fuel's Lancer Evo IX GT-A wagon

[Toucan]

Skip the swaybar upgrade and put the money's towards tyres for reverse b-outs

[fuel]

On 22/11/2023 at 18:53, Camel said:

Surely front subframe would have to be removed anyway for manuelle swap?

May as well buy so you have it there just in case?

Nah subframe stays put the box and transfer case get separated first and then they each come out down the bottom.

[fuel]

Finally got around to fitting the Ralliart CF front lip. I ended up cutting it in half in order to transport it from NZ to Canada so will tidy up the join properly in time, but for now it's hardly noticeable. I'm going to place a Ralliart sticker over top of the join anyway to hide it further

[fuel]

[fuel]

[fuel]

also teaser of what is meant to be arriving soon

[xsspeed]

5 wings is a lot of downforce phil

[fuel]

6 minutes ago, xsspeed said:

5 wings is a lot of downforce phil

I have to control its xspower somehow

[lowlancer]

Probably my ultimate daily driver, nice work man. Crazy that you're mid-field with this, still feels like EVO IX were the fastest thing out there... must be getting old! 

[fuel]

big wang arrived all the way from Sri Lanka. Canada customs definitely had a big nosey at what it is.

 

So what is this 'Kenstyle' you may ask? It is a Japanese manufacturer of a rear spoiler that was originally destined for the Lancer Cedia in the early '00s, before the Evo Wagon was released:

 

Out of the other wings available, such as the Ralliart which is big $$$ and hard to find

and the Varis which has now been discontinued and even more harder to find

The Kenstyle is by far my favourite - though it does have a caveat (as does the Ralliart) in that it requires fitting a regular Lancer wagon spoiler because they attach to the regular model spoiler rather than the larger Evo wagon spoiler. I did end up finding a genuine Kenstyle in NZ but it did not include the base model Lancer spoiler (which I have since found thanks to @Bluebird_U). I still was faced with the more serious and expensive problem of getting a rather large wang from NZ to Canada. Unlike the Ralliart CF front lip I was able to get away with cutting right in the middle at its smallest and least noticeable point, I can not do the same to the spoilers.

[fuel]

Having said that, finding a Kenstyle certainly isn't any easier and when they do pop up for sale they are too big $$$. I paid more than I wanted to for my Kenstyle in NZ, but still significantly less than the going rate because it was missing the regular Lancer wing base to make it complete.

So enter in the Kenstyle replica, made in an initial small run of five units by a fellow Evo wagon owner in Sri Lanka who happens to have his own plastics manufacturing company. The replica is different in the sense that it combines the regular Lancer wagon spoiler into the Kenstyle mould, therefore negating the need to source a regular Lancer wagon spoiler, but also does away with the gap that is present between the regular spoiler and the Kenstyle wing that traps moisture and general muckyness:

 

So here it is unpacked in its primer glory and will go on when I have some time to get it painted.

[fuel]

On 08/03/2024 at 05:49, lowlancer said:

Probably my ultimate daily driver, nice work man. Crazy that you're mid-field with this, still feels like EVO IX were the fastest thing out there... must be getting old! 

definitely more of a driver limitation than car limitation haha - I did have to drive the ~650km back to Toronto from western Michigan and didn't want to ruin the car haha. Being on all season tyres that started to feel super mushy once some heat got into them didn't help. I've since fixed that by getting a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4S's earlier this week:

[fuel]

some of the quick cars there was a Lexus GS-F that sounded amazing, the CT5 Blackwing (also on Michelin PS4S's) and some large overwight mild hybrid Merc/AMG thing that somehow was the second fastest vehicle all weekend

 

[fuel]

Has been a while - I've since gone to another trackday in West Virginia and then went down to Tail of the Dragon again last month. Ahead of those events I had the car tuned and picked up 120hp/160nm after almost doubling the boost - I've got some dyno vids I've been meaning to put together into a single clip, hopefully will do that soon.

In the meantime, here's pics of the brake caliper refresh - old and crusty:

 

 

[fuel]

bling bling

[fuel]

While the wheels were off I cleaned them up fully and ceramic coated them, am hoping this will prevent or greatly reduce the build up of brake dust and general road muck. Gave the rest of the car a bit of a much needed cleanup too.

[fuel]

So just to sidetrack and sych myself up to hurry up with the manual swap (gotta tear down the donor 6 speed box to inspect and replace 4th gear hub if needed), I decided to pull apart the donor transfer case (from a JDM Evo 8 RS) to inspect and clean up. This is the transfer case disassembled to its main core components - the ring & pinion gear, active centre diff clutch pack and hydraulic actuator, and the front differential assembly:

[fuel]

And this is the front diff separated revealing the factory RS helical LSD unit which looks to be in good condition with no cracks showing... yet. The front diff housing is a major weak point for the CT9A Evo and I am seriously considering upgrading to something like a Wavetrac or Quaife while I have it all apart.

[fuel]

Not all is well however, I noticed some debris stuck inside - some aluminium and some dark metal. Thankfully the ring & pinion are fine with no damage whatsoever, but I wish I could say the same about the transfer case end case where the bearing sits and the bearing itself

[fuel]

I found the culprit - it looks like the thrust surface on the ACD hydraulic piston is missing some material, and I found some missing teeth on the outer most ACD clutch plate. I only found two bits of broken teeth but there is at least half a dozen teeth missing that I couldn't find. This isn't the end of the world as I should be able to salvage the ACD section from my original transfer case and mix'n'match.