It was full of customers with their roadsters and coupes as well as the newest F5 kit, the mid-engined GTM.

While I am sure that this rankles Carol Shelby to no end the participants were really enjoying themselves.  Lined up with their completed cars, trading stories and experiences, they were having a great time.

The variations of the roadsters is amazing.  I complete the Factory Five build school back in 2005 and am still fascinated by the variety of ways that people can, and have, made their version very special and unique.

One guy had added some square bumps to his trunk lid because he had learned that when the team had showed up at LeMans to run they were confronted with a requirement that the trunk have a suitcase in it.  The story goes that they put the standard suitcase in the trunk and slammed the lid a few times until the aluminum bent enough to fit, leaving the impressions of the corners of the suitcase in the trunk lid.

The GTM cars were spectacular to look over.  So much ingenuity went into each build.  Many builders used the Z06 suspensions and as a result they had to enlarge the fenders to accommodate the larger wheels and tires.  They also added scoops to provide additional intake to the engine.  They then added a scoop to the roof in order to gain additional cooling air in to the interior of the car.

Browsing the coupes, I met Willie Hough who not only brought his own coupe, but he manufactured the scoops and larger fenders for the GTM cars.

Willie, it turned out, knew John Harkness, and old friend of mine who used to own a shop in Marblehead, MA that I would used to balance and line bore engines for me.  Willie told me how he first met John and how John got him involved in racing.  They both worked on the TransAm team of Sam Posey in the 70's.  It's always surprising how connected the racing community is.

There was a dyno at the show and owners were taking advantage of that to see just what kind of numbers their cars were putting out.  It also meant that the crowd was treated to the roar of the big V8 engines as they strained to get the rollers spinning.

The event had a huge turnout and it was fun to see all the enthusiastic owners and admirers.  It was a hot day and along toward mid-day I jumped back into my Evo and headed back to the Cape where I will spend the next couple of weeks.

Starting with a 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII MR my quest was to put together a high performance street car that I could take to a road racing track and find out what it was made of.

This entry is an explanation of what modifications I made to the basic car and why.  Just about all of them I would not change. 

I had previous experience with turbo cars and the Mitsubishi's 4G63 engine.  I found that turbocharged cars really respond to opening up the intake and exhaust.  I also came to realize that the 4G63 is quite a stout engine.  It has a lot of capacity in terms of power over the stock rating.

My first modification was to exchange the stock exhaust system after the cat for a Greddy Titanium system that weighs in at about nine pounds versus the fifty-five pounds of the stock system.  Then I changed out the stock air filter element for one by K&N.  My research showed me that the stock air intake design would work well even up to 400 hp.  It is a good design that pulls cooler air right from the area at the front of the hood.  I also got a reflash for the car's ECU that allowed the mods to free up thirty or more horse power.

That was a good enough start and I then concentrated on the car's handling.  The MR has a fantastic suspension to start with.  Bilstein shocks and struts along with some complementary springs provide a better ride than the standard GSR version yet loses nothing in terms of handling.  So I chose to find ways to further stiffen up the already ridged chassis.  First I found that Mistsubishi's parts bin had a nice aluminum rear strut brace as well as a "trunk bar" that stiffened up behind the rear of the trunk.

The front suspension came with a pair of bars that do a very good job of keeping the lower suspension mounts from flexing, but I found a much more complex brace made up of stainless steel to replace the two bars with.

The rear anti-roll bar was replaced by an adjustable unit from Road Race Engineering.  Since the new rear bar came with poly bushings I replaced the stock front bushings with poly as well.  They squeak a bit, even with plenty of synthetic grease applied, but that is something I can live with.

Road Race Engineering recommended Project Mu Blue brake pads for the street and I picked up a set of Brembo rotors to go with them.  I use Ate brake fluid, alternating between the yellow and the blue. 

Eventually I chose to replace the springs with something that would drop the car just a bit, but not compromise the ride.  I chose Swift Springs from MachV.  When you change the ride height you must not ignore the other changes like the front roll center drop that comes along with it.  Fortunately Whiteline makes a couple of kits to address that problem as well as rear bump steer.  With all that I ended up with a reduction of 1.4" in the front and 0.8" in the rear.  My friends evaluated the ride and pronounced that it was a better ride than stock as well as providing better cornering capabilities.  Naturally I did an alignment to go with the change and found having negative two degrees camber on all four corners with zero toe in front was perfect.  The rear toe was 1/16" total.

By that time I had given up on the Yokohama Advan tires that Mitsubishi sold the car with.  I went through three sets and while I found them very sticky, they were also noisy and got very sensitive to steering input as they lost tread. They were replaced with Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R tires that are also very sticky, cheaper, quiet, and have better tread wear.  Nitrogen keeps them round.

Power, can you ever have enough?  With the suspension sorted out and top braking capabilities I decided to upgrade the intercooler with a new Greddy unit that was much larger than stock, with no modification of the bumper or cover to fit.  The downpipe was replaced by a Tanabe unit from Road Race Engineering again as well as a high flow cat.  GSC Stage 1 cams replaced the stock pair.  These kinds of mods also require an upgrade to the fuel pump to a Walbro 255 lph pump.  The Evos from 2006 came with a metal version of the recirculation valve (often called a BOV) so I replaced my plastic one with a metal version.  An ECU tune from Jestr made the most of all those modifications producing on the order of 400 wheel horsepower.

When I take the car to a road racing track I swap out the street rotors and pads for a set of nice stock rotors and Raybestos ST-42 pads.  I always freshen up the brake fluid before an event.

Aerodynamics were also considered to complement all the other modifications.  Mitsubishi had a "wicker bill" that I added to the rear wing and the front got a JDM carbon fiber front lip installed.  In the rear an APR rear aero diffuser was put in place to clean up the air flow under the car.

On the cosmetic side I changed out the headlights and tail lights for some ones from an UK version MR.  In the US the lights had a lot of chrome in them and I preferred the black surrounds along with amber turn signal lenses.  The headlights required that I swapped the US HID shields for the UK ones as they were originally made for right hand drive cars and would blind on coming drivers if not changed out.

So how is the car with these changes?  It is fast and handles very well.  The exhaust is a bit loud, but not bad.  The ride is excellent and the car is very drivable around town in traffic.  At idle the cams provide a gentle lope that could probably be dispensed with if I turned up the idle.  I have taken the car on a 3000 mile road trip since the latest modifications and had it on a road racing track for two days.  It has excellent manners in both situations and is a blast to take to its limits.

There is always the temptation to "just tweek it a little more", but I think I'll pretty much keep it where it is now.  It is a nice balance between a street car and a track car.

Any questions?

The Evolution is going through more changes.  True to its name it is evolving into a car that capitalizes upon its starting point and is becoming more of what it is.  So what is the Mitsubishi Evolution?  Its heart and soul is that of a rally car.  About thirty years ago Mitsubishi crafted a Lancer into a very competitive rally car and continued the evolutionary process through today.

Mitsubishi had some very successful years with their rally cars and in the late nineties they won the WRC four years in a row.  It also produced a street version of its rally car and named it the Lancer Evolution.  Versions I through VII were never sold through the dealerships in America, even though they were in Europe and Japan.

In 1999 I spent a few months in Scotland and enjoyed being able to view television coverage of rally competition as well as read the car magazines' reviews of the Evolution VI and VII, never dreaming that an Evolution would be offered in the US.  A year later and the new came out that Subaru would be bringing the WRX to these shores.  That was Subaru's version of a rally car for the street.  It was soon followed by the STi version with even more power and handling.  In 2003 the eighth iteration of the Evolution was finally delivered to Mitsubishi showrooms in the U.S.  In 2005 the MR version was added to the lineup of Evolutions and I snapped one up.

That year an active center differential (ACD) was added to the suspension technology that included all wheel drive (AWD), front and rear limited slip differentials (LSD), and aggressively tuned spring rates and shock valving.  The brakes were incredible Brembo calipers on huge rotors at all four corners.  The brakes have four "pots" on the front calipers and two on the rear.  These "pots" are the pistons that push against the brake pads.  Typical disc brake systems will have calipers with only one "pot" or piston that presses on one side's pad and the other side is forced together much like a "C" clamp does as you screw in the one side.  This single piston design is very efficient and economical to produce, but when braking capability becomes critical, having direct pressure on both sides of the rotor is far more effective.

The Evolution was shod with some very sticky tires, too.  Mitsubishi chose to design their street suspension around the Yokahama Advan tires that provide fantastic grip as well as precipitous wear.  Most Evo drivers are lucky to get 12,000 mile out of a set.  While they erase away their tread they are certainly having the time of their lives.

