fuel's Lancer Evo IX GT-A wagon

[fuel]

As if I didn't need yet another distraction and eventual half finished project, I came across a tidy-ish 2005 Lancer Evolution IX GT-A wagon with low kms (81k) on the other side of the country for a decent price and figured it was probably going to be my only feasible opportunity to own one as only 2500 were produced in total.

It's stock right now with the exception of Evo X Enkei 18x8.5 wheels, a Varis CF bonnet (wanted to swap it with an OE aluminium bonnet but they are hard to find and the Varis is growing on me) and a bunch of JDM gizmos like a malfunctioning A'PEXi I-Mobisses alarm system, DVD+HDD navigation pop out display head unit and toll card system that talks to you in Japanese.

Initial plans are to give it a decent clean up as the paint has many scratches presumably from automatic car washes and need to fix a couple mechanical issues like noisy rear wheel bearings and a leaking radiator. Longer term plans are to hit it with the lowering stick, 6 speed manual convert it (already picked up the box/transfer case, clutch, flywheel, shifter etc) and locate a M/T Evo 9 turbo to fit (as current turbo is slightly smaller and runs less boost). A MIVEC head swap would be nice too.

[GARDRB]

Oh fuck yeah, this is a bucket list car for me

[fuel]

So I gave it a good clean up, ditched the Enkeis in favour for Evo X BBS's and put Tein springs in the front

 

Have yet to fit the Tein springs in the rear, but it's already sitting a bit low because there's a 6 speed gearbox, transfer case, flywheel and shifter assembly in the boot. Just need to track down a RHD pedal box, clutch master cylinder and a M/T dash cluster (probably going to get a Ralliart S3 cluster as it already has a Ralliart S1 auto cluster along with the Ralliart oil temp, oil pressure & boost pressure centre gauge set). 

[kws]

Love these things, one of the best understated fast wagons. I was always impressed that they pumped the guards out so much 

[GARDRB]

43 minutes ago, kws said:

Love these things, one of the best understated fast wagons. I was always impressed that they pumped the guards out so much 

Especially once you see a Cedia being converted, it’s pretty crazy

[fuel]

Have just been plugging along working my way through a list of some things needing to be done.

The original radiator had sprung a leak where the plastic top tank meets the core, and I knew this when purchasing the car. I took a chance and drove it the 4137km back home topping up the coolant 500-1000mL every morning before setting off again, but obviously needed a permanent solution. As the North American Evo 8 & 9 only came manual, finding an auto radiator locally was impossible. I ordered an Evo 8/9 manual radiator off RockAuto (like under $100 delivered) along with getting a $20 Amazon auxiliary transmission cooler. The car already has a fairly separate auto trans cooler so it probably wouldn't have missed bypassing the radiator mounted trans cooler, but opted to put in the extra cooler just in case. It's all going to come out eventually when I do the manual swap anyway.

[fuel]

One of the gambles of buying a used car on the other side of the country sight unseen is that you may be in for a few unexpected surprises. I even had a pre-purchase inspection done at an independent performance shop in the seller's city but they missed the very obvious rumbling noise coming from the rear at highway speeds. They did pick up on the very obviously leaking radiator, so I guess there's that.

I was hoping the driveline noise wasn't the rear diff, and thankfully the wagons don't come with AYC so there isn't the dreaded AYC pump failure or noise to worry about. As the noise got louder with speed I took a punt and got $30 wheel bearings in hopes that fixes the noise. Now, Mitsubishi only sell the rear wheel bearing with the spindle hub as one unit for $600 each, aftermarket are still about $250-300 at the cheapest. At 1/10th of the cost, I figured I couldn't mess up the bearing only change too bad.

I was going to do many pictures at each step à la @kws but opted to make it into a YouTube video instead:

 

I am happy to report that $60 and a few hours of my time has sorted out the rear end noise. Phew.

 

[fuel]

As with many fresh Japanese imports it has some additional gizzmos like the toll card reader which talks to you in Japanese, a 2005-era Carrozzeria HDD based navigation system and the above-mentioned A'PEXi I-Mobisses alarm system which talks to you in Engrishu. There really is a mess of wires under both the front drivers and passengers seats which I need to get rid of.

The first that has to go is the Carrozzeria headunit as there aren't many radio stations here below 90Mhz, the built in TV can't receive anything here, and it drains the car battery something crazy if I leave the ACC power on without the engine running. The HDD unit that sits in the boot runs REALLY hot and I just generally don't trust it. I do love that it's a single DIN pop up display so I can still see the gauges if the display is banished back to its hole.

 

 

Still has FM radio presets from Japan that stick around even when I disconnect the car battery:

 

The Navigation showing its last moments in Japan, pictured here is the ports in Nagoya:

 

I opted to get a Pioneer AVH-3500NEX which is the only unit on sale today that is single DIN, has a fold out screen as well as supports Apple CarPlay & Android Auto. The plan is to move the Ralliart gauges to below the headunit that way I can still see the gauges even when the display is out.

 

Bonus alarm lols:

 

[fuel]

Made a start on getting rid of the excess electrical junk in the car in preparation of changing out the head units. 

Antennas for the TV tuner

 

GPS antennas for the navigation, toll system, alarm system and remote control receiver

[fuel]

This mess is peeking out from under the front passenger seat:

Removing the seat reveals this:

This is under the carpet in the front passenger footwell:

 

[fuel]

Under the rear seat:

 

This is the pile building up so far:

And this mess is still left in the passenger front footwell - going to tackle this when I remove the headunit itself:

[fuel]

Speaking of the headunit, made a start on removing the trim surround and pulling it out slowly to see what I am working with:

 

Yep, it's as messy as you would expect behind here too

 

More shit to add to the pile:

 

It's hard to imagine all of this with 3 separate thick bus cables, two extra processing units, and a hard drive unit mounted in the boot is all superseded with a smaller unit that just plugs into a mobile phone. CarPlay/Android Auto headunits are the best. The AVH3500NEX I went with probably isn't the best unit in the world, but I was very particular about wanting a fold away single DIN unit.

