Neglected to fully inform y'all on Project Evo's most recent testing barrage a few weeks ago, so here are the rest of its test results.
To recap, we were (finally?) testing the AST coilovers by Vorshlag and Bridgestone RE-11 tires:
Skid Pad: 0.99 g
We sent Josh Jacquot out on the skid pad in the Evo with no changes to the alignment, damper settings or ride height we run on the street. With a single tire pressure adjustment, grip crept up from 0.98 to 0.99 g. Bam. Just like that. No other changes.
There's little doubt that the 1.0-g threshold could have been annihilated had we spent more time dialing in the car, but it was a busy test day that did not allow such a luxury.
Recall that Project Evo turned 0.93 g with these very same tires on the stock suspension. As expected, increasing static camber and roll stiffness has definite advantages when it comes to grip.
Notes: "Better balance after tire pressure change, but still lacks stock car's ability to hold slip angle around pad. Overall, understeer balance."
Slalom: 71.3 mph
Slalom speed increased compared to stock (70.3 mph) and with the RE-11s only (69.9 mph) due to the car's improved turn-in and ultimate grip. More than ever, though, the Evo still doesn't like to slalom--the active yaw control system simply can't keep up with the aggressive vector changes induced by the slalom, and adding more mechanical grip has only exacerbated this tendency.
We discussed the car's behavior with the Vorshlag gang. They weren't surprised, having observed the same phenomenon. They suggested some setup changes that would allow it to work well in the slalom, but agreed that such a setup wouldn't have much relevance to real-world or roadcourse duty anyway.
Notes: "Nervous during fast transitions. Wants to spin. Hopefully this setup will work better on the track where the transitions are less radical. Instant turn-in and steering response. Wow!"
And then we re-tested Project Evo's acceleration to quantify the effects of the bigger GT30R turbo. We mostly found frustration. Jump with me.
Armed with a new clutch and more power, our hopes were high. Quickly, though, we realized that there was one very significant obstacle standing in our way of a decent launch--the Evo's stock stationary rev limit. It is now simply too low to serve as a makeshift poor man's launch limiter.
To elaborate, all stock Evos have a secondary rev limiter that kicks in when the car isn't moving. Presumably this is to prevent over-enthusiastic clutch-dumpers from grenading their grippy AWD drivetrains, but it turns out to have some benefit in launching the car, assuming it still has a stock turbo. You wood the gas, the revs hold at 5000 rpm or so, and you quickly but progressively engage the clutch for a hasty escape. Boost builds while you launch and you get a nice holeshot.
Now that we've got a bigger turbo, the stationary rev limit is too low and all you get is a bogged launch or a fried clutch. Our ET suffered as a result of not wanting to do the latter to our brand new ACT clutch. Hence our crappy 12.4 second ET. Trap speed, an indicator of power, rose to 113.4 mph.
We ran a 12.3 at 110 mph in the previous stage of Project Evo's development when it had the same bolt-ons save for the GT30R turbo. Picking up 3.x mph isn't bad at all, but again I'd love to someday feed this thing some octane to truly see its potential.
Mike at RRE says he could reflash the ECU to remove the stationary rev limit, which would allow us to do a proper launch and extract the best out of our current setup. We're going to pass on that since drag racing isn't what Project Evo is all about. Good to know for all you drag racers out there, though.
Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor
subytrojan says:
05:03 PM, 10/27/09
When's it gonna hit the track? :o)
ibognar says:
05:25 PM, 10/27/09
A lot of money for not a lot of additional performance. This car is something special out of the box with a minor tune. You guys have spent a fortune and I'm not seeing much return. Am I misreading the numbers?
church123 says:
05:33 PM, 10/27/09
C'mon, raise the limiter. I doubt you'd need more than 6000 rpm and not only will your ET drop, your trap speed will go up further. I'm pretty sure you can definitely go faster without any detriment to the vehicle.
BTW, what filter are you guys running these days? Have you cleaned it lately? We had a customer with a dirty/old filter and slapping a new one on picked up 20 hp (from 398 to 418 at the hubs).
Anyways, you'll need to be trapping over 115 mph to have a shot at the GTR (you are going to do a shootout before it leaves, right?), so get to it!
joefrompa says:
04:57 AM, 10/28/09
I don't know if you saw it during your 1/4 run, but you passed the law of diminishing returns.
dougtheeng says:
05:43 AM, 10/28/09
you should put the spoiler back on - it looks silly without it.
church123 says:
06:54 AM, 10/28/09
Not really Joe. I've had customers with the same problem (need to launch at a higher rpm) and when they did their times plummeted. The car will run 11's no problem with a higher launch limiter.
spdracerut says:
08:05 AM, 10/28/09
Mitsu got 'smart' starting with the 2005 Evo and put in the stationary rev limiter at 5k rpms. They figured this out after they saw a ton of Evos with only 5k-10k miles on them coming in for new clutches. I know a guy where his clutch only lasted 3k miles... Doesn't help that he was at the drag strip with 500 miles on the car launching off the 7.5k limiter.