The Evolution is unibody construction, which means that it doesn't mount the body on a separate frame, but designs the body as a frame itself.  This means that the car is far lighter than it would be if it had a separate frame.  Typically car manufacturers will spot weld these unibody structure together and the Evo is also spot welded.  It is just that the Evolution line is welded a whole lot more than the Lancer would normally be.  Structural stiffness is therefore multiplied which translates into far more precise handling.

The suspension is designed to keep the tires in the best contact with the road possible.  That is critical to taking corners briskly and being able to control braking.  They chose McPherson struts on all four corners with multi-link suspension.  The control arms and suspension links are forged aluminum for strength and to save weight.  If you put a ping pong ball in your hand and waved it around you would find it easier to do than if it was made of lead.  By keeping the weight of the linkages down the suspension components can move faster and provide a more responsive driving experience. 

The MR version came with Bilstein struts (spring dampeners for those of you from the UK).  The Bilstein folks have been designing struts and shock absorbers for decades and are known for the highest quality and engineering.  They did a fantastic job with the design used on the MR.  It provided a more comfortable ride than the standard Evo (the GSR) and yet turned better lap times than the more aggressively sprung GSR.

Aluminum is used on more than the suspension.  The front fenders and hood use this light weight material and the MR version gets an aluminum roof to contribute to a lower center of gravity.

Great, you say, so why change a good thing?  Perhaps it is a sick compulsion of mine to constantly see an opportunity to tweak a good thing into a better thing.  Believe it or not I do restrain myself.  There are Evolution owners out there that have really gone over the top.  There are at least a half a dozen Evolutions in the U.S. that have over 1000 horse power to the wheels.  There are several in the area that are in excess of 500 hp and are probably more suited for track use than commuting to work in.

My goal was to take advantage of opportunities inherent in the Evolution to increase power and handling without destroying the car's street manners.  In the UK dealers are able to offer versions of the Evolution beyond what comes out of the Mitsubishi factory in Japan.  These are cars with more horse power and extra handling tweaks.  They are called the FQ series.  FQ stand for, well, Fucking Quick.  There is the FQ320, FQ340, and in 2005 came the FQ400.  This version was made famous on the British television series called Top Gear where the FQ400 trounced a Lamborghini Murcielago.  This was one very impressive Evolution, but it was not practical for daily driving as the clutch was more of a trigger and it consumed petrol and tires at an astounding rate.  The following year the same developers came out with the FQ360.  It was still an impressive performance version of the Evo, but far more practical as a daily driver.

So my goal was to convert my Evolution VIII MR into a U.S. version of the FQ360.  I wanted to enhance the handling and take advantage of the power potential lurking behind all the stock bits.  I say U.S. version because the American Evolutions were not imported with active yaw control (AYC) as the British and Japanese versions were.  While that gives me a slight disadvantage, there were plenty of opportunities to enhance despite that missing piece.

First off I researched the suspension modifications that would make sense.  The Evolution is a very popular vehicle for tuners so there are all kinds of suspension upgrades out there to choose from.  Not all of them are improvements and often one change that shows potential can actually end up having a negative effect.  

I was particularly concerned about the effects of springs that would lower the car's ride height.  Normally you would consider lowering a car would be of benefit since it lowers the center of gravity, and it does.  But it also results in changes in the angles of the suspension links and lowers the roll center of the car at the same time.  The roll center is a point where the suspension angles converge and forms the basis for the roll axis, or the point on which the car's body rotates as it leans going around a corner.  If this point drops too low it can even be below ground level and then bad things happen.  Even though the center of gravity is lower the car will handle with understeer and "push" its way through a corner instead of gliding around in a balanced fashion.

I first settled on springs made by a company called RSR that were made of a light weight titanium alloy.  They provided a modest lowering while keeping the unsprung weight to a minimum.  Unfortunately there was a problem with the distribution channel and they suddenly became unavailable.  Fortunately there was another option by Swift Springs.  They are another light weight spring that lowered the car 1.4" in the front and 0.8" in the rear. 

In order to be certain that the lowered stance didn't cause me problems with the roll center being too low I ordered up a kit from Whiteline that brought the roll center up by replacing the lower ball joints and outer tie rod ends.  I also installed a bump steer correction kit for the rear of the car.  Bump steer occurs when the car goes over a bump and the direction of the tire is forced by the suspension geometry either in or out instead of staying parallel to the centerline of the body.  The Whiteline folks are out of Australia and have many fine suspension products.

Tires are a key component to any car's handling.  The Yokahama Advans were too noisy and wore quickly.  I decided to check out my options on Tire Rack's site and found Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R to be an excellent replacement.  They are very sticky and far quieter.  I'll let you know about the wear as time goes on.

I had previously added an adjustable rear anti-roll bar as well as additional chassis bracing in the form of a rear strut tower brace as well as a trunk bar both from Mitsubishi.

With the suspension bit on and a proper alignment it was time to see what kind of power was lurking in the engine.  Mitsubishi has already out together a very potent 2 liter engine right out of the box.  This engine, known as the 4G63, has been around for enough years that its power secrets are well known.  Like most turbocharged engines it responds to freeing up the intake and the exhaust with more power.  

I had previously gone to a "cat-back" exhaust from Greddy early in the car's life.  The Greddy item was all titanium so that meant it was very strong and very light.  It is so light that the 49 pounds of parts that it replaced now only weighed 9 pounds.  To further enhance the exhaust I replaced the downpipe with a larger diameter unit by Tanabe that I purchased from Road Race Engineering when I was out in California last June.  Between those two pieces I replaced the stock catalytic converter with a high flow version.   I wrapped the downpipe with exhaust wrap to hold the heat in and muffle the sound some.  It is beneficial to keep the heat in so that the flow out of the exhaust system maintains its speed. 

On the intake side there was not a lot to be done with the stock air filter box other than replace the filter element with a K&N drop in element.  Some Evo owners have gone to a larger cone filter, but that has some drawbacks.  The stock air intake is designed to ensure that the engine inhales cold air from outside the engine compartment.  A cone filter would have to be isolated from the heat pouring out of the radiator and the engine compartment.  Due to the increased turbulence generated by a cone filter the mass airflow sensor (MAS) is often confused and provides the wrong information to the engine control unit (ECU).

The next step was to upgrade the cam shafts.  This can be a tricky proposition as the wrong choice can result in an engine that only performs in an rpm range that is not suited to a daily driver.  I researched what options were out there looking for cams that would provide excellent mid-range power so that the car would not be torture to drive in urban traffic, yet would come on like gang busters when it was needed.  My choice was a set from GSX Power Division.  They are out of Charleston, SC, and offer a stage one set that did just that.  It didn't require an upgrade to the valve train either.  By upgrade I mean the valve springs and retainers, which often must be upgraded with high performance cams.

Finally I decided to upgrade the front mount intercooler as well.  The factory unit is basically very large.  It is far larger than any intercooler that was offered on Mitsubishi cars prior to the Evolution.  Since I live in a part of the country that gets mighty hot in the summer I decided to give my engine every advantage in terms of a cool intake charge of air that I could.  Greddy makes a much larger front mount intercooler that bolts up in the stock location and doesn't require any cutting or welding.  It also comes with larger diameter piping that ensures that boost pressure is not lost.

A couple of weekends ago a friend of mine and I tackled the job of putting on all of the power mods.  Since the car has about 45,000 miles on the odometer it was a good time to replace the timing belt, balance shaft belt, and associated pulleys.  This normally is scheduled for 60,000 miles, but it made sense to do it early.  I also replaced the serpentine belt that drives all the accessories.

While Doug tackled the timing belt and cams I worked on the intercooler and exhaust parts.  Thank goodness Jim's Garage has a lift.  It makes life easier for everyone.

The front bumper cover came off as well as the pan under the engine area.  Then the bumper itself was removed.  While Doug worked on the cams I rolled under and removed the downpipe and catalytic converter as one unit and worked to install the new downpipe and cat.  Stainless steel metric bolts were used to connect up the exhaust system and then, when it was all tight, a second nut was added to each bolt to ensure that vibration didn't loosen things up.

Doug is not only very experienced with 4G63 engines, he is also very methodical, which is why I was fortunate to have his help.  We took our time and over a twelve hour period we swapped out the old cams for the new ones, installed cam gears and cam seals, installed the balance shaft belt, timing belt and new pulleys, and put the engine all back together.  There was a bit of drama when oil leaked out of the bolts that held the tensioner to the engine block.  That was remedied with the application of thread sealant on the bolt threads. 

Then the new intercooler was fitted and the bumper re-installed.  With the Greddy intercooler kit came new piping including a replacement for the pressure side of the turbocharger.  The new pipe omitted a small tube that the old pipe had so that pressure could be monitored.  This monitor point was used by the car's ECU to control how much boost pressure was applied.  The Greddy folks supplied additional tubing and a new place to hook the monitor to that was off the tubing that controlled the boost recirculation valve (often called the BOV or blow off valve).  Later, on a test run with the car I discovered that the turbo wasn't producing much more than half a bar (about seven pounds) of boost.  A quick check of the old short piece of vacuum hose showed that it contained a small orifice in it.  Once the metal orifice was moved to the re-routed hose the ECU was able to produce normal levels of boost pressure in the 1-1.5 bar range (19-22 lbs.).

