EvolutionM - Mitsubishi Lancer and Lancer Evolution Community - Kenny's Evo 5 RS

My story.....Originally posted on the MLR.

Merry Christmas to all my friends on the MLR. I hope you're not getting too bored over Christmas? If you are, allow me to bore you some more. Here's an article I did for a certain Evo magazine recently but unfortunately it was refused. :crackup::handsup: Rather than delete it, here it is. I've tried to make the thread interactive and embedded (any word that's underlined) some random links to various videos from my youtube channel so please feel free to have a look at those when you get a minute from stuffing your faces with turkey and mince pies. :blah:

Kenny1's Evo 5 RS - Throughout the years

This car is the Devil. It weighs 1035 kgs and

This equates to 772bhp per tonne and It accelerates like no other Evo I’ve been in. The throttle feels like a hyperspace button. Step on it, and you're suddenly at the end of the road that was in front of you. It corners harder than I can handle, brakes later than my balls allow and I have to admit for the first time in 11 years of Evo ownership, it’s quicker than me….way quicker.

So where did this car start? I had this car imported in 2007.

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It arrived from the import company with a dismantled roll cage, self tapping screws in the rear bumper, a TME front bumper, a very heavy metal undertray and exhaust guards. It also had what we later found out to be KAAZ gearbox and transfer box diffs which shook the car so much when turning I think it was set up for gravel. Although the paintwork looked nice, for a grade 4 car I was concerned that this had been used as a

for local rallies in Japan. However, with only 36k on the clock I knew this was a good base for what I wanted to do, and what I wanted to do, is compete.

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We took the low mileage engine out and put it in my black GSR before selling it. We then used the block from the GSR to build a 2.4 stroker engine and took it sprinting. Initially, we installed an Evo Green turbo and ran it on an Apexi Power FC ECU with Hotbits suspension. Over time the car had seen many a rolling road

and had upgraded from the Evo Green to an ATP3076 and then to an

. It was pushing out 600bhp and in 2008 and 2009 I competed in

. I entered a sprint championship called the NSCC (Nottingham Sports Car Club) and things were

Lap records were being broken at almost every event and the points were racking up on the championship table. My goal was to win the NSCC, get the

and somehow get an FTD at an

despite being in a full weight road car that I drove to all events.

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I achieved road class lap records at Curborough, Aintree, Thorseby, Llandow and Mira, but I was still quite a noob at sprinting. I had a lot to learn about tyre compounds, especially when it came to

.

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I managed to buy some second hand rally tyres from Gaz at CPP and I tried them out at the MLR

. After a poor start on some 1a tyres in the wet I was way off the pace in practice, but switched from REO70s to Dunlop CR311 X22s and immediately dropped 15 seconds to move into second place behind Wayne at Arnside, with the REAL driving god Knoxville only 100th of a second behind me. The timed runs began and I moved into first place for the first time ever! What the hell was I doing there? It was still early in the day though and I was very aware that Knoxville was only 0.06 behind me. The next session saw me drop right down to 5th place as I had an issue with the car and had to miss a run. Great, just my luck when I was in the lead. The next run saw me move up to 3rd but I was still almost a second behind Gav. I was trying to work out where to find the time. Run 4 saw me go 2 seconds slower as I completely messed up the lap. This wasn’t to be my day and Neverneverman was suddenly breathing down my neck. Run 5 and BOOM….I was back in 1st place with Neverneverman and Gav both within 0.5 of a second behind. Could I hang on to the lead? No. Neverneverman pipped me on the last run by 0.06 and the pressure was on. I had one more run left. Luckily for me I knew exactly where I could make up the time as there was one particular corner I had overshot all day. So off I launched with the aim of doing the whole track as I had before, only braking earlier at the corner I was struggling with. Over the line I went and back into the pits thinking...ah, I’ve not done it. Gutted, but before I even got to the timing screen people were coming up to me saying well done. Slightly stunned I said yeah, 2nd isn’t too bad. “No mate, you’ve won!”. That was my first ever MLR FTD and I couldn’t believe I had done it.

