Evolution IX – Tuning the ECU

Some progress and some disappointment.  I have hooked up with Jestr Tuning to begin the process of tuning via the ECU.  While many in the states would do their tuning on a chassis dyno I prefer data logging pulls on the road where the environment is real and air is moving through my radiator and intercooler.  It is my understanding that in Japan they do the base tuning on a dyno and then do all the fine tuning on the road.

Jestr did the tuning on my previous Evolution 8 and I was very happy with the results.  He does a great job getting the most out of an engine using the stock ECU.  It is fortunate that Mitsubishi Evolutions and Subaru WRX’s can get this kind of tuning.  The cables and software come from Australia and are very reasonable in price.  I found out where and how to get my stuff by going to evolutionm.net.  The laptop I already had.

So for a reasonable price I will get this car to max out the power potential without being concerned about grenading my engine. 

The disappointing part of all this is that the Tomei ARMS turbo that I have on order is delayed once again.  Unfortunately for me the Tomei ARMS turbo has been such a success that they cannot make them fast enough.  I paid for mine back in mid-May and was given a ship date of end of June, but that was revised to the end of July, a date that has been revised even further to the third week in August.  I have my doubts that that will remain a commitment.

While I am excited about the Tomei turbo, I am frustrated that I cannot get my hands on one to install.

Jestr has been fantastic about it all and will continue with me to perfect the ECU tune of my current configuration and when the ARMS turbo does arrive he will continue his tuning with that.  I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

The current ECU flashes are producing lots of great power and allowing me to get the most out of all the modifications that have been installed thus far. 

When the turbo does arrive it will be installed with a Megan Racing O2 sensor housing along with a Mishimoto aluminum radiator.  I can hardly wait.

A Boron Fiesta

There has been some pretty good press on Ford’s new Fiesta that should be coming to our shores soon.  Much of it caught my eye because I bought one back in 1978 and had a lot of fun with that version.

Autoweek had a review on the new Fiesta as well, but what really caught my eye was the write up that their Natalie Neff did on being involved in a crash while driving one.  Apparently an Oldsmobile Cutlass traveling the opposite way on the highway lost a wheel and it ended up smashing into the Fiesta’s windshield.  The impact pulled down the front of the roof and she escaped relatively unscathed.

With the Fiesta traveling at 75 miles per hour and the tire at something equivalent how could that be?  The amazing properties of boron steel in the A-pillars is an ultra high strength, low weight steel that has found its way into many new cars.  From the photos you can see just how strong it is.  This stuff is very impressive.  It is also resistant to “Jaws-of Life” cutting tools that rescue teams like to use.  I would bet that Natalie is very happy that it was used instead of something that the “jaws” could cut easily.

 

Adrifting in Carolina

It was a hot and sunny Sunday at the Metrolina Expo just on the outskirts of Charlotte, NC where drifting was coming into its own on the east coast. 

Drifting has not been considered in terms of a motorsport in this part of the US, but is considered so on the west coast for a few years and well over a decade in Japan.  Mention drifting in the context of motorsports and you will get a wide range of reactions.  Some will be reactions of anticipation and excitement while others will consider it with distain.

On the surface it appears to be a contest, not of car control, but of smoking tires and losing control.  Just the opposite of what a track junkie desires to achieve.  The reality is that it is all about control and the challenges of car setup are no less than you find in NASCAR, NASA or SCCA events.

Yes we are late to the party on the east coast, but the party has started and like the early days of autocrossing it is a fantastic opportunity for contestants to get in on some real fun before the big boys with deep pocket change the game.

This Sunday in Charlotte the event was full of participants.  At least fifty cars and drivers were competing and there was a car show as well.  The facility at Metrolina was just about perfect for the combination as the car show was held in a large parking area with a roof so that spectators could get relief from the sun, yet they could also step out into the viewing area overlooking the drifting course. 

While the Nissan 240SX was a popular choice there were plenty of other makes and models out there ready to compete.