The ECU also received a re-flash that we got from one of the best tuners around, called Jestr (yes, that's how it's spelled) Tuning.  The changes ended up a success.  The handling is fantastic and the power is unbelievable.  While we haven't had it on a dyno it is likely at least 360 hp to the wheels and plenty of torque to match.

This has been a lot of fun and it is especially fun when things turn out as you hope they would.  With a little more tuning of the ECU we should be ready for some track time as well as some road trips.

This time the project is my personal car.  It is a 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII MR.  It is a long moniker that I usually just shorten to Evo or MR.

This is a car I truly have enjoyed.  The fact that it is an MR edition means that it has a few extras over the GSR (or standard) model of the Evolution.  First, it is limited in numbers.  Only 850 MR versions were made in 2005.  It comes with a six speed instead of the five gears on the GSR.  It has some nice extras on the inside consisting of a gauge set and some nice aluminum pedals.  There is some carbon fiber bling such as the parking brake handle.  The MR came with a unique Bilstein suspension that provides a great ride and yet exceptional cornering.  It also has a vortex generator on the back edge of the roof to enhance the downforce created by the rear wing.  The roof is aluminum so no sunroof is allowed on an MR.

While it is a fantastic car out of the box there are always things that could be improved.  I had already replaced the rear anti-roll bar with an adjustable unit.  I bought the Mitsubishi rear strut tower brace (the front comes with a brace) and added a trunk bar that came on the RS version of the Evolution.  Then I replaced the lower front suspension braces with a more triangulated unit.

This was good enough to go through three sets of Yokahama Advan tires, but I wanted a bit more.  So this week we installed a set of springs that would change the stance of the car and provide some additional stiffness.  They are from a company called Swift Springs and are very light weight using a proprietary alloy that results in a smaller diameter spring wire.  This means more suspension travel before spring bind and lower unsprung weight.

 These springs lowered the car a little more than an inch in the front and just less than an inch in the rear.  Generally lowering a car means that the center of gravity is lowered producing a "good" effect.  Unfortunately lowering the car changes the geometry of the suspension linkage and can result in more understeer because the roll center has been lowered as well. 

To counter this problem we used a kit engineered and sold by Whiteline of Australia.  It consists of replacement tie rod ends and control arm ball joints that return the geometry to angles that will keep the roll center up where it belongs.  Whiteline also makes a kit to eliminate the bumpsteer caused by the geometry of the rear control arms. 

The first order of business was to remove the wheels and get the car in the air.  Fortunately Jim's Garage has a lift that safely gets the car up to a decent working height.  Then we emptied the trunk of the few items that were in it and removed the trim panels so we could gain access to the rear strut bolts.

With that done we moved to the front of the car and swapped out the tie rod ends.  It is nice to work on a relatively new car that has not been exposed to the ravages of snowy, salted roads.  The ends were easy to unbolt and drive out of the steering knuckles.  The jam nut was loosened and white out was used to mark the position of the original tie rod end so that the Whiteline replacement would be set to that same position.  The car would still require an alignment, but this would get it somewhat close.  The old end unscrews and the new one screws on in its place. The jam nut is tightened and the end is bolted to the steering knuckle.

The control arm ball joint replacement was a much more involved process.  Mitsubishi designs it so that if the original ball joint needs to be replaced, the whole control arm assembly is replaced.  This is a forged aluminum unit that would not be cheap to replace.  We had to press out the original ball joint, but because it was made to be part of the assembly we had to remove the aluminum that was peened over the back side of the joint.  Then we used a press to push the ball joint out of the arm.  A press was also needed to install the new ball joint.  One critical step was to make sure that the indentation on the ball joint was facing the right way.  This is to ensure that the cross bolt that holds it to the steering knuckle can lock in the ball joint.

Before the yellow boot is pressed on the new ball joint, additional grease was added to the ball joint.  Then the assembly was reinstalled in the car.  The bolts holding the arm to the chassis require about 130 lb/ft of torque so be certain you don't just hold an air gun to them.

In the rear we added the bump steer kit by Whiteline.  This changes the pivot point on the rear track arm so that when the rear deflects as it crosses a bump it doesn't pull the wheel inward and, in effect, steer the car from the rear.

Next to tackle were the springs.  We started with the front springs by loosening and removing the two large strut bolts.  Be sure to note that the top bolt has special flats on it so that you can swap it around to change the camber setting.  With that disconnected we removed the three nuts on the top of the assembly from the engine compartment.

We then needed to compress the springs so that we could take everything apart.  We have used various types of spring compressors over the years but we think we have found one that we really like for its simplicity and safety.  It is a floor stand unit that uses a hydraulic ram to compress with.  It has nice hooks that adjust to the angle of the springs as it compresses them.

With this it was easy to swap springs and then get the assemblies back together.  The front bump stops needed to be trimmed by one hump while the rear bump stops stayed whole.

It was pretty exciting to get the strut assemblies back together with the new springs and then installed in the car.  The next step was to get everything aligned.

While we don't have our own alignment rack we are fortunate to be close to a shop that is not biased against modified cars.  Some shops have had problems with cars that have been poorly modified and then safety issues crop up.  This shop won't let unsafe modifications on to its rack, but will accommodate properly done suspension changes.

I had the rear toe and camber set as well as the front.  That allowed me to drive off feeling confident that I would not be trashing my relatively new tires.

The results?  I like the change.  The car has good road manners.  It is firmer, but not at all harsh.  I have no problems with scraping while entering a driveway.  Cornering feels flat and very predictable.  Some track time will confirm these initial positive reactions.

The Honda Civic spent another week in Jim's Garage to get some miles subtracted.

The owner had found that the front brakes were vibrating after some hard stops.  We had replaced the rear brakes, but the fronts were stock.  The front pads had a lot of miles left on them, but after taking the car for a test drive we had to agree that there was too much vibration in the front when braking.

One of the tests we tried was to try stopping the car with just the emergency brake.  This would use the rear drum brakes exclusively and tell us if the rears were the source of vibration.  They were not.

As we looked over the car we had to face the reality of 145,000 miles and what that meant in terms of wear on the front ball joints and the axle assemblies with their CV (constant velocity) joints.  The upper ball joints came with a new upper control arm for both sides.  The lower ball joints would need to be removed from the front hub.  That meant that the whole front hub would need to be disassembled from the suspension.

It was a good time to replace the axles as well.  While we knew we could obtain the ball joints and axles from a local parts house we also knew that the best axle assemblies would come from Raxles out of Florida.  I had dealt with Raxles several times prior to this and always found them to be top quality.  They cost more, but did not use rebuilt CV joints, were lubricated with Amsoil, and came with all the seals and nuts required.

As we tore into the suspension we found that the upper ball joints were indeed well worn.  Not to the point of failing, but they had a lot more slop than they should have for a secure ride.  The lower ball joints were not as bad, but they deserved being replaced as well. 

The replacement axle assemblies from Raxles looked great and came with harmonic balancers on the axle shafts. 

We purchased a set of Brembo slotted rotors and Brembo brake pads to go with them.  The quality of Brembo is always top notch.

With the suspension back together and the new pads an rotors on we had an alignment done to make certain that everything was correct.  The new components made for an alignment that didn't move all over the place as toe on one wheel was adjusted over another.

We also had nitrogen filled tires which meant that the tire pressures were correct prior to alignment work commencing.

The result was a much tighter feeling front end.  I wish the suspension allowed for caster adjustment.  It would have been nice to dial in two degrees or more. 

The brake pads were bedded in and the Brembo cadmium plated rotors looked fantastic.

This is a fun car that the owner can now enjoy even more.

If you have ever watched the early episodes of Overhaulin' or Spike TV's Power Block on the weekends you have undoubtedly seen Courtney Hansen.  She is a pretty face, is photogenic, and knows how to look good on TV.

Aside from all that she comes from a car family and knows a lot more about cars, racing, and mechanics than you would assume from the pretty face.  Sorry, but the reality is that men don't expect mechanical knowledge from a pretty face.  In fact, most women realize that they are at a distinct disadvantage when getting their car serviced or buying parts, just because they are women.

So in comes Courtney with her own book called "The Garage Girl's Guide to Everything You Need to Know About Your Car". 

Her father was an SCCA champion and she grew up around, in, and driving cars.  She knows what she is talking about and has done a pretty good job of putting it in a book. 

I don't know if she expected this to be just for women, but it works for guys, too.  If you are a guy or gal who has been around cars for a while and twisted wrenches some, then you might find it a bit elementary, but keep looking and you will find a section or two that will teach you something new.