If you look at any old comparisons of Evos and STIs, you'll notice the STI always wins off the line because it did not have the stationary limiter.
I agree with Church, it's a mid-high 11-second car, probably trapping around 116-118. Right smack in GTR land. Could always add a little meth injection to up the power some more :)
bankerdanny says:
08:21 AM, 10/28/09
"ibognar says:
05:25 PM, 10/27/09
A lot of money for not a lot of additional performance. This car is something special out of the box with a minor tune. You guys have spent a fortune and I'm not seeing much return. Am I misreading the numbers?"
What we are seeing with this project is pretty consistent with what I have seen with other project vehicles when a car already produces a high specific output and/or handles very well. You can make the car more powerful and faster, but the cost per hp/MPH is high and to see big improvements costs vast amounts of money and severely compromises driveability and/or reliability.
What IL is proving is how good a job Mitsubishi did in the first place.
wongck says:
02:30 PM, 10/28/09
I'm an Evo X owner myself and I am not convinced that you guys went with the most economical way as far as upgrading your Evo. I am sure that many other Evo Xs around the area with a properly dialed-in suspension and a decent tune (my own included) can achieve about 90% of the performance you have achieved at about half the cost. Similarly, other Evo Xs with a similar-sized budget that is more judiciously allocated can probably drive circles around your car. I think that would make a pretty interesting comparison test
fstclyz says:
02:31 PM, 10/28/09
Adjusting the rev limiter only takes a lap top and free software. It can be done in less than 5 min. DO IT.
spdracerut says:
02:57 PM, 10/28/09
wongck, it's always the last 10% that cost the most ;)
As for others spending the same money and driving circles around it? I HIGHLY doubt that, not without compromises. This Evo has all the typical basic bolt-ons as far as suspension and power. There's not exactly any place to go 'cheaper' without sacrificing quality or streetability or something.
The AST suspension cost is not that far out there, only a bit more than KW. I wouldn't go with anything less than KW. The intake is AEM, basic and CARB legal. The IC piping, IC, downpipe, exhaust is all AMS and none of those are very expensive compared to the competition. Cams are Cosworth, and I'd say that X owners either have these or Kelfords. Turbo is the Garrett, and I'm guessing they went with it due to the big turbine housing to make max power on 91 crap; all the other drop-in turbos are limited to the stock/small turbine housing. Using a basic ACT clutch, way cheaper than a twin disk Exedy or something.
I guess they could've skipped on the wheels... otherwise, there's not much else I'd do differently. I'm curious as to how one would build the car to a similar price and drive cirlces around it. Meth not included, 91 oct only.
church123 says:
03:56 PM, 10/28/09
wongck has a point spdracerut. I won't comment on the suspension, except to say that a set of swaybars probably would have done 90% of what the shocks did for about a tenth of the money (and probably helped with the understeer). I don't underestimate the value of good coilovers (I have Motons on my race car), but they generally aren't good _return on the dollar_ for street cars, especially street cars that have good suspensions to begin with.
Where wongck really makes sense is on the power end of things. A lot less money could have been spent there for similar or better results. We have an FPRed, ID 1000cc injectors, an ultimate racing turbo back exhaust, a drop in filter and a 3port boost solenoid on one of my employee's EvoXs. Outside of tuning, that's a total investment of well under $3k in power parts (less if you shop deals). Versus his car stock, he's up by 120 lbs-ft of torque and 160 hp. This is on CA 91 octane, no meth injection, etc. Our dyno reads very close to RREs (stock Evo X at 260 hp) so the deltas are comparable. The example I've detailed also makes peak torque by 3800 rpm, barely later than the stock EvoX (untuned does). In fact, by the time the stock car hits its torque peak at 3500 rpm, the tuned car with FPRed has already surpassed it. This car, on a stock clutch and also with the launch limiter set to low (and 30 hp less at the time) trapped about as fast as the Edmunds car did at Fontana, so the acceleration performance is clearly similar (his ET was horrible due to the crappy launch)
So it isn't so much how good the parts the Edmunds car has are, but whether or not they're really needed. The GT30 upgrade is about twice the street price ($2k vs. $1k) of the FPRed for example, and it spools up later. Plus, you can't really take advantage of its capabilities on CA 91. You really don't need an air intake on these cars below 400 whp. Intercooler pipes are unnecessary (not saying they don't offer benefits). Hopefully I've articulated the point by now. RRE worked their asses off to get everything they could from this car, but given the limitations of pump gas and the sum of the parts, there wasn't much more in it and what it had can be matched for less money.
spdracerut says:
08:34 PM, 10/28/09
I agree with 90% for a lot less money, but you know as well as I do that the last few percent comes with an exponential increase in cost.
I also agree that IC pipes are practically unnecessary at these power levels. Not quite a direct comparison with your employee's car though as he has a $1k Full-Race manifold and is running a test pipe.
The point of this build though was to match a GTR, no budget implied, with the restriction of staying a 'street' car. If you're not up to the point of matching the GTR, you have to do what is necessary to try to gain improvements with the limitation of 91 oct. and a cat (on the power side).