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Success continued in the NSCC championship, and true to form, I won that at the last round in the season and on the last run of the day. Winning the NSCC Championship was great. It’s quite prestige and you get to keep their trophy for a year. Your name is engraved into the trophy and you have to attend a dinner and do a speech if you win. Not my kind of thing but I managed to get through it without collapsing from nervousness on stage.

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Over the next few years I did a variety of MLR sprints, hill climbs and trackdays, but one thing I really wanted to do is win the handling circuit at

. To achieve this in a road car didn’t seem possible and after being dropped by the MLR TOTB team in 2011 I decided to enter as a privateer and give it my best shot. I got my wallet out for a change, bought a Drenth dog-box and had the car mapped on VP Import. Sometimes, feeling aggrieved gets the best out of me.

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With 711bhp and 650ft lbs I certainly had the power to achieve my goal. All of a sudden I had been reinstated in the MLR team and I was sitting on the start line in front of a grandstand with some mental cars as competition. The car was awesome. The response was immense and the grip something else. I managed to just scrape into the top 4 to make it into the semi finals. Things were heating up and when the pressure is on, I tend to excel. The tyres had time to cool and the next run saw the fastest time of the day to get me into the final against Richard Marples in his lightweight monster of an Evo. I won the toss of the coin and decided to go second so I could wait and see if he did a good time. He didn’t. His time was ok but way off my previous time so I just launched off the line and put a brisk but mistake free run in. Composure under pressure is everything. Check out the crazy gigs competition 3 of us seemed to have during the presentations.

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2012 had it’s moments too. After a bad start to the

with my rear diff backing plate broke at the MLR

, my ECU randomly turning on and off at Kames, pistons melting on a rolling road mapping session the night before MIRA and a cam snapping on the way home from Castle Combe, it certainly wasn’t a year of success for me. There was one more sprint left.

has always been a favourite of mine. I like the undulations, the tight twists and turns and the danger of having no run-off whatsoever. Coming from a hill-climbing background the width of this go-kart track felt quite wide compared to what I was used to. I had won my class there a few times previously but never had the overall FTD, and I had never done it in the dark before. Yes, it was a night sprint. With standard Evo 5 lights resembling the power of 2 small candles it wasn’t ideal to say the least. However, the car was ready but not tested. The VP Import map was what we call a guestimap as we had ran out of Sunoco 109 and couldn’t get any more at the last minute. As usual, the geometry hadn’t been done as we always ran out of time but, I packed the car and off we drove to Teesside.

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All my rivals were there. Marples, Neverneverman, Blacky and Liddy. To make things worse Harewood Hillclimb champion Steven Darley was there in the TOTB overall winning car The Banana. To top that off he was doing a dual drive with double Time Attack champ Gavin Renshaw. People often feel intimidated and want to throw in the towel in times like these. How the hell was I going to get FTD against that lot in a car that has been so unreliable all year? Being the underdog spurs me on as I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Bring on the timed laps.

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The timed laps begin, but I don’t. I miss the first run due to an oil leak leaving me to play catchup and the second timed run sees me fly round and do a great lap only for my time not to have been recorded! So back to the start line I go for a rerun with a clutch pedal feeling rather dodgy. I decide to give it a

I stall it like a complete nob. I cruise round and do a 1 minute 37 when the leaders were already in the 53s. Sometimes no matter what you do you just can’t win, but on we plod and on my first effective timed run I manage a 53.4 out of the blue, putting me straight into first place. It didn’t take long before Marples took 2 tenths off that and then Gav did a 52.9 to really put the pressure on. The ups and downs of sprinting! Run 4 sees me go a tenth faster but it’s not enough. I was struggling with the lights and on one run I had forgot to put the full beam on. I tried to turn it on half way round on the back straight only to turn them completely off at about 80mph! Not good, and before I know it I’m sitting back in 3rd place overall and the “Last Lap” board is in front of me. Luckily for me I had a plan. On the last 2 laps I was completely guessing where the braking point was before the chicane and I couldn’t even see the chicane with the high curbs. On run 4 I had gone to the left of them and across the grass, and on run 5 the right. All I had to do is guess where the middle was and smash those curbs as fast and as hard as I dare, so that’s what I did and I got it right. I still have the videos these runs and yes, it really was that dark. Over the line I go and back into the pits with my hands slightly shaking as I’ve never had to hope for the best and guess where the track is. Richard Marples came up to me to ask what time I had done. I looked at my phone and it said 52.65. I was in first place! There was literally no more in me and that car and it’s the closest thing i’ve ever done to a perfect lap. I remember Marples saying to me “Congratulations, I’ve got one more run to go but I’m not beating that!” Both he and Gav had yet to do their final runs but I knew that time was going to be hard to beat. They both went slower and I took the most satisfying win I’ve ever had at a sprint. After a year of problems with the car it really made up for it.