If you do know a girl, or woman that wants to learn more about cars without being humiliated or taken advantage of, point them to this book.  Better yet, give it to them as a present. 

The only thing I wish Courtney would do is put up a web site where people can learn more from her in a conversational medium.

 This was an interesting car to tackle as it had a good deal of miles on the clock (144,000) and was used primarily as a commuter car and airport car.  What I mean by airport car is that the owner would pick this to be the one of his vehicles to leave in the long term parking lot at the airport when he would have to fly out for business.  He never had to worry that someone would ding a door or that its paint would be ruined by jet-A soot.

It was a reliable car that had been in the family since it was new and he wanted to be sure that all the required maintenance was done as well as some sprucing up.  So it arrived at Jim's Garage.

First off I perused the service records.  Thankfully this owner kept all of them and they told of a time line where this car was well looked after.  Then I put them through a three-hole punch and into a binder so that they wouldn't become glove compartment excelsior.

While this car had been regularly serviced there were a few items that needed to be done.  Certainly an oil change was in order and the customer supplied the Mobil 1 synthetic and I picked up a K&N oil filter.  The K&N is a higher priced filter but I find the 1" nut they put on the bottom a guarantee that the filter won't be stuck on by the time the next oil change comes around.

The spark plugs were pulled and they showed enough wear that they required more than re-gapping.  So a complete tune up was in order.  That meant new rotor, distributor cap, ignition wires, spark plugs, and fuel filter.  Oh yes, and a new PCV valve.

The owner also wanted the coolant refreshed.  Since the coolant hoses were original it was a good time to replace them all.  It is much easier to do that now than to wait for a hot July day when one bursts while you are trying to drive home in stop and go traffic.  I also put in a new thermostat and gasket.  I had checked the service records and the water pump had already been replaced along with the timing belt and drive belts.

At Jim's Garage we use the Air Lift vacuum tool to fill the coolant system.  It pulls a 25-30 pound vacuum at the radiator's filler neck and then the coolant is sucked into the void.  This does two things.  First, it lets you know that the system, its hoses, clamps, radiator, has no leaks because you wouldn't be able to hold a vacuum unless that was true.  Second, it makes it far less likely that there will be any air pockets left in the system.  Now Honda provides a bleeder valve for that purpose, but with the Air Lift system there were never any air bubbles to bleed out.

We had talked the Civic owner into upgrading the 13 inch wheels and tires to something much better.  We found a nice wheel and tire combination on Tire Rack.  It was a 15" Borbet Type B wheels and Bridgestone tires that would provide nice traction on summer days as well as excellent characteristics in the rain and light snow.  The price was reasonable as well and they would be delivered to the garage mounted on the wheels so all I would need to do was bolt them on.

As long as the wheels and tires were being improved it was a good time to look over the suspension front and rear.  Since the tires were going to have better grip it also meant that there would be more force on the suspension.  The ball joints and tie rod ends were visually checked for cracked and leaking boots that would signal a need for replacements.  The brakes were checked to see that there was plenty of pad life left.  The brake and clutch fluids were vacuumed out and replaced and then vacuumed bled. 

Since the new wheels would be a five spoke design it was a good time to clean up the brake calipers and drums and give them a coat of VHT caliper paint.  We found some black VHT paint that would give them a fresh clean look as they were viewed between the spokes.

It was decided that the front suspension would provide better feedback and handling if a strut tower brace and a lower suspension brace were added.  These don't add much weight, but they do ensure that chassis flex is minimized and that provides better feedback to the driver.

The owner had asked if the ride could be improved so we took a look at the springs and struts that he had installed about three years prior.  The springs were Eibach, which we like and the struts were KYB AGX adjustable.  This is a perfectly good shock, but they were a little bit of overkill for a commuter car.  But we didn't want to go back to a stock strut so we talked to the folks at http://www.shox.com/ and they recommended Koni Reds as a replacement.  They gave us a good price and had them to us in no time.

While we were interested in handling we didn't want to ignore the rest of the car.  After all, you sit on the inside.  We looked over the interior and recommended that it would improve the atmosphere if we replaced the old carpet with a budget replacement of good quality.  So for about $200 we had new molded carpet to install.

That meant removing all the seats as well as the center console and then fitting the new carpet around the existing interior.  We used the original as a guide for cutting holes but made them much smaller to begin with since it is easier than trying to add carpet back to fill a hole.  Replacing carpet is a lot of work but even with a budget carpet the results are a nice smelling interior with a nice look under foot.

The owner had wondered about options for the steering wheel so we checked in with a local shop that specialized in Honda modifications.  They showed us many options but they meant that the airbag would be gone.  They also said that adapting the horn button was difficult in most cases.  So what to do?  The old wheel was showing wear and was kind of slippery now. 

We checked at a local car upholstery shop and they said that for about $100 they could install a Wheelskin.  This meant that the rim would be covered in leather which would provide a comfortable and secure grip with the suppleness of real leather.  We scheduled that for the next opening.

This car was a five speed yet the factory did not see the need for a tachometer.  We went on eBay and found an instrument cluster that fit and had the tachometer.  It is about a five minute job to unscrew the surround and pry it off of the dash.  Then the old instrument cluster unscrews and unplugs.  The new cluster uses the same plugs and mounts the same.  So in about fifteen minutes they owner had a tach along with a digital clock we also picked up.

The wiper arms had originally been black but over the years had worn to a dull metal finish.  The same for the metal on the outside of the door, just under the side windows.  We cleaned them up and gave them a fresh coat of semi-gloss black paint.  New wiper blades were also installed.

The customer had said that the rear hatch was giving some problems and sure enough, the hardware holding the gas struts to the glass had stripped and were just about useless.  The only option was to get those mounting pieces from the Honda dealer which meant they were no bargain.  The new struts were found on eBay for a better price than the local parts stores could offer.  All of this was put together and now the hatch stays up and the struts stay securely attached to the glass.

With all the fresh semi-gloss black trim items fixed up on the car the factory chrome Honda medallions looked out of place.  These were removed and sanded up so they could be painted semi-gloss black, too.

The car was given a good bath with a high quality car wash shampoo and then, after it was dried, it was given the clay bar treatment.  This prepared the paint for a good coat of high quality carnauba wax.  After all that the paint glistened.

The car needed just a little more edge to it so we added a nice black urethane lip to the front bumper cover.  It is amazing how much that changed the car's personality.

The new wheels and tires came and were mounted and also provided a drastic improvement.  Now, instead of the tires hiding in the deep recesses of the wheel wells there was some meaningful rubber that went right out to the edge of the fenders.  It gave it a stable and confident look.  The Borbet wheels were a simple wide five spoke that really complemented the car's personality.  The tires were Bridgestone Potenza G009 in 195/50-15 which were a big change from the 175/70-13 tires that were on the original wheels.

The owner asked if we could get them filled with nitrogen so after they were mounted on the car we went to the Nitro Fill dealership and had them filled.  The service writer and several others gathered around the car and admired the look. 

The next day we took the car over to our favorite alignment shop.  This is something that should be done every time you get a new set of tires.  That way you don't introduce unnecessary wear into the life of the tire due to toe or camber being off.

With that we had transformed this commuter car into...a great commuter car.  We didn't add so much bling that the owner would be concerned about leaving it in the local airport parking lot.  It would still be an economical commuter and the original paint, while shiny and clean, still had plenty of stone chips and minor door dings.  The point was not to make this a flashy show car.  Instead it is a gas sipping sleeper that the owner can jump into after a long flight home and have a fun ride back to his home.

Maybe this is the result of the fact that most professional racing has become spec series racing.  How can you focus on a car's marquee if they are virtually all the same?  NASCAR was once known as stock car racing.  For those of you unfamiliar with their origins, that means that the race cars used to be made from the same car you could buy off the showroom floor.  They started on dirt tracks and evolved to tarmac circle tracks so that the fans could get the best view possible.  It is important to remember that the early stock car drivers got their training eluding Federal revenue agents on winding back country roads in heavily modified cars that looked like plain Jane road cars.  What we would call "sleepers' today.

In the early days the competitors brought all this to stock car racing.  They brought their talent for driving on the edge as well as their talent for finding creative ways to work around the rule book. 

Today all the NASCAR cars have the same tubular frame chassis and body work.  Only stickers and decals try to make them look like a Pontiac or Dodge.  Sure the engines are unique, sort of.  They are "brand" specific, but bear little or no resemblance to what you will find when you open the hood of a car in a dealership showroom.  Carburetors?  You would have a hard time finding a dealership mechanic that would know how to adjust or rebuild a carburetor.  You won't find an ECU or fuel injection in the Car of Tomorrow that circles the NASCAR tracks today.