Probably could have done an exhaust, some cams, intake, stock turbo, run E85, put on some slicks and beat the GTR. Would have been a lot cheaper :)
spdracerut says:
08:40 PM, 10/28/09
Oh, with regards to suspension, I only had front camber plates, rear trailing arm and bump steer correction bushings on my Evo. Good gains, and cheap :) So I do know where you're coming from.
church123 says:
05:00 AM, 10/29/09
No major gains on the full race manifold yet (going for $700 now :). I have the exact same setup on my EvoX sans manifold. Little more torque, little less power and we're going to try a couple tuning tweaks next week to see if we can make up the diff. Should be able to make it up with an intercooler for half the money though. Full Race does beautiful stuff, but at this power level with a small turbo, not sure if there will be much available over stock.
As for the test pipe, its just a matter of cost. With a race cat you tap out at about 360-370 whp unless you want to step up to a really expensive setup. That's always going to be a hurdle against something like the GTR which gets to run 2 parallel cats handling far less power each. Besides, removing the cat ups mileage by about 10%. Dirtier emissions, but less gas burned ;) Point being, if you're going to keep the cat, then an FPRed is a questionable purchase. A GT30 is near pointless.
cr_driver says:
10:44 AM, 10/29/09
DO IT. DO IT, DO IT, JUST DO IT. OK. Remove the stationary rev limit.
wongck says:
11:47 AM, 10/29/09
spdracerut, I agree that the less 10% is the hardest to squeeze out, and in a competitive Time Attack car, every little bit counts. I guess to me, the most vexxing issue is that the car just doesn't seem to handle or ride the way anybody wants to. Like Mr. Church said, swaybars are completely overlooked in this project when they've been proven to successful and significantly help with understeer and turn-in.
If they've taken their car to Road Race Engineering for power, then they might as well take their car to Muellerized (friends with RRE) to get some recommendations on the suspension set-up. I'm not even sure if the car is corner-balanced since they've made no mention of it. Proper set-up is just as important (if not more important) as getting quality parts, and I feel like they're lacking the former.
Lastly, I am not convinced that the wheel/tire combo they went with is the best. Most of the track Evo X's run very aggressive offset (wider track) which not only looks great but helps with turn-in. There was some justification as to why this particular offset was chosen but I question whether the trade-off was worth it or not. As for tires, Nitto NT05 or Dunlop Direzza Star Specs will probably edge out the RE-11s on a track, though at this point maybe I'm splitting hairs.
Overall I feel like the car is just a sum of its parts, which is a bit disappointing considering the potential it has. Coupled with the fact that Project Evo entries are updated about once a month, I can't help but feel that it has been mostly abandoned by the staff.
wongck says:
11:48 AM, 10/29/09
spdracerut, I agree that the less 10% is the hardest to squeeze out, and in a competitive Time Attack car, every little bit counts. I guess to me, the most vexxing issue is that the car just doesn't seem to handle or ride the way anybody wants to. Like Mr. Church said, swaybars are completely overlooked in this project when they've been proven to successful and significantly help with understeer and turn-in.
If they've taken their car to Road Race Engineering for power, then they might as well take their car to Muellerized (friends with RRE) to get some recommendations on the suspension set-up. I'm not even sure if the car is corner-balanced since they've made no mention of it. Proper set-up is just as important (if not more important) as getting quality parts, and I feel like they're lacking the former.
Lastly, I am not convinced that the wheel/tire combo they went with is the best. Most of the track Evo X's run very aggressive offset (wider track) which not only looks great but helps with turn-in. There was some justification as to why this particular offset was chosen but I question whether the trade-off was worth it or not. As for tires, Nitto NT05 or Dunlop Direzza Star Specs will probably edge out the RE-11s on a track, though at this point maybe I'm splitting hairs.
Overall I feel like the car is just a sum of its parts, which is a bit disappointing considering the potential it has. Coupled with the fact that Project Evo entries are updated about once a month, I can't help but feel that it has been mostly abandoned by the staff.
jondimellow says:
07:11 PM, 10/29/09
E85..... E85....
farmerbob says:
10:15 PM, 10/29/09
If you went for a smaller, faster spooling turbo like the FP Red, you could probably be in the 10.80 1/4 mile range by now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCy-A5cux8w&feature=related
These guys did this 10.79 1/4 mile run in their EvoX several months back now.
I've heard good things about the Blouch Dominator Turbo also. How much did you spend on this larger Garrett turbo, and labor to get it all installed and tuned?
church123 says:
09:03 AM, 10/30/09
farmerbob, BVP's car was gutted which goes a long way in a heavy car like the X. I'm guessing 200 lbs easily. I believe it was also on race gas. Mid 11's as pointed out by others seems a more reasonable time with a proper launch.
church123 says:
02:51 PM, 10/30/09
Oh, and the GT30 retails for a hair over $2k while the FPRed retails for $1300 and can be gotten as cheap as $1100. Install should run the same either way - takes about 6 hours to install the turbo (some guys quicker, some slower).