Evo Soul

Winter is coming.  We here in Canada and the North East USA, never had a summer to begin with.   But it still doesnt change the fact that you need to protect your car 24 / 7.

Now that My friend “Rubberduckey” has shown me the basics, I find myself now honing my skill as a detailer.  well for my own car.  Cause honestly, wash, polishing, and waxing your car is a full time job.  Well at least in the beginning.  Later it gets easier with just washing and quick wax applications.

The one thing that I like about Rubberduckey’s car is that its sooooooooo damn smooth.  That thats because he waxes it all the time.  If you run your hand on it.  its nothing but silk.  You think I am making this up… honestly, if you come across him…. just run your hands along the trunk or hood.   It feels like nothing else.   I remember when I did that, then walked over to my car.  and it felt like my beard after about 5 days of shaving it.  Course, uneven and definately not like silk.

Rubberduckey said, well after a year and a half of no waxing… what do you expect.  So now comes the part of bringing back the look and shine.

After Rubberduckey did the waxing on my car, I now felt it was time for me to do it on my own.  After I experimented with another wax.  Trying to find something else that is alittle easier or looks better then what Rubberduckey uses…  And let me tell you something, experience means everything.  If you dont take the time to go thru all the waxes, you will never find the type of wax that works best for your type of situation.  Car color makes a big difference.  If you have alot of swirls in the paint makes a different, there are just so many factors.  you have to know what you need and what is a waste of money.   After playing with a few brands of wax, and playing in the polish area as well.  I now know what works for me.  and my Black Mitsubishi Lancer.

In my next few posts about wax, I will walk you thru the solutions that are best for Noobies and what combo is best for pros. or semi pros like me haha.

Here is a hint of the direction I am going in

Now for many of you who dont know.  Dunlop and Good Year are one in the same company.  Dunlop is or attempts to be the more performance oriented wing of the company. You can take a look for yourself on their USA website here http://www.dunloptires.com/.  When I recently called Goodyear I had a fresh start and spoke with someone from their marketing / sales wing within Canada.  The representative was kind and a pleasure to converse with.  I expressed my beef pretty straight up with the tire.  Because when it comes to wheels, its the number one topic that comes up.   1) Overall Tire wear  2) Unusual wear patterns 3) pulling to the left issues with the 2008 lancer year.   When he had check his notes and followed up with customer service he said he was aware of some issues that have been reported but was taken a back by the other things mentioned and to their numbers.

He did lay out that this is a OE tire, it does meet Mitsubishi’s spec for what they were looking for in a tire, and Dunlop stands behind this tire.  When I raised in regards to the tires suitablility for the Canadian climate, he mentioned that this is a sport tire equipped in a OE capacity.  Most tires in this catagory perform as expected in winter.  And I agree.  Winter Tires is the way to go.  But I still feel we are at odds with what my beef is.  I do not fault Dunlop exactly for the design of 1 tire,  yes it has left me bitter and in some conditions scared to death driving with this one set, but I do beleive that dunlop and goodyear has quality tires which do meet the grade.  After pouring over reviews and experience with one of these tires. It was the Good Year Eagle GT tire that looks like it has the right balance of performance, and Canadian Suitability for the Canadian Market overall and as a proper tire for the Lancer GTS and the RalliArt in Canada.   RalliArt in Canada?  Yes you heard me right.  Mitsubishi Canada signed on to have the RallIArt equipped with the Dunlop SP5000M’s .  Someone in Mitsubishi Corp USA decided that the RalliArt In the USA would receive the ADVAN A10A from Yokohama.  Are they a better tire? I dont know,  Tire rack has one review of it. and since you dont want to just a book by its cover I wont comment directly  But… I will say this,  These design does share a strong similarity to the EVO X tires and may look to be a more aggressive gripping tire in dry situations.  The EVO features a Yokohama ADVAN A10A

The Dunlop SP5000m however has received, one of the lowest rankings on Tirerack as seen here. http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/surveydisplay.jsp?type=UHPAS or to save time this screenshot taken today.

Now I dont want to make it seem like I am trying to hate on this poor tire.  One of the only things that comes to mind as a saving grace is the fact that Dunlop does have an alternative variant to this tire.  But… Dunlop does not produce it in many sizes.  The tire is called the SP 5000 Asymmetrical.  It has received decent reviews but I have no clue why Dunlop didnt put a bullet in the head of the standard M class tire and switch over to the better variant.  I dont know, too good of a tire for a OE spec? perhaps.

Moving on and turning the page.  The Goodyear Dunlop rep agrees with me that the Good Year Eagle GT is a suitable tire and is worthy of a review.  I have had a chance to experience what the General Tire Exlaims were like, and I am curious to see what this tire can do.  Good Year is seeing what they can do to get a fresh set ready for evaluation of the GTS Lancer we have here.  If the conditions are right, we will put it thru its paces and give it some good exposure to the worst streets Toronto can throw at it.  Some fun city streets come to mind. Steeles,  Allen Road,  The QEW and my personal favorite Youge street.