At one time the Indianapolis 500 was "the" racing event of the year. It was where drivers from all over the world would compete just to enter.  These were drivers from Formula One racing as well as American drivers.  The same went for the cars as you would find front engine roadsters competing with the new European mid-engined cars.  It was a magnet for technology change right from the beginning when a team decided that it would do without the extra weight of a mechanic sitting beside the driver an installed the first rear view mirror.

Today you look at the IRL (Indy Racing League) series and find that everyone uses the same car.  They use the same engine.  Teams don't even own the engines.  They don't get to touch them and tweak them.  That is the province of the Honda tech with the laptop. The tires are also provided from the same source.  Practice and race days you can watch as stacks of wheels and tires are mounted and distributed to the teams only to be gathered up and returned for analysis by the manufacturer after they have been used.  The analysis is done by the tire company, not the race team.  About all that the race team can do is make some chassis adjustments and wing adjustments.  Everything else is dictated by the rule books.

I remember when Indy cars all looked pretty different on race day.  Some teams would sport a set of aerodynamic devices that no one else had thought of before.  Sometimes these worked and sometimes they were a handicap that the drivers had to fight their way through.  You would find years of dramatic changes such as the introduction of turbine powered cars and all wheel drive.  There were Indy race cars that had six wheels and tires.  They even had diesel engines.  Superchargers and turbochargers were tried on four cylinder engines and V8's.

The drivers were innovative as well.  You would find them in all kinds of racing.  The same driver that raced on weekend in a stock car could very well be found on a dirt track racing a midget and then be belting into and Indy race car a few days later.  These guys drove at Le Mans as well in Formula One.  Today drivers are seen as crossing the line if they move from IRL to NASCAR.  You don't see them get in different kinds of race cars at all.  They are specialists.

So what changed all this creativity?  Why don't we see this innovation today?   The reason I have been given is that all this innovation ended up turning the sport into a game where whoever had the most money would win.  Constant aerodynamic improvements required wind tunnel time and high paid engineering talent. New engine designs sucked up millions of development dollars.  Sponsorship was so vital that the days of cars painted in a country's colors interrupted by only a circle with a number in it were gone.  Cars became brightly colored billboards selling every square inch for a price. 

Suddenly hospitality lounges became a necessity so that the sponsors could be entertained, not by their car roaring across the finish line, but by big screened TV's and food and drinks served by smiling cuties in a private enclave where the drivers, now personalities, would laugh at their sponsors jokes and prepare for their next interview that would be conducted by an ex-model turned sports commentator.

So is this what we have to look forward to as the future of car racing unfolds?  Cookie cutter cars, and drivers that could part-time as fashion models?  I hope not.

I think there is hope for a racing environment where there is innovation and ingenuity as well as talented drivers that can strap themselves into just about anything and provide lively competition that race fans can enjoy more than the tailgate party in the parking lot.

How about a racing formula where competing teams are not constrained to participate in a spec series and yet, don't have to prostitute themselves for enough sponsorship dollars to stay in the running?  Is that even possible?  I think so.

Just take a look at Grassroots Motorsports 200X Challenge for a model that could bring racing back to where it should be.  The concept is pretty simple.  Limit the amount of money a race team can spend in procuring and preparing their race car.  That's it.  Basically no other limits.

The 2007 Challenge show just how creative and competitive this can become.  The budget is limited to $2007.  You can recoup up to half the budget by selling parts from their build and putting the funds back into the project.  They compete in autocross, drag racing, and are judged on how attractive and well engineered their entry is.

The Challenge isn't about cars as much as it is about how resourceful and clever the build team can be.  Labor is free so the budget is primarily a parts budget.  If you want a good example of just how clever a build team can be then take a look at one of this year's top entries. 

They found a Corvette C4 in Auto Trader selling for $2000 and talked the price down to $1400.  The Chevy V8 was given a boost by the addition of a pair of T25 turbo chargers.  These turbos are known by the DSM (Diamond Star Motors) crowd as the T-too small turbo that came on the second generation Eclipse GST and GSX.  They were just the right size to provide a five pound boost and more horsepower for the C4.  But that was just the start.

The name they gave their entry was the "Cheaperral".  That is your hint.  In a brilliant move of creativity they obtained a used snowmobile engine for $182.50 that would provide the drive for and exhaust blower from an M1 Abrams tank purchased for $26.50.  Those items were installed in the passenger compartment and with some ducting they were able to generate 1000 pounds of downforce at all speeds.

While this was without question the most dramatic example of budget ingenuity, it was not unique.  All of the 2007 Challenge competitors found ways to stay within the budget and yet campaign some very impressive rides.

So why not expand this concept to the other forms of "big time" racing?  How about an IRL series that simply limits the budget allowed to be spent on car construction and development?  How about a NASCAR where real showroom obtainable cars can be raced? 

This week I took a short road trip to visit a restoration shop in the Raleigh area.  You hear a lot about places like Chip Foose and Boyd Codington, but there are some very talented shops that don't get national attention and B-Mac's is one of them.

After a few decades of working in the corporate world Bill McDonald felt it would be a good time to retire and kick back.  A stint in an auto body shop introduced him to the amount of interest in restoration work and muscle car customization that existed in the Raleigh area. 

Since the body shop was more interested in focusing its business on insurance work Bill decided to jump into the restoration business.  Two years later he has more work than he knows what to do with.

It is a family business with his son, Bill, Jr. and grandson, Blake.  They also have several talented technicians that specialize in custom bodywork and fabrication.

One great example of their work is a 1962 Corvette that spent over two decades in a barn in Burlington, NC, until someone decided to let B-Mac's do their magic. 

This frame-off, period correct restoration has resulted in a beautifully transformed barn relic. 

This place is currently working on four Camaros in their body shop as well as several project cars from the sixties. 

Every customer I talk with is not only impressed with the meticulous work, but the customer centric attitude of B-Mac's.  The customer's budget is never ignored and customers are welcome to come and see the progress of their project car at any time. 

Enjoy the photos.

An aluminum hood, Recaro front seats, sports steering wheel, rain-sensing wiper, HID headlights with washers, and a special Ralliart grill.  This sounds more exciting than the Evolution X GSR.  I hope that the tuners can find a way around the engine management system.

Also on the drawing boards is an AWD version of the Eclipse with a turbo four for power.  This could bring the import right into the forefront of sports compact cars.

This week we had a visit from a car that we had worked on some before.  It is Ted's 2006 Subaru Legacy GT SpecB.  This is quite an interesting car from Subaru.  It comes with a lot of luxury items like GPS, heated seats, and a nice sound system, but it also has a potent 2.5 liter turbo and the SpecB Bilstein suspension.  It is a bit of a sleeper because it is a sedan that doesn't throw out a lot of the styling cues that are normally used by car companies to announce that this car is special.  The only way you would know that it is a SpecB is if you saw the plate on the center console that tells you it is 263 out of 500 made.

No it's not a WRX STi, but it does have a lot more going for it than a "regular" Legacy GT.

It also has some bad manners.  Ted originally brought it to me because he was disappointed in the handling.  He felt that it had too much body roll and felt imprecise.  Ted likes a car that feeds back to the driver and obviously the SpecB was letting him down.

I took it for a test drive and agreed with him that it had more body roll than it deserved and let Ted know that I felt we could improve things.  Ted wanted to jump on some springs to lower the stance as the solution and I balked.  It was not that I didn't realize that the center of gravity would be lowered by this approach, but I was concerned that the roll center would likely be moved to below the ground level. 

What the heck is the "roll center" you may well ask.  It is a point on which the front suspension rotates the body as it takes a corner.  Depending where it occurs - above ground or below ground - your handling can be worse even with a lowered center of gravity.  In my youth I've enthusiastically found the springs that lowered my car the most and then had to live with bump steer and understeer that fought me as I tried to corner quickly.  What I was fighting was the effect of moving the roll center below ground.

So the first thing I did to reduce the body roll was to get a larger adjustable anti-roll bar for the rear as well as more substantial end links to ensure that the bar could do its job without distorting the end links. Then I installed a front strut tower brace to crisp up the front geometry.  Later I installed Goodridge braided stainless steel brake lines on all four corners.

Ted was delighted with the improvement to the car's handling characteristics but still wondered if more could be done.  I was reluctant to try springs until I could also solve the roll center issue.

Then some research pointed me to a kit that took care of the roll center problem.  It was by Whiteline and consisted of new ball joints and tie rod ends.  The ball joints were extended so that the lower control arm would be brought back to a proper angle and the tie rod ends did the same to ensure that bump steer was minimized.

I let Ted know about the solution so we ordered a set of STi pink springs for the Legacy GT SpecB along with the roll center correction kit.