The car show was not the big budget variety that you see at major events, instead it offered some unique and eclectic cars that you wouldn’t otherwise get to see.  There were two right-hand-drive cars.  One was a Subaru whose owner had grafted on a front clip from a JDM car and the other was a very unique total car, a Honda Civic that was not only right-hand-drive, but was all wheel drive as well.   It is one of only three in the country.

 

 

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of the better drifters at this contest. 

As you watched it became clear that execution was not easy and it was all about car control as things went beyond the edge.

Summer Reading

Summer is upon us and is the time of year we hope to get some time off, even if it is an hour or two by the pool or at the beach.  Hopefully you will be able to take a week or two off and really enjoy yourself.

Part of this tradition of summer is finding a good book or two to read while you are lathered in sunscreen and nursing a cold drink or two.  The following are some you can pick from if you have the desire to mix your love for automobiles and other summer fun.

The Red Car by Don Stanford, was published in 1954.  It certainly reflects those times as it follows the passions of a young driver and his efforts to rebuild and race an MG TC.  If you are looking for some light reading that will return you to the times when the only true sports cars came from Europe, then this is one you will enjoy.

Another great book on the golden age of racing is by Robert Daley and is titled: Cars at Speed.  The original book came out in 1961 and a new edition came out in 2007.  When first published the European press disliked it very much, saying it dwelled too much on the tragic side of racing.  The fact is it accurately reflects the times and the environment of racing in the fifties and what led up to it.  These were the times when races were held on public roadways and were a mix of prototype and production cars.  Drivers had no seat belts and helmets were a rarity.  This book will absorb you with its history and narrative.

A. J. Baime published Go like Hell this year and it is a book you will definitely want to read.  It takes over where Robert Daley’s book leaves off.  Its focus is on the great contest between Henry Ford II and Enzo Ferrari that lead to one of the most exciting LeMans races of all time.  You will gain insight into how Carol Shelby contributed to the effort as he built his own dynasty. 

 

Inside Racing covers a season of an Indy car team back in 1998.  Paul Haney writes about a year with a racing team from the inside.  He spent the 1997 season at every race and took over 2500 photos while he was privy to conversations between drivers, engineers, and team members.  Paul lived the life of a team member and has found a way to share the technical and human side of a racing season.

Do you want to become a better driver?  Who doesn’t.  Ross Bentley is the guy to go to if you want to discover and enhance the inner race car driver.  He has published several books in a series he calls Speed Secrets that will provide you insights into the mind set and attitudes that affect your driving.  Professional Race Driving Techniques explains the basics of getting the most out of a road course and your car as well as what are some of the little things that make a big difference.  The Perfect Driver and (with Ronn Langford) Mental Strategies to Maximize Your Racing Potential go much further into areas that you never expected to make a difference.  How to get both halves of your brain working together, how to regain and keep your focus, and much more.

Along that line is Going Faster, from the Skip Barber Racing School.  There is a ton of information here and you will likely feel a bit of overload at first.  It is definitely not a fast read.  This will go in to areas of track driving that you might never knew existed.  It will be a place where you will learn how very small changes can make a very big difference.

Tune to Win by Carroll Smith is totally focused on the race car.  It’s subtitle is: The art and science of race car development and tuning.  I don’t think most of us would read it cover to cover and I personally think the best way it to pick a section that interests you or has relevance to a car you are interested in modifying and read up.  You can also flip through and find a section that has interest to you in any case.  Carroll has his opinions and shares them with out reservation in these pages.  There is a lot of information here and just about all of it valuable to track car enthusiasts.

Race Car Vehicle Dynamics is for those of you who want an engineering degree in race cars but can’t find a college that specializes in the subject.  William F. Milliken and Douglas L. Milliken have put together this text which ends up being the most in-depth writing on track car engineering I have found.  This is not light reading folks.  It may even help you doze off to sleep, but if you really want to learn this kind of engineering, there is no better text.

