The exact thought which crossed my mind when I went under my parent's Bimmer last night...
My dad was complaining about a noise which was coming from the bottom of the car on the passenger side, he said there would be a loud banging sound whenever he hit a large bump that would allow the car to sink towards the ground. Being a good son, I graciously got on the floor to see what was causing the noise.
"...OH WTF!!!" I thought to myself when I found a metal rod sticking out at a 30 degree angle from the bottom of my parent's 2 month old 2009 BMW 328Xi. The Bimmer got stabbed on the highway... Instead of trying to figure out how it got there because knowing my dad and the way he treats that damn car, it's no surprise to me at all that this even happened. It took a bit of force to dislodge the rod from the bottom of the car and from my horrible deduction skills I can only imagine that there is now a hole on teh bottom of the shell. It just so happens that my mom sits right above where there rod decided to lodge itself into the car.
This has been a giant WTF moment...
Here's a picture of the rod that was lodged on the bottom-side of the Bimmer:
Well here's a few teasers for an upcoming project I'm working on. Be sure to check back later for more pictures!
**Update 12/14/09So when I got home today I actually beat the UPS driver (I saw him making his rounds on my street as I drove past him on my way home) and for once I was finally able to receive the package myself. Anyway... I got this in the mail today,
BIG THANKS to Benjamin Barch over at OptimaTrays.com for the most well made battery tray I've ever seen. Customer service is bar none with timely email replies and great delivery time. Once again Thank you Mr.Barch!
So I was looking into getting a new mini battery for my car. Why? Because a battery relocation kit is costly (at least $200 to $300 for the kit and installation by a professional) it's great however I don't feel that I should spend that much on a relocation kit which doesn't reduce weight but in fact it actually adds weight. Most mini battery kits cost upwards of $150 (at the time when I was looking), therefore I decided to make my own.
After much searching I ordered my Deka ETX14 and I thought it was a great battery once installed. I had to cut my stock battery tray and remount the tie rods and it worked fine for a while but I wanted something more. Then I made this one: . This is how the tray looks out of the car with the battery and tray together.
For only $50 I've made this custom tray out of steel and fits very well in the car and also adds a mount for my Greddy Oil Catch Can 150ml.
I felt that it is time for an update, I've been really busy lately and haven't gotten around to posting anything new. I've also included some cars which are my friend's. Random shots I suppose.
Many tuners today lack the basic idea, which states; less weight equals a faster car. In terms of the proper theoretical explanation, less mass means less inertia of an object. With that reduced inertia the object is able to be propelled quicker and have much better control overall. How does this apply to a car you may ask. Well it applies to a car such as. If you remove the "glamorous" parts of a car which is usually considered dead weight/mass (weight/mass which is not needed in a car but only put there for creature comforts and for people who have no idea how ot drive or even take care of a car). Usually this dead weight/mass are carpets, interior trim, and etc... In most cars the manufacturer wants to make the car quieter, luxurious, and etc. This usually means large amount of mass from extra electronics which will probably never be used, interior trim that will fall off, sound deadening material to make the ride a bit quieter even though the tires and wind make up most of the noise you hear in a car, and the extra compartments where you can stuff useless medical aid kits and sweaters which will be long forgotten.
All these things adds up to large amount of weight/mass. A lot of people will always say that taking weight/mass off a car will not make it go any faster and that 1 to 2lbs will not make a difference. Adding more power will solve that issue in no time even the car manufacturers imply this in the newer production cars as of late. They get more massive and have even more power. Apparently 0-60 times rule the automobile sales market.
Well to start off, I completely disagree with people who think that saving weight on a car is a useless task. I did a small test this past weekend with my own car and I found that my mpg has increased by 4 to 6mpg. I didn't have to buy anything extra or spend anymore money than I needed to. All I did was take off 190lbs from my car. Now, before you start doing this to your own, let me just say this isn't the kind of modification which is left for the faint of heart. This weight reduction was meant for my car to perform better at the track, yet it does ahve a side effect of performing better on the street as well. By reducing the weight of my car by that much, I managed to put less overall stress on the tires, brakes, suspension and most importantly the engine. These components worked less due to the simple fact that weight was removed. The engineers whom designed this car designed it to be driven with weight, the components can undoubtly handle the stress with the original weight/mass of the car. Since I've reduced the weight/mass of the car it is now able to put less stress on these components, therefore increasing control and longecvity of these components in stressful situations. As a side effect of this, the engine worked less to propell the car and therefore, used less fuel. Hence the increase in mpg while cruising on the highway. My simple test was to see how my mpg would look like after driving 175 miles one way and back. Usually I would get around 20mpg on the highway before I decided to strip my car. After I stripped it and drove all those miles, I noticed that my car uses less gas than usual even though it was an uphill decent for the most part. On the way back was even better because it was going downhill most of the way and that yielded 26mpg. I find that amazing for something anyone can do themselves. The car does handle much better and seems a bit quicker.