Getting the Subaru up in the air we removed the wheels and marked which corner they came from so they could be stacked out of the way.  Then we started with the front struts.  First we marked the position of the eccentric top bolt at the bottom of the strut mount with white out.  Then we removed those bolts before undoing the three top nuts and lowering the assembly to the floor where we could work on it.  With the spring compressor we took the tension off the assembly and used the air gun to remove the top nut off the Bilstein strut.  The new pink springs were quite a bit shorter so they did not require quite as much compressing in order to assemble things.

The driver's side was pretty much the same and with both strut assemblies back in place it was time to install the roll center kit.  To do so require that the front anti-roll bar be removed at the brackets leaving the end links in place.  That allowed the lower control arms to be levered down when it came time to remove the ball joints.

First I loosened the lock nuts on the tie rod ends and backed them off so I could mark the position of the end with white out.  Then I unscrewed the tie rod end and screwed on the replacement.   That part was pretty straight forward.  The ball joint was held in by a cross bolt on the strut end and a castle nut and cotter pin on the control arm end.  Both of those were easy to remove and then a shot of lubricant and a pry bar helped to separate everything.  It helps that this is a low mileage car that is not driven in the northern climes.

The new ball joints are a bit taller and this is what corrects the angle of the control arm.  I also had to move the hardened cone off the original ball joint and install it on the replacement.  This is required because the control arm is an aluminum alloy and needs the protection of the hardened cone.

Then it was time for the rear shocks.  First I had to remove the trunk trim on the bottom and both sides.  The plastic push pins are far easier to deal with than what Mitsubishi uses in their trunk.  All that was needed was a tool to pop them out.  Over the spare tire is a tray that was a very handy place to store all these small fasteners.

With the trim panels out of the way I could reach the two nuts that hold the top of the rear shock in place, but first I had to undo the large bottom bolt and support the bottom of the shock with a floor jack.  That kept it from crashing to the floor once I removed the top nuts.  With everything undone I could lower the jack enough to slip out the shock assembly. 

Once again, the new springs were considerably shorter than the originals which made installation with the spring compressor just as easy as with the front struts.  Here are some shots of the springs prior to mounting.

With everything put back together and properly torqued it was time to think about alignment.  No, I don't have an alignment rack, but I do have a good buddy that has an excellent rack with the latest in computerized equipment.  He also understands that factory specs are not always desirable. 

I was able to get a slot in his schedule this morning and was pleasantly surprise at the starting point.  The rear camber was a negative 1.0 degree on both sides and the front was a negative 0.6 degree on each of the front sides.  The only thing that required adjustment was toe and we set that to zero for both the front and the rear.  While the front struts to provide for camber adjustment there was no adjustment for caster, which was in the neighborhood of 6 for both sides.  The rear has no adjustment for camber.

With all that done we did an oil change and made sure that the wheels were torqued to the factory specification of between 100-120 Nm.

The car now has plenty of roll stiffness without paying a penalty of an improper roll center.  It handled beautifully providing plenty of feedback, yet with the Bilsteins, there was no penalty of harshness.  The ride is excellent and I see no reason why Subaru could not have equipped the car like this from the get go.  Ted is going to grin all the way home when he picks this up tomorrow.

This was a Quatro with the small turbo 1.8 engine and had seen about 160,000 miles.  The struts and shocks were in pitiful condition and Mark contacted Shox.com for some Bilsteins as replacements.  It was a good choice as a replacement and the folks at Shox.com were able to ensure that they would fit.  That was important since there was a change in the design mid-year.

Mark rolled up in the afternoon and we got the A4 up on the left.  I tackled the fronts while Mark attacked the rears.  I had a new spring compressor to try out as well as some of the older style.  Springs store up a great deal of energy and can be deadly if you don't handle them with respect.

The fronts were your typical struts where there were three bolts holding the upper bearing assembly to the body and two large bolts attaching the strut to the steering knuckle.   Once removed from the car it was a matter of compressing the spring and undoing the nut that held everything together.  The new struts came with everything needed so all the parts were stacked up and the new nut tightened to the Bilstein strut so that the spring could be un-compressed.

The rear shocks were a little different as the top mount had to be removed as an assembly along with the shock.  Then the compressor was put into use and the shock was unbolted from the assembly.  The new Bilstein was fitted in place and bolted (along with the compressed spring) to the top mount before the spring was released.  Then the whole assembly was bolted back into place.After a few minor assembly glitches we were able to get the front struts completed and tight.  The alignment didn’t have to be changed, but Mark was having new tires put on the next day in any case and would have it aligned then.

The ride was vastly improved.  It is hard to beat the Bilstein shock technology for ride control.

 

It only took Ford 40 years to get it right.

Edmunds has done a test and supplies a video of the result on their web site.  It looks like a much better package than what was tried in 2001.  Eager buyers will have a chance to pick up one of the 7000 that will be put up for sale for the 2008 model year for about $33,000.

Let's face it, the newest Mustang platform fixed a lot of the inherent problems with the previous year's platforms.  And from that starting point Ford has created a Bullitt Mustang true to the spirit of the 1968 GT that starred in the greatest chase scene ever filmed.

Like the 1968 movie Mustangs the front grill is sans any horse or fog lights.  They keep all the bling off this car, as they should, and by doing so, they achieve the look that McQueen often went for on his own cars.  It comes in the appropriate Highland Green as well as black.   The seats are improved by replacing the GT seats with ones from the Cobra version.  The brakes have been upgraded with carbon front pads.  Thank goodness they didn’t put bright red calipers on this car.  The wheels are 18” made to echo the look of the original’s Torq-Thrusts.

From the sounds of the review they did pretty much the right things to the suspension by giving it a lower stance and control in the turns.  As is typical with most car manufacturers (particularly the American) there is an abundance of understeer built in, but a good tuner should be able to remove that with a larger rear anti-roll bar and more aggressive alignment settings.

Thanks to Bill for the link.

A good friend of mine bought a 2006 Evolution after owning one of the sweetest 1998 Eclipse GSX cars ever.  He bought it new at the local Mitsubishi dealership just a few months ago.  Since Mitsubishi did not make a 2007 Evolution he picked an Evolution IX in a beautiful blue. 

While he certainly likes his performance he also likes some creature comforts so he did not opt for the MR version and instead picked up one with leather seats, sun roof, and subwoofer.  Since it was purchased he has carefully shopped eBay and picked up nice add-ons such as the Mitsubishi gauge cluster that comes on the MR and most recently an MR suspension.

The standard Evolution has a fantastic suspension that provides excellent cornering, but the MR version comes equipped with Bilstein shocks and springs (struts on the front) that not only provide enhanced handling, but also a far less jarring ride.

My friend loves his Evo, but had a bit of envy of my MR's suspension and its more civilized ride.  He checked with Mitsubishi on what the parts counter would sell the MR springs and shocks for and it came in at about $2200. 

So when I saw a used MR suspension for sale on eBay I forwarded him an alert.  He was lucky and consummated the purchase for about $500.  Such a deal!

Yesterday we put his car up on the lift and went to work. 

First off we had to remove the subwoofer and all the trim from the trunk area.  I did that while he loosened the wheels.  Pulling up the spare tire cover revealed the bolts and single screw that held the subwoofer in place.  There was a connector to undo at the top of the subwoofer case and the assembly could be removed.  Next was all the grey cloth-like trim.  The pin clips that Mitsubishi uses work fine, but they are a royal pain to remove without losing the center pins that lock the clips in place.  You have to gently push the center pin in far enough to release the clip without pushing the pin all the way in and losing it as it finds its way into the crevices of the body folds.  I was lucky on some, but many were lost in the body work. 

Then we loosened the nuts on the top of each of the rear shocks and did the same for the front struts.  Up went the car on the lift and my friend pulled the wheels off while I rolled in under the rear with an air gun to remove the bolts securing the lower shock mounts.  I also had to unbolt the control arm from the rear hub so I could rotate it out of the way and pull the shock/spring assembly straight down after my friend removed the top nuts completely.

There is a small rubber ring that was taken off the top of the old assembly and moved to the new Bilstein assembly.  This provides insulation between the top of the shock assembly and the mounting point in the trunk.

It was then just a matter of my holding the assembly in place while my friend tightened the nuts from inside the trunk.  Once those were finger tight I could rotate the lower control arm back in position and bolt it back together along with the bottom of the shock.  With both sides in we tightened all the bolts and nuts we had taken off.

Then it was time to tackle the front strut assemblies.

With air tools it is quite easy.  I just undid the nuts on the two bolts that hold the lower part of the struts to the steering knuckle.  Then I wiggled the bolts out of their holes as my friend undid the three nuts holding the top of the strut in place.  There is plenty of room to take the assembly and move it out of the wheel well. 

My friend handed me the Bilstein assembly and then guided the unit from the top while I pushed from the bottom.  From the engine compartment he could guide and rotate the strut bearing assembly and its three studs into place.  I held it up while he put on the three nuts and tightened them up some.  Then I put the steering knuckle in place and inserted the two bolts. 

