Evo Soul

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