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So, what was next? I had achieved all my goals but it hadn’t all been plain sailing. My wins and records seemed to come randomly due to me driving to the events rather than trailering, and a variety of issues that stopped me getting the best out of the car. Buying a brand new Evo 9 2.2 engine from JAM in America and having it fail within 1 sprint was a huge setback and a massive waste of money that I didn’t have. I’ve had had a variety of very kind sponsors over the years but it was time to move on. I was sick of spending money on repairs rather than upgrades. It was time to speak to Tim Radley at Race Developments to see what he could do for me. Being sponsored by a tuner is great and I was always very grateful for the help even when it didn’t go quite as expected, but the car was always on the back burner whilst customers cars were put first.

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I sold my engine and turbo and decided to start afresh. I bought Tim’s 2.4 stroker engine which he built in late 2012 and decided to upgrade to a Ross Sport 3686 hta. Somehow I managed to persuade a person who I think is the best mapper in the country, Paul Blamire, to map my little sprint car down at Indigo GT’s place. After 2 days of work and 8 hours on the dyno the car was ready for the 2013 season. Indigos dyno isn’t a dyno dynamics so it’s a little different to what I’m used to, but the car managed a crazy figure of 872bhp after nearly pulling itself off the rollers. We guessed this to be more like 800 on a dyno dynamics. That very night we managed to find a private road and did a 30-130 in 6.75 seconds. Things were looking very good.

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On to the first sprint of 2013. Snetterton. After getting the FTD at Teesside could I manage a back to back win? Yep, I certainly could and the Evo FTD was mine. Great...but something was wrong. Despite winning the car didn’t feel right. It was sliding into corners with the tail end hanging out and diagonal drifting out of corners under power. This wasn’t the fastest way to drive and we had to find the problem. Firstly we found a bolt loose on the front driver’s side wishbone arm and secondly we found one of the rear wheels had zero camber on it. Yep, the camber arm was completely at the wrong side. We fixed these issues but still struggled at the next sprint. As I entered the chicane at the

the rear wheels just locked up and the car span despite keeping the steering wheel straight. I gave up on the 2013 season and didn’t bother with the

as the car was just dangerous. I only managed one sprint in 14 at Teesside and span at 90mph into the last bend. After months of trying to find out what the hell was up, we found the problem, but only with the help of an MLR thread.

This was such a simple fix it was ridiculous and it changed the car from having 80% braking at the back, to 80% braking at the front. Back to normal at last!

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I’ve never been one for test days. I usually just turn up and drive, but over the years I’ve learnt this isn’t the best way. The best way to sort out any niggles before an event is to test, and the best way to improve yourself and your times, is to do some test days. After doing quite a few wet trackdays in 2014 it was already 2015 and time to visit my favourite track, Cadwell Park. One of the benefits from all this time off is I had time to spend working on the car myself, and this is the period I made the car light….very light. After a visit to MG Autos for a geo session and weigh in, the car was down from 1353 kgs in 2010 to 1075kgs and I was dying to drive it. Having no trailer licence no towing vehicle and no trailer…..off I drove to Cadwell to see how fast this car was on pump fuel. Good old Grampa Plip.......

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....who had already been a huge help over the years in many ways, had given me some old slicks that he used for test days in 2012. It was time to see if I had completely ruined and upset the balance of this car by stripping it out so much or had I made this little go-kart really quick?

on old tyres and pump fuel meant the latter, but how fast?

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