We would have to get the car aligned after all this, but I spent time moving the steering knuckle so that as much negative camber was pre-loaded as possible. 

All of this was repeated for the other side and then everything was tightened up. 

My friend mounted the wheels back on his car while I put the trunk liner and subwoofer back in.

We are fortunate to have an independent tire installer in our town that not only has the most modern and accurate alignment equipment, but he also has no problem with non-factory alignment settings.  It helps that he also drives road racing tracks with his own race car.

My friend drove his Evolution back to his house so it would be off the road until he had his alignment scheduled.  But just those few miles showed him that the car's ride was vastly improved.

Back a few entries we showed a project car that was entered in this year's DARPA Challenge.  It is based on Lotus Elise donated by Lotus Cars and being developed by a group known as Insight Racing in North Carolina.

A few nights ago the Insight Racing team brought the Lone Wolf (as the car is called) out in public to show the people of Raleigh just what this contender was made of. 

Well over 300 people came out to the NC State Campus to view the car, ask questions of the development team, and have an opportunity to view this marvel in action as it autonomously navigated its way around the parking lot.

The DARPA Challenge will be far more demanding, but none the less, it was very impressive to see a totally computer controlled vehicle find its own way around the tarmac. 

The Lone Wolf is one of 36 teams that will compete in the semi-finals to be held in California October 26-31.  The top 20 will go on to the finals.  These will take place on a former military base in Victorville, California.  This will provide an environment to test these robotic cars that is comparable to the environments that the military experiences in overseas deployments.

The Lotus has been transformed into a computer controlled robot that uses multiple technologies to allow it to determine the most efficient route to take, deal with any obstacles, and obey standard rules of the road including 4-way stops.  The top speed that this contest will be run at is 30 mph, but there will be other vehicles that the cars will have to contend with during their test.

It was fascinating to see the continual improvements of the Lone Wolf as the application of the technologies is further refined.  The crowd was impressed with the array of sensors as well as the multitude of processors that were packed in this diminutive package.

The high point was when the car was allowed to drive on its own around the parking lot.  First it was done with a passenger in the driver's seat who held his hands out the window for all to see and then the car navigated with no human passenger at all.

Photo by Thomas "Porkpie" Graf, Copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved

A good friend of mine has an AWD Eagle Talon with nearly 300,000 miles on it.  His daily driver is also used as a Bonneville racer.  Here is his tale of this year's visit to the salt flats:

"We had a great time on the Salt this year all things considered! The car pulled strong and was way faster than its ever been with the new T67 turbo, but I definitely didn't get the results I'd hoped for as I cracked/melted the #4 piston crown, melted off the spark plug electrode, and broke some pieces of both exhaust valves in that cylinder just past the 1 mile on the first run and coasted through the 2 mile trap at 123.xxx on 3 cylinders. #4 had the lowest compression to begin with, and the likely cause was some oil getting up past the rings igniting some carbon which caused severe pre-ignition. I hoped it had just burnt a valve which I could've gotten fixed in Salt Lake City, but when I pulled the head it was instantly apparent I was all done for this year. I don't feel too bad as blowing up while racing wide-open at Bonneville after 283K is an honorable death for the engine. I attached a couple pics of the damage, and one about 100 yards off the starting line on that run taken by a professional photographer. I was surprised at how clean the piston crowns, combustion chamber, and valves were after only running one tankful of e85 through the engine. The last time I had the head off to replace a burnt exhaust valve in #4 at 255K all the crowns and valves were thick with carbon deposits. 105 octane E85 is a great affordable racing fuel($2.09/gal.), but I'm guessing it was the source of the carbon coming loose that pre-ignited.

 
On the bright side, rather than re-build my 7-bolt engine, I've got a 6-bolt block and crank in the machine shop, a set of Ross pistons, Eagle rods, ARP head studs, 6-bolt ACT forged flywheel(to replace the almost brand-new 7-bolt ACT forged flywheel we installed < a month ago that I'll be re-selling), Crower 280 cams, and an RRE 2G to 1G cam angle sensor harness in transit, picked up a new oil pump housing/gears, timing belt, balance shaft block-off parts, gasket set, and water pump from the Mitsu dealer yesterday, and will also be picking up a newly-rebuilt ported/polished head with SS valves that a CoDSM friend has ready at the machine shop (he ran out of money after dropping it off and can't afford to get it for his car); and best of all, the back-ordered 4" inlet/2.5" outlet T67 compressor housing will finally be available next week that PTE is sending me even-exchange for the 3" in/2" out housing they mistakenly-shipped me in July, so I won't have to pull the turbo off again after dropping in the race engine. So in a few weeks it should be up and running again better than ever, and with a few more safety mods over the next eleven months it should be able to run in BGT or PS at the SCTA-BNI meets as well as WoS next year!"

Rolling resistance on salt is much higher than cars see on asphalt or tarmac.  Here are photos of the difference in wheels and tires that this makes:

The six bolt engine that he is talking about refers to the number of bolts used to hold the flywheel on to the crank shaft.  The earlier versions of the venerable Mitsubishi 4G63 engine used just six bolts and were known to be stronger and more reliable than the seven bolt version that came in the second generation Eagles and Eclipses.  So while it was frustrating for James to lose an opportunity to make some speed on the salt flats this will give him an excellent excuse to build up a much stronger engine for next year's event.

While I was on Cape Cod I went to a car show that is held every Tuesday afternoon in the summer in the town of Bourne.  It is held in the parking lot of a technical school located on a hill overlooking the canal.

When I have attended in the past there would be perhaps 200-300 cars that would show up.  These are cars that are owned by people in the area and not a bunch of trailer queens that you typically would see at indoor car shows.  The types of cars run the gamut from classic muscle cars, to antiques, to foreign specialty cars, to rat rods, to race cars and drag cars.

The fact that the owners drive them to the parking lot means that you have the opportunity to ask many questions as you admire the workmanship and the lineage of the many versions of people's automotive passion.

I arrived early in the afternoon, about 3:00 and just a handful of cars had found their parking spots and were lining up.  More trickled in and I had the opportunity to take photos as they pulled in and backed into their spots.

The oldest car was a 1911 White that was driven in under its own power. 

There were many kinds of muscle cars from the sixties and seventies. 

There were rare Volkswagens.

There were many examples of Cobra roadsters.  A couple of them were original Shelby models and a few that were kit cars.

An original Ford GT40 pulled up.  It was imported from England with right hand drive and Holman Moody engine.

The crowds grew and more cars arrived.  This was turning into a very special event with far more than a couple of hundred cars.  It approached 1000.

People were really enjoying being able to wander about and see so many fascinating examples of automobiles.

Still more cars arrived and searched for parking on the lawn and at the perimeter of the parking lot.  I had never seen such a turn out.

Then the daylight started to turn to sunset and a handful at a time the cars would start up and make their way back to their owner's home.

It was a wonderful event to be able to see so many different examples of people's take on the automobile.  It was amazing to see that there exist so many of these great cars and to have owners that are willing to bring them out for everyone to see.

The interesting part was what they did to achieve those gains.  Nothing was done that reduced the car's horsepower.  They worked on three key aspects: weight, aerodynamics, and rolling resistance.

They cut the vehicle's weight by 40 kilograms by using a carbon fiber hood and racing style seats.  They improved aerodynamics by replacing the rear view mirrors with tiny cameras (a 2% fuel consumption improvement at highway speeds) and lowering the car's ride height.  Rolling resistance was improved by changing the tires and that produced a reduction of 4% in fuel consumption.  Other improvements were changes in the gear ratios and shift point lights to let the driver know when to shift for better fuel economy with improvements of 4% and 8% respectively.  They also added a very unpopular option - the start-stop feature that stops the engine when the car is waiting at a traffic signal or stop sign.

Cars have become much heavier, even compact cars.  Back in 1980 a Ford Fiesta weighed in at about 1800 pounds while today's focus comes in at over 2600 pounds.  A lot of this is because cars have been engineered to be far more crash worthy, and that is certainly a good thing.  We cannot forget that it takes more power to move more weight (mass).

Aerodynamics also plays a key role in fuel consumption and performance.  Replacing outside rear view mirrors can provide real benefits in those areas, but regulations would need to be changed to accommodate them and that could take a year or two of the various legislating bodies' time to make the regulatory changes.

I'm not sure how I feel about tires with lower rolling resistance.  I know I like the idea of them providing better fuel economy, but I'm not sure that the trade off in performance and safety (stopping distance and handling) would be all that attractive.

What I do like is that Axel was willing to try a low tech approach to the problem of carbon-dioxide emissions.  The average for German cars sold in 2006 is 172 grams per kilometer and the target for 2008 is 140 with a much tougher goal of 120 by 2012.  Hmm, I wonder what the Ariel Atom does?