I will report back to see if we can find a suitable agreement with GoodYear.   The rep has also made it very clear that regardless of the tire, they stand behind all the tires they offer.  Dunlop or GoodYear, and if I or anyone else has a problem with their tires, he wants to hear about it and get your feedback.  And thats good to hear in my books You can read more about the GT tire here on Tireracks website http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Eagle+GT

In the meantime watch a video that features the Eagle GTs and see how they did against some of its competition.

I have been very excited about upgrading to the new kit.  The Urban Kit was great, but now I am looking to jump into something more aggressive.  Unfortunately, I have run into the bottlenecks I mentioned earlier.  Logistics!!!  The question is, how do I get the Bodykit pieces and Hood over here without having to pay a fortune.  Recently I have spoken with a few potential sponsors and they are seeing what can be done about the importation of the kits to Canada.  Worse case senario I am looking at an import cost of about 2500$ dollars. yes and thats just shipping.  The problem is Iack a freight account to ship by sea from Singapore to Toronto.  So I may have to put into effect what I mentioned  2 weeks ago.  A donation model.  Should my potential sponsors not be able to find a solution for the shipping problem then I will execute this plan.   The best thing I can offer to donors is to put their name on the hood with proportional size to their donation.  The larger the donation, the larger the name / tag.  This project is considered a community project and i want it to belong to everyone who participates.

I will keep you guys update and let ya know how it goes.

Cheers

I live in Canada.  I own a Mitsubishi Lancer, But I am not happy.  I may have said this before on the forums or the blog.  But I feel Mitsubishi has made a great first impression with the lancer and the EVO X.  But Mitsu’s follow thru has been…. how do you say…. ummm less than stellar.  They seem to be doing a hail mary pass and doing the repeat shotgun approach and not gaining traction.  Unfortunately, the Aftermarket is not going to be coming to the rescue either.

My efforts in the Mitsubishi sphere has been small, a project here and there. but alot of people have been coming to me with great ideas of things they want to see.  Things they want Mitsubishi to do.  Since I helpedd to forge my local car club, I have been loosely speaking with Mitsubishi and local dealers to see if we can make these great ideas happen.    So In the near future you may hear me blog about such efforts.

These projects include

1. Mitsubishi Gold Program
2. Mitsubishi Evolution X2 (squared)

That said, I will get to the other part of this post.  Like I said I help run a local car club.  We will be working with local dealerships and releasing some pretty interesting project cars and programs.  To demonstrate this we will be putting together a TV / youtube Spot with equipment / resources donated from local sponsors.  Its already shapping up to be very interesting.  I would love to spill my guts on what we have in mind but i rather you guys judge for yourself.

That said we have asked elements within global mitsubishi for their blessing.  We havent gotten a firm answer or blessing, but at the same time we havent been shutdown.

More details to come

Its been now 2 years since the purchase of the 2008 lancer GTS.  The car has about 80,000 km on it, so one thing for sure is that this car has been driven.  All I can say is thank god for a 160,000 km warranty.   So far I havent had to use it but, its enough piece of mind to keep me going.

What I meant by State of the Union is, the status of the car and my ability to keep doing what I love.   The car has been thru alot, small bodykit damages.  About 2 Car accident at the hands of my wonderful loving girlfriend (smile / grin).  And I have done more performance parts swaps then anyone else.  I also have my hands full creating and running the Local Toronto Lancer Car club, again something I love to do.

The sad truth is, I am reaching my upper limit / capacity financially in terms of doing both.  To be incredibly honestly, the car’s looks have suffered due to the fact that I reallocate alot of the funds to the clubs operation.  The battle damage includes the following

1. Front Urban bodykit > Damage appeared mysteriously one day, “Girlfriend had no comment” hmmm
 2.  Dunlop Tire upgrade > Getting a great discount on already cheap General Exclaim tires, but I have been pondering a Rims upgrade for the longest time.   A purchase of 18 inch rubber may tie my hands to 18 inch rim options instead of a cheaper 17 inch set.  
3. EVOSOUL lettering at the back of the car is fading / cracking, and needs to be replaced
4. Very deep scratch on the trunk top>  Another scratch that can be explained.
5. Side Skirts, I was kinda shocked one day to find a long scratch on the underside of the right side skirt. I just burst out into pure laughter when I saw another long scratch going along the other skirt as well. “GF, No comment”
6. I think I will spare you the observations of what some of the GTS OEM rims look like… another funny thing. 

etc… etc… I can go on and on but you get the point

On a performance front, All maintance upkeep has been done, that is something I would never skip out on, because you would be asking for trouble later on down the road.   But I have alot of incomplete projects that I would love to get to but do not have the funds to allocate to.