So there you go.  From some light reading to some very heavy stuff here are my suggestions for this summer.  Try them out and let me know how I did.  I’d like to know about your picks as well.

Robert Strange McNamara

He was 93 when he died yesterday.  Known mostly for his role as Secretary of Defense and chief architect of the Vietnam war.

We should also remember him as one of the “whiz kids” hired by Henry Ford to save the company in post-World War II.  He applied science and finacial discipline to the way Ford was managed and became the first non-Ford person to become president of the company.  Weeks later he would resign and become part of John F. Kennedy’s administration.

If you have not seen “The Fog of War” , you should.

Evolution IX – Cams and Intercooler

Progress continues with the Evo 9.  We took a weekend to install cams, the new intercooler and the exhaust system.

The cams are GSC Stage 1 cams designed specifically for the Evolution IX’s MIVEC engine.  For the 2006 model (no Evolutions were built in 2007) the 4G63 engine received a new head design that included variable valve timing for the intake.  This provided a boost in power as well as better mileage.

I had used GSC Stage 1 cams on the Evo 8 and liked the performance boost very much.  They provided plenty of mid and top range power while maintaining drivability.  On the track as well as the street drivability is important.  It is no fun trying to fight with a narrow power band while negotiating challenging corners.

For the cam project I enlisted the aid of Doug since he always does a fantastic job of installing cams and timing belts on the 4G63.  While he worked on the cams I would find times to install the Greddy titanium exhaust and Tanabe downpipe.

The first part of installing the cams is getting everything out of the way so you can get to the old cams as well as keep the timing intact.  A lot of fasteners and parts have to come off so being methodical and keeping the parts organized is key.  We made certain that we had a good sized work surface to keep parts on and magnetic trays to store fasteners on.

Doug spent a lot of time making sure that the timing was right by marking the timing belt and the gears and crank pulley.  That meant we didn’t have to guess as we put things back together.  The 4G63 takes a couple of special tools in order to do the job and one of them is a long bolt-like device that is threaded into a hole in the block designed to release the tesioner.  With the tensioner retracted a pin can be inserted to hold it in place, then the tensioner is unbolted from the block.

Each of the cam gears had to be unbolted from the cams and this had to be done with care.  The cams come with flats that you can use to hold them in place while a breaker bar is used on the cam gear bolts.  Keeping everything clean is paramount.  Paper towels are better than rags for wiping parts and protecting things from dirt.  The rags will leave strings of cotton that can get into places and oil galleries and stick there.  The paper towels may shed a bit of paper fibers, but they won’t clog any oil passages.

We had to be sure to keep the cam bearing journal caps that were removed in the proper order.  They must be kept in the same order they were taken off and in the right orientation.  There are dowels that keep them from moving around, but they also make them difficult to remove.  We used a large channel lock pliers with a towel to cushion the jaws. 

The exhaust cam was done first and the old one was removed and set aside.  The new cam journals were coated with engine assembly lube and set carefully in the head.  Then each of the cam journal caps were put in place and lightly tightened down.  Doug used a Snap-On digital quarter inch torque wrench to carefully tighten the cam journals.  He used a three stage tightening and the factory torque sequence.  That ensured that the journals did not get stressed and the cam was seated properly.

Both cams have cam sensors in this last version of the 4G63.  That meant unbolting a cam sensor target from each cam and making certain that is was oriented on the new cam properly.  This is especially difficult on the exhaust cam since the target is not keyed to go on.  We had to be sure to mark the shield and its orientation to the cam’s dowel pin on the opposite end of the cam shaft.  The cam sensor target also had to be installed after the cam sensor housing was slipped on the cam.

New cam seals were used at the gear ends of the cams but the sensor o-rings and gaskets were re-usable.

The intake cam was much the same.  The only difference was the cam gear was quite different so that oil pressure could advance the timing.  That meant that there were two different torque specs on the connecting bolt and the cap bolt that covered the outside of the gear pulley.