The first desire was to gain a competitive advantage by reducing the car's drag or air resistance at speed.  One of the first streamlined racers was the 1899  La Jamais Contente which "broke" the 100 kilometer/hour barrier.  It was a cigar-shaped electric car designed to minimize aerodynamic drag. 

In 1924 the Tropfenwagen (droplet shaped car) achieved a drag coefficient of Cd=0.28, which is impressive even now. 

More progress was made by the German racing teams prior to WWII with their Nazi sponsored Auto Union cars that broke many speed records.  What was also discovered, if not well understood, was that while these sleek shapes could cut through the air with relative ease, something else was happening - lift.  These flat-bottomed bodies were producing high pressure areas under the cars.  One of these record events ended tragically as the car was flipped at speed and killed the driver.

Many pointy designs were used through the 1960's.  After World War Two racers at the Bonneville Salt Flats made record breaking cars from the drop tanks from WWII fighter aircraft.  Indy 500 racers were front-engined roadsters that favored rounded aluminum bodywork fastened to tube frames.

The higher the speed the more important aerodynamics becomes.  If you took a one foot square plate facing it directly into the wind you would find that at 100 mph it would generate 33 pounds of drag force.  At double the speed (200 mph) the drag resistance would jump to 133 pounds.  At 300 mph it would generate 299 pounds of drag resistance.  It takes power to overcome drag.  Using this same set up we would find that at 100 mph it takes 9 hp to overcome the drag produced.  At 200 mph it would consume 71 hp and at 300 mph it would jump to 239 hp.  If you can keep from wasting power on overcoming drag you can go faster than your competition.

NASCAR legend Smokey Yunik raced a car that was faster than everyone else's confounding his competitors.  Eventually the secret was revealed to be that he had built a perfect 7/8 replica of the Chevy coupe.  Reducing the size allowed him to reduce the frontal area and have a race car with a lower Cd (drag coefficient) than all the others, even though it looked like everyone else's.

Smokey was a brilliant self-taught engineer.  He realized intuitively that aerodynamics and hydrodynamics were very closely related so he would build model cars that he would take to the creek running in back of his garage to test how changes in the car's shape would affect it aerodynamic efficiency.

How many of us, as children, have put our hand out of the window of a moving car and noticed how resistance changed as we rotated our flat hand from vertical to horizontal.  What we discovered was that there is resistance as an object moves through the air.  We also discovered that if we reduced the frontal area (moved our hand so the narrow edge faced the wind) there was less resistance, or drag, on our hand.  If we kept the wide part of our hand toward the wind we might have noticed that something was happening on the back side of our hand.  This was easier to see if we tried the same trick with our hand in water, maybe in the bathtub or in a pond or even a stream.  What we noticed then was turbulence on the back side of our hand as the water (or air) collapsed back on itself after being disrupted and forced around our hand.  This is the second of the two components of drag.

Frontal pressure and rear vacuum exist in our cars as they cut through the air.  They are not as pronounced as placing a flat piece of plywood to the wind, but as speeds increase more air is pushed apart faster.  Carol Shelby developed the Cobra out of an English AC roadster.  It was an immediate winner at the race tracks until the straights got longer and then the reality of aerodynamic drag allowed his competition to go faster.  Because of that, the Daytona coupe was developed.  Those six cars had fantastic aerodynamics and badged as Cobra coupes they trounced the Ferraris at Le Mans.

In 1965 a graduate of Cal Tech, Jim Hall, applied all he had learned to a new Chaparral racing car, the Chaparral 2C.  This one stunned the competition not just because its body was aerodynamically efficient, but Jim had added an articulating wing over the rear wheels.

Back in 1929 Opel designed a rocket race car that used wings to provide rudimentary down force.

Thirty-six years later Jim Hall's Chaparral with a wing revolutionized racing.  His rear wing could be moved and tilted as the car went around the track so that at high speeds it generated down force to ensure maximum tire contact and tilted it to add drag and downforce to assist in the corners.  Movable aerodynamic devices were later banned by regulations.

Early open wheeled race cars mounted the wing struts directly to the unsprung suspension pieces which allowed the car's suspensions to be much more compliant, but structural failures of the struts led to horrific crashes and such direct mounting was banned.  Today's Indy race cars mount the rear wing struts directly to the transmissions as they, like the engines, are stressed members (they form the "frame" of the car as well as being mechanical components).

You may notice that some race cars use multi-segmented rear wings.  Since the angle of attack of the wing can produce drag and turbulence, breaking up the curve of a wing will allow airflow between the segments allowing for a reduction in turbulence while maximizing the down force.

Later, in 1969, Jim Hall would break ground again with what is probably the first "ground effects" race car.  The Chaparral 2J used an auxiliary motor that powered a set of fans that pulled air from under the car creating a vacuum that produced huge amounts of down force and allowed the car to achieve cornering forces of up to 1.7g in turns.  The underbody was sealed and the fans blew it all out the back of the car which reduced the normal turbulence created at the rear.  Unfortunately any cars that could get close to the 2J were treated to a blast of road trash sucked up by the fans.  This car was shortly regulated out of racing.

In the 1970's Plymouth and dodge produced pointy ended versions of Road Runners and Chargers for the public so they could use them to dominate NASCAR.  The Super Bird had a pointed front end and a high wing at the rear.  They worked.

The 1978 Brabham BT46B used the same concept in Formula 1 and, after winning its first race, was promptly banned.

Lotus, in 1978, developed a fully shaped underbody to its Formula 1 car that, along with sliding side skirts, created a low pressure area under the car allowing cornering speeds to soar.  The side skirts would wear and often break and the sudden loss of vacuum would result in catastrophic accidents.  This technique of ground effects was also banned.

Even with all these restrictions aerodynamic engineering has allowed for Formula One car designs that achieve nearly 5g of cornering force.  That is nearly what jet fighter pilots have to deal with.

Front and rear wings permeate the open wheel formula cars.  The Chaparral car used what was basically a wide upside down airplane wing.  Today they are narrower and use side fins to gain more efficiency.  The side plates on the front wings are used to control the air flow hitting the front of the open tires since the wide tires and wheels are the source of a great deal of aerodynamic inefficiency.  In fact, wheels can contribute up to 50% of the drag of a streamlined car.  You may also notice the front wings will have segments near the side plates that are deeper yet in the middle of the wing the cord is shallow.  That is to allow air to be guided under the car and toward the radiator intakes efficiently with as little disruption as possible.

At one point Formula 1 car designers realized that flexibility could be designed in to the construction of the wings so that at higher speeds they would flex into a flatter shaped wing with less drag and then spring back into a shape that produced meaningful downforce for the corners.  These have been regulated out of designs.

Back in around 1978 the inverted airplane wings used needed some reinforcement at the trailing edge and the Gurney flap or wicker bill was born.  Contrary to aerodynamic logic this flap resulted in less drag and higher track speeds at Indy.  Fortunately, this aerodynamic addition was not banned and is now used in many forms of racing.

Ground effects or generating downforce with a vehicle's body design has become the norm in racing.  Even in the NASCAR cars you can see the pronounced rake to the body as well as the huge rise behind the rear tires.  All of this is to produce a low pressure area under the car and keep the tires pressed against the track for maximum cornering. 

In 1979 Jim Hall produced a winning Indy race car using ground effects designed into the underbody of the car.

Today's racing cars have to incorporate aerodynamics into all aspects of their cars.  It is more than just a matter of slapping on some wings in the front and the rear.  Like all things automotive each part of the race car's aerodynamic system has to work in concert as a change in the front wing might result in the need to redirect air going to the underside of the car as well as the cooling inlets and then a further change in the rear wing as the airflow changes.

Often the type of track will dramatically alter the downforce requirements of a race car.  A 1992 Indy race car would develop 3460 pounds of downforce and 1310 pounds of drag at 165 mph on a short oval while on the Indy speedway the downforce produced would drop to 2835 pounds and drag would be reduced to 972 pounds attaining this at 220 mph.  With that much downforce these cars can run on an upside down race track.

An Indy tech told me that the difference between a competitive Indy driver and a great Indy driver was the amount of downforce that was required to get the car to handle.  The better driver could live with less downforce and drive their way through the handling demands.

So what does all this have to do with your street car and its fashionable spoiler tacked to the trunk?  Aerodynamics still has a role in street cars and you don't have to be going at 200 mph for it to concern you.  The frontal area will produce drag, the air collecting under the car will produce lift, the shape of the rear facing parts will create turbulence and additional drag as well. 

So what can you do about it?  Street cars are designed for utility as well as looks.  People look at cars primarily as a statement of how they wish to be perceived.  They will rationalize sacrifices in fuel economy or carrying capacity for the sake of image or a desire for a certain level of performance. 

During the 1980's the Pontiac Firebird and the Chevrolet Camaro often competed for which car could produce the lowest Cd or drag coefficient.  The