After many years I finally bought an Evo X, I owned an '08 WRX and '15 STI in the past but always wanted to get an Evo X since they came out. Pick up this project at the beginning of May, previous owner stated the one time they were not driving hard the car broke. They were at a red light and left normally first to second and had the transmission/tcase failure. My wife is definitely great, she was on board with me selling my boring '16 Mazda6 to fund this purchase. We had to go down to 1 car but I have a motorcycle and work remote so don't have to worry about a commute.

I wanted something that didn't have major rust, reasonable price for mods/car condition, GSR and had to have a clean title. I really wanted a WW Evo X, but those were not popping up at the time unless it was an MR, branded title or something else.
Had 7 previous owners, originated in Louisville, KY and made it's way down to FL and up to IL where I bought it.
Car has 150k miles
Bolt ons (AMS DP, Tomei titanium single exit, Walbro 450, 1000cc injectors, FA coilovers, fairly new Exedy twin disc clutch, ETS intake, ETS intercooler)
Stage 2 Shep Trans transfer case (March 2021)
Tuned on e85 only by Slowpoke Tuning
Dynojet: 400whp/385tq

Compression tested
#1: 134
#2: 130
#3: 125
#4: 113

The bad:
Transmission casing cracked
Transfer case mounting hole damaged
2 big cracks on exhaust manifold
Exhaust side of turbo appears to be cracked
Leaking rear diff
Cracked windshield
Driver fender cracked
Front bumper/trim cracked
Where fenders were rolled they need to be repainted, light rust is appearing


Goals:
Reliable fun daily, possible AutoX and/or track day
Rebuild motor
~450-500whp, I don't need anything too crazy, but I'll enjoy where the car is for now
Wrap car in a white metallic of some sort
Powder coat wheels purple (been promising my wife for years that she'll get purple wheels)















I have entirely too many projects going on, I get a couple of hours here and there to work on the car. I finally got the transmission and tcase pulled early August and shipped the tcase to Shep Trans for a new casing/rebuild.
Don't judge too hard on the wood/support bar set up.






Took long than expected, had a friend coach me on the best way to get it out. I had to lower the engine slightly to give it a lean and it slid out without too much trouble.









Here is the damage, I suspect the bolts were not properly tightened after the clutch replacement or missing bolts. I found the bolts on top of the tcase were missing. The tcase appears to flex and punching the transmission case, luckily it does not look like the block has been damaged.











Tackling the damaged bumper, it needs a lot of love. I didn't want to spend ~$250 for the black trim piece, so I got the chrome instead. No problem with that! We'll paint it and make it look better, I'll be painting other parts of the bumper to match the black as well.
Fixed the lower deflector with some plastic JB Weld
I also picked up a plastic welder to fully fix the bumper crack












Previous owner attempted to repaint the hood scoop a few times but it kept failing on him. I'll need to sanded it down and prep, hopefully I can sort out a solution for the high heat. I thought it was aluminum and planned to powder coat, but it's plastic








I picked up some cheap Konig Hypergrams 18x10.5 and a friend offloaded his old RE71s for me to use.
I liked the Konig's, but really wanted NT03s and the same friend had a set. He didn't really care what his wheels looked like so we traded!!











Just a few things on the shelf, I have all new fluids and other things coming to complete all the maintenance for the car. I hope to get the tcase back in the next week or 2.

 

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For future post

 

One more spot

 

Looks like a solid project! That t-case tho, ouch...