I also gotta say, the Evo IX is basically the last older 'feeling' performance car Mitsubishi made. It feels like it's put together just like an early 90's Lancer or Galant - all the fasteners are in logical placements, use standardised sizes, everything comes apart and goes back together super easy, no excessive safety devices getting in the way etc. It really feels like a back to basics car that happens to have a modern-ish (for the time anyway) look and feel but still easy to fix and modify. 

[fuel]

And finally the AVH-3500NEX is installed. At first I was a little disappointed in screen quality (it was barely better than the 2005 era unit it replaced) but after playing around with the settings and being able to change the theme and backlighting to match the rest of the interior, plus having touchscreen & Carplay it is just totally worth it.

 

Also was able to add a Evo IX M/T TD05HR-16G6C-10.5T turbo to the collection of parts to eventually swap over, in addition to the 6 speed conversion bits. While in the US recently I picked up some new front axles courtesy of RockAuto - can't complain at $50 a side it was cheaper buying new than it was tracking down something second hand.

[fuel]

Black Friday has come and gone which means I picked up some stuff:

- Braided brake lines
- Superpro 24mm rear adjustable sway bar
- Varis CF shift knob & shifter bushings (for when I do the 6spd swap)
- Rear diff poly mounts
- K&N air filter

Made a start with swapping in the braided lines. You can see the brake calipers need some love as the original clear coat is peeling and fading. I have to swap in a different brake master cylinder reservoir when I do the manual swap so when the brake fluid is all drained again I'll get them done then. Have ordered up replacement brembo decals already. The existing brake fluid seems fresh and not discoloured which is a good sign, I opted to use some regular DOT 4 fluid I had on hand for the brake line swap and will wait for the new master cylinder reservoir and caliper overhaul before using the good DOT 5.1 stuff.

[fuel]

Swapped in the K&N air filter for sweet churbo noises, into the original airbox for stock look. Small chance I may be picking up a Ralliart CF air box when I'm in Australia end of the month. 

Superpro rear sway bar waiting to be installed. I need to drop the exhaust to fit the sway bar, and I have since picked up a Kakimoto 3" catback that I will swap in at the same time. 

[fuel]

Making a start on swapping out the original TD05HR-15GK2-9T turbo with the TD05HR-16G6C-10.5T turbo

Original turbo in good clean condition, just the compressor and turbine housing is slightly smaller than the M/T counterpart.

[fuel]

So ran into a snag right before leaving to come to NZ - the manifold to turbo flange bolt threads were trashed and one of the studs was damaged too so needed to find a M10x1.25 tap and some replacement bolts and studs - thankfully had plenty after rummaging through my bucket of nuts and bolts in NZ.

Slapped the 16G onto the manifold with new gaskets

... and found that the Meek turbo outlet (J pipe) fouls on the starter motor. Hard to see in the pic but put an arrow where they touch.

The problem is the IX compressor housing being larger requires its own specific outlet pipe which is different to the outlet pipe from the stock turbo and it seems while the Meek pipe is meant for both VIII & IX style compressor housings, it doesn't quite clear the starter. I'm going to try slot the mounting bolt holes so I can hopefully rotate the pipe further away from the starter (and exhaust). I want to use the Meek pipe if I can as it's a 2.25" outlet instead of the stock piddly 1.8". I have picked up some aftermarket intercooler piping too to suit the larger diameter of the Meek J pipe outlet.

The turbo wastegate bracket is super close to the radiator fan too, but should get about 5mm of clearance once the J pipe to starter clearance is sorted as I can fully slide the turbo onto the exhaust studs.

[fuel]

So keep running into issues with the turbo outlet pipe which means I can't finish off the swap. The Meek outlet pipe I picked up seems to be for the Evo VIII turbo despite the seller claiming it was definitely for the Evo IX turbo, it definitely looks different enough from the stock Evo VIII style outlet pipe which is why I thought it for sure was the correct Evo IX one:

But no matter how I try to jiggle it (I even slotted the mounting holes to twist it around somewhat) it keeps hitting on the starter motor/solenoid and prevents the exhaust manifold from sitting flush up to the cylinder head. And that's without even slipping the outlet hose on too which no doubt adds another 3-4mm of clearance needed.

Have ordered up the correct Evo IX outlet pipe from Meek and hopefully it should get here within the next couple weeks. Also bought a stock IX outlet pipe just in case I need to fall back on that one too, also waiting for it to arrive next week.

[fuel]

So now that the turbo swap is on hold until I receive the replacement outlet pipe(s) I shifted gears to focus on the rear end. The stock rear sway bar is still quite beefy at 22mm:

But swapped it out for the 25mm SuperPro one anyway, plus this one is now adjustable if I wanted to tighten up the rear further

While I had the rear section of the stock exhaust dropped down, I figured I may as well undo the remaining two nuts at the cat and pull it off completely to compare with the Kakimoto exhaust I had picked up some time back

[fuel]

Didn't take much effort to fit, I have to fiddle around with it before tightening up the mid flange bolts and at the cat converter because the downpipe isn't attached to the turbo right now so the exhaust wont be in its final position until the turbo goes back in.

I'm not usually the biggest fan of 'ricer' type exhausts but I picked it up for next to nothing, it's a quality brand and it weighs significantly less than the stock exhaust. I think the look is growing on me.

I need to give it a clean now, sitting for almost 5 months in the garage means it's covered in dust