snow and then I’ll drive carefully back home. Then I bid farewell to them and went back to my Evo. The police then drove off and I was very glad that I got away nicely. My dad still didn’t arrive and I called him again where he’s because he should be here a long time ago. He told me that the firefighter blocked the road because it’s too dangerous. Just great! I just wanted to get it done fast to get away from this whole situation. I was left with this little ice scraper and kept on working. After almost 2hrs I finally managed to get free and we quickly drove back home. At the roadblock the firefighter watched strangely at us and opened it to let me pass through. I waved to them as thanking for letting me through without any further trouble. Since then I swore to myself that I will never ever do something stupid like this. If I want to drift again, I will only do at an event designed for that and my Evo should have a proper winter setup!

 

Mod Update 3 – OEM Evo X GSR Trim Complete (05.02.2017)

Here’s a little update of my Evo X modification’s history. This time the grey MR front grille bezel has been replaced by the original black GSR one and at the same time I removed the big plastic number plate bracket. Now it looks better and more in unison.



Here’s a collection of different bezels.

 

Snow & Ice Drift Ambri (19.02.2017)

Then I registered for the snow drift in Ambri for the morning event (9:00 – 12:00). This time I went there with my Evo in hope that there would be enough snow to have fun. Besides, I got new alignment made and raised the Evo by 2cm and softened the dampers. I hope that it will be much better than the last time I got stuck. I didn’t change the winter tires because it’s too late for that and soon there’ll be the spring whereas I’ll change to the summer wheels.

Last year when we went there with the Ralliart, we had a WOW-experience after exiting the 17km long Gotthard Tunnel. In front of the tunnel there were basically no snow which made us worry that on the other side of the tunnel there won’t be much snow laying around for this drifting event. After exiting the tunnel, everything was white and full of snow. Even the roads were covered in snow. This was a special moment for my fiancée and me, as if we’ve reached the wonder land after trough the portal (Gotthard Tunnel).

Well, this time it wasn’t a WOW-experience, more like a HUH-experience. After we exited the long tunnel, there were green everywhere as if the spring had already arrived. We were very disappointed because we had hoped for a snowy wonder land.

With dampened mood we arrived at the Motel Gotthardo Sud and we wondered if the drift event will really take place because there weren’t any snow. Then at the introduction we were told that they had trouble with the lack of snow and for this event they had to bring snow from another place with 7 trucks. There I thought that I won’t have much fun as I hoped for.

The whole event was divided by 4 sectors:
1. Slalom drift with rolling start
2. Slalom drift with standing start
3. Little Competition
4. Slalom on tarmac

And for concluding the event, there’ll be a final stint through the 3 sectors.

We were divided in 4 groups and every group started at their sectors and after some time we’ll change sectors. I was at the first sector and here we go with the 3hrs fun. Of course because I have my Evo, a rally car, I always drive hard to have maximum fun. I drove sideways and let snow swirling up. This is what I always wanted to do with my Evo. Here are couples of bad pictures and videos from my fiancées smartphone (next time I’ll buy her a proper camera so that she could take higher quality ones).









Then it was time for sector 2 and it was the same as the first one, just I had to start from the stop and every time I put my foot to the metal and all 4 wheels were spinning due to the low profile tires and always hitting the rev limiter. It was fun listening to the exhaust popping and crackling. Here are better videos and pictures from start (recorded by my brother) and from the end (his friend).




At sector 3 it was time for a little competition. The whole group was waiting at a row and 2 of us will have to drive forward to the starting point. At the signal we had to drive through the designated course and whoever stopped at their starting point first wins. There, I saw that I still have to learn a lot to drive my Evo properly in the snow. At the tight corner, I always slid over the bends with lot of understeer (I guess it’s because of bad tires). Also the SST took some time to engage before taking off. There I automatically lost some time and it wasn’t that much fun for me.





Now to the sector 4, to drive on the tarmac and there was time for me to shine. I was able to drive fast through the cones and I had my fun again.



However, after a couple laps I had to stop because the winter tires were too hot and began to greasing heavily. I didn’t want to go too wild to provoke an accident. I had too many sign that it may happen (for example at Hockenheimring).

Here’s a group picture of my Evo and my brother’s friend cars. Of course the Evo had to be in the center as king. I should have removed the remaining snow from the front grille.



When the sector 4 was over, the 4 group were united as a big one and we had to wait until the final course was ready. The team of this event had to replace the cones etc.



It was also very warm as well and the snow mostly molten away and only slush were laying around. I saw that it wouldn’t be feasible to use their course and so I decided myself to use my own one whereas there is enough snow left. In my head I made my own rallye course. There I had my fun and wanted to have two more go but unfortunately it didn’t happen, because…

 

After Snow & Ice Drift Ambri (23.02.2017)

On the last run I destroyed the diffusor. I don’t even know how that happened. I was blasting wildly through the course, but never went off course or crashed in a pile of snow. I only noticed at the exit of the course when I drove on tarmac and heard grinding noises.

I either let too much snow piling up at the diffusor or I drove over something hard. I couldn’t gauge the damage because it was full of dirt and snow. Thanks to the organizer I could borrow the duct tape to fix it temporarily even though it’s way too flashy.

Couple days later, after washing my Evo, I checked the damage. It looked like this when I noticed the grinding noises.



When I removed the rear bumper to dismantle the diffuser it showed this:





On the left side the whole mounting brackets of the diffuser for mounting to the rear bumper were completely ripped off (see black pieces). Luckily the rear bumper was nearly undamaged except some scratches. It was clear that I need to order new diffusor. I’ll try to fix this broken diffusor with rivets or something like that so that I could use it again for the next winter like snow drift or some off road actions. So that I don’t have to worry much if I break it again instead of the new one.

And here is my temporary solution and I drove around like this until my new diffusor arrived.

 

Mod Update 4 – Remove Floor Mats & V-Bar (25.02.2017)

Now, I finally found time to remove the ugly floor mats at the backseat and in the trunk floor. This time I chose to use the conventional method to remove it because I had plastic chisel with me and I wanted to know how well it would work respectively how easy it will be to remove the floor mats. Now it’s hammer time!











Astonishingly, they went out rather well and I had fun hammering it out. The remaining bits I cleaned off with paint thinner. I also weighted the removed stuff: at backseat about 535g and at trunk about 1120g.

I had black Plastidip laying around which I used for Ralliart-project and I sprayed at the v-bar in black first. After that I sprayed over with the newly purchased Deep Blue Pearl color to make it look similar to the CUSCO blue. I was satisfied with the result.







Both covers for the trunk floor will be put on, I didn’t forget those. It was freshly painted and that’s why they were missing on the pictures. I’ll remove the front and center floor mats at a later time when I have more time.

On Thursday March 16th I’ll hand in my Evo to the mechanics for a big modification. I’m already looking forward to it.