Doug ensured that the timing belt went back on properly and that the engine stayed in time while a new tensioner was installed.  He rotated the engine crank to be sure everything was as it should be and that the timing was intact.

Then the valve cover was installed and all the fasteners and sensors were installed.  Doug took particular care in using the right torque when installing the valve cover.  They are cast and can easily crack if over tightened.

I repainted my valve cover in wrinkle black a while back.  Wrinkle black valve covers have become sort of a trade mark of mine ever since my air-cooled VW days.

During the cam install process Doug had to take a few minutes away to work on another car so I took advantage of the break to remove the “stock” exhaust system and install the system that had been on my older Evolution.  The system that was on this car had been thrown on to bring the car back to stock or something close.  The piping and muffler was certainly stock, but the catalytic converter was all wrong.  I was glad to get the old system off.  The Greddy titanium system is so light that it was easy for me to put on by myself.  It weighs less than ten pounds.

I had the Tanabe downpipe bolted to the high flow cat and had put fresh exhaust wrap on the downpipe.  It was a simple matter of bolting the downpipe up and then lining the cat up with the Greddy system.  I had a fresh 3” exhaust gasket to install and use stainless steel bolts with double nuts, just to be sure that vibration doesn’t loosen up anything.  The downpipe and cat assembly weighs more that the rest of the system.  I also installed a brace that I had used with my old car.  It replaced the two cross bars that the factory installs with a triangulated set of braces made from stainless steel tubing.  This ensures that the lower suspension flex is minimized.

I needed to add some spacers to this bracing so that it would not come in contact with the downpipe.  It had been a problem that I had not addressed with my old car, but this time I paid attention to it.  I had a machine shop make five half inch thick spacers out of stainless steel for me and they were bolted in place giving enough clearance for the downpipe.  Next I had them MIG welded to the brace.

Doug returned and we finished up the chore of putting all the pieces back on the engine.  Since the exhaust was installed we could fire the engine up and see how the cams sounded.  The engine fired up nicely and we waited for things to warm up.  The engine was rev’ed for a few minutes to break in the cams and then it was allowed to settle down so we could hear the idle.  With my previous car the GSC cams gave it a bit of a lumpy idle.  Nothing radical, but you could tell that something was different about the cams.  With this engine’s MIVEC the idle was as if it were stock.  No lumpy idle at all.  When I took it out for a test drive you could feel the cams come in nicely.  Plenty of mid-range and sufficient top end to make it all worth while, and no ECU tuning had been done yet to capitalize on the change. 

The next day I brought the car back to the garage so that I could install the new Greddy intercooler.  It was the same model I had used on my Evo 8 and I liked it because it fit without having to cut the bumper cover or any of the bumper, yet it provided a lot more capacity of the generously sized factory intercooler.  Some after market intercoolers won’t allow the installation of the factory under pan, but this one does.

Stock Intercooler

The Greddy intercooler comes in aluminum that is a lot shinier than the factory intercooler, and while that was OK for the Evo 8, I thought I would try for a stealthier look with the Evo 9 front end.  So I found a shop in the Raleigh area that would black anodize the intercooler and piping for me.  I also found a supplier that had black transition hose to replace the Greddy blue hoses.  The Greddy couplers came with worm gear hose clamps that I replaced with T-bolt hose clamps.  I’ve had experience with hoses blowing off during boost and I would rather use T-bolt clamps.

While I put on the intercooler and piping Rodney installed the front sensors for my Escort Radar/Lidar detector.  Rather than having a detector that is on the windshield for all to see I find the Escort SRX remote a nice way to be alerted and yet keep the profile basically invisible.  The Lidar detectors fit in the factory bumper slots perfectly and we fashioned a mount for the radar antenna just above the intercooler.

It cost a little more to get the intercooler black, but I like the look and it should also transfer heat better.

We are still waiting for the Tamei ARMS turbo.  When that comes in we will swap out the radiator for a nice Mishimoto unit with Samco silicon hoses.  Then some tuning of the ECU to capitalize on all the goodies.  Stay tuned.