1.  EVOSOUL Dual Exhaust project.  The dual exhaust from a performance aspect has been completed, but visually the driver side pipe needs to be moved / bent in to position to perfectly line up.  Since its not a priority it has been left as is.  (150 dollars to make look perfect)
2. EVOSOUL Sngle Exhaust project.  The exhaust system is almost identical and since most of the work has been done in terms of fitting it would be easy to put this system together as well.  But I have no funds that can be allocated to this project at this time.
3.  Alot of people have pushed me to develop a Fujita intake fix for the CEL problem, I have slowly been doing some work in this field but not as much as I would liked.

etc… etc….

I dont need to bore you guys with the details, but I do want to share with you guys what I had in mind.  There is a project I would like to do because to me its beautiful and will go along way to resolving my very ugly car issues in terms of battle damage.  That was to make an upgrade to Ricks updated front and rear lip design as well as the ultra rare 7kg light weight hood he has.  The bad news is, due to the size of the packages, i am having an extremely difficult time importing the hood and lips to Canada from Singapore.  What I need would be a great frieght shipper account or enough money to have DHL import it for me.  Lets look at the numbers.

Excluding shipping costs 
Hood 500 dollars
Front Lip 300 dollars
Rear Lip 300 dollars
Side Skirts 250 dollars

Now the side skirts arent a priority so they can be dropped, but to complete the look, I will use the GTS sides anyway.   But if you look at the numbers your looking at about 1200 dollars give or take.   Here is what will shock you.  If you take a guess how much shipping would be from Singapore to North America, I am sure your not going to get it right.  Estimates for shipping from the big shippers was about 1500 dollars for the hood and about 1200 dollars for the lips and skirts via air freight.  WOW.  Shipping is cheaper , but there are additional risks to shipping via Sea… I will leave it to your imagination.  But I think you guys can see where I am going with this.  Its makes me cry lol because this doesnt even include the painting and prep that is needed to get the items finished.

If I knew someone with a shipping account to help me out, that would be great.   But I think I will have to bite the bullet and pay up the @ss for it.  But I wanted to make this project not about just me.  Or as my girlfriend would like to say,  ”about US” a word you may learned if your in a relationship too. lol  What I was thinking was to allow for a Donation model for this project.  The idea was to raise money for importing this bodykit project in exchange for the branding of the donators names on the Hood.  Further more, the size of the donation will affect the size of your name or branding on the hood.   

If I were in the opposite position, I would like to know that my money did something and my contribution shows for it.  After speaking with a few close friend and guys in the car club, they thought it was a great idea and something that will endure and live on.   I am hoping that if this is successful, then I may be able to replicate this for other projects, not just for me but more things that benefit Lancer / EVO owners 10 times over.  Perhaps more events like the Dyno Day held early this year.  We were very fortunate to have Mobil 1 help sponsor this event, and the results were great for the EVO X parts tested as well as educational for the Lancer intakes tested as well.  Even thou we were not able to pull accurate data for the Lancer, we did learn that there was a programing / operational difference between the Canadian FED Spec ECU and the American FED spec ECU.  We learned that the Canadian ECU may be detuned as well as learning it has a very different performance pattern which makes dyno testing for results extremely difficult.  

But without money for testing these things might never be discovered, information would never get out or challenged.  As hard as it is for me to ask for help, I do so only because I think I really need it.  I assure everyone that everything I do is independant and not shaped towards business interests.  I help administrator over a car club which is in every respects an indepedendant not for profit Union of lancer / evo owners.  

So to get to the end of this post, what I am proposing is a raising of funds for a bodykit project.  One that can be executed this summer.  Since the kits have already been made they are currently sittin on a skid in Singapore half way around the world.  I need to get these piece here to Canada.  A donation of funds regardless of how small will be recognized here on my blog on a “Donation wall”.  For donations larger than 20 dollars your name will be reflected in print either being enbedded in the paint job or by vinyl on the Hood itself.  The larger your donation the larger your name / branding will appear on the hood.  

Alternatively, anyone who is able to provide/donate shipping services, your name, company, or brand will appear on the hood.

I am going to make an appeal to some of my friend and donating sponsors to see if there is a better alternative but within a week I may put this plan into effect. please by all means leave comments and give me feedback.  If you like what you see or like what I do than a donation would greatly be appreciated.  Details and how much needs to be raised will be posted soon.

Cheers

EVOSOUL

A sneak peek into our modeling help for the Jan 31st Dyno Day next week.  Which Pits the INJEN and AEM Cold Air Intakes against each other for the Mitsubishi Lancer 2008+.  As a bonus AEM has also sent us an EVO X intake just to see what happens

Special thanks to JRPonline for helping make the INJEN connection.