No one thinks much of Thursday nights, unless you're the person who has nothing to do the next day and decides to go out partying or drinking. However for car guys in Jersey and NYC, Thursdays seem to be the day where we all gather in one giant parking lot to hang out and talk about our cars. Edgewater is the spot, yes the infamous Edgewater meet is back on now in full force, cops actually stopping the ones that need to be stopped and no one else. The turn out was huge, at least 150 cars filled the parking, from the Pathmark area to starbucks, no spot was left empty.
During the following Thursdays (two to be exact since the first meet), cops became a bit more leaniant and stopped with most of the ticket issuing business. However, they are still giving it out but you need to be doing something incredibly stupid and obvious. Anyway, clubs such as speedloung , njtuners, and a few other local import clubs show up and hang around along with TSE and Evo-Ny. To people who are not familiar with such activites might think we're just a pathetic group of guys and sometimes women (yes! women like cars too!) that we just have nothing else better to do on a Thursday night and they're right but most of all we just want to meet up, hang out, and enjoy our passion and enthusiasm for our cars and/or cars all together. The number of cars which go to the meets have grown substantially since the intial Thursday which signaled the rekindled flames of the Thursday Edgewater meets.
Usually I hate going out on Sundays. I usually stay home and bum around just to relax and get ready for Monday. However, this Sunday was much different. The roadcourse was open again and was still free. Seeing how I had so much fun on Saturday I had to go again. This time i was a bit more prepared. The night before I just got an alignment from Sears Auto out on the island at 4000 Jericho Turnpike. The tech that performed the adjustment called himself Kenny. Man, this guy was more meticulous than I was. I told him the specs I wanted and he did everything he could to get them or as close as possible. So I had my front camber set to -2.5 deg and rear was -1.5 deg. I managed to max out my TEIN camber plates and required to run about -1 deg on my knuckle bolts. Before the session started, I also checked my tire pressure to ensure I was running less air then my last run on Saturday.
Anyway, after waiting in the blistering heat for 45 minutes and talking a number of people on the line including a Yellow 2003 Evo 8 GSR with a built 2.0 Liter stick looking block and a 20G (which by the way was one of the smartest builds I've ever seen, I mean instead of throwing money at the car they just used whatever worked and still made power) that car was truly amazing and was quick around the track. I finally reached teh staging area and to my surprise I was the lead car again. So i got the instructor again in my car and he was really cool. He actually owns an Evo with a stage 5 Buschur built motor and racing coilovers with other various suspension work. Unlike my last instructor he let me get on it and he knew how the car would react. So needless to say it was a fucking blast! My friends, Rob's wife (White Evo X) and Howard(Evo IX MR) [in that order] lined up behind me and I was able to lose them within the warm up lap. I even got the car sideways and he just told me to give it more gas. haha After that session I was confident enough to join the advanced group as I was slowed down by a Toyota Tacoma with 19's and almost hit the wall at the banked right hander with a dive to the apex. I thought that session was fun...
We got off the track and got back on line and let the cars cool off. This time all three of us lined up in the advanced group and I was really hoping to see what kind of driver Rob was as he used to drive rally cars back in Hungary, so I let him go in front of me as Howard followed behind me. As the ambient temps of the day were close to 105 degrees you can only imagine how much heat the cars were producing that day. My oil alone hit 110 degrees Celsius and brake cooling proved to be a challenge without having cooling ducts. Regardless the car felt GREAT, the alignment did the trick. Everything just worked. Less body roll and it literally handled on rails, even running on pretty used RT615's the car was so controllable. Kudos to Kenny at Sears for helping me set it up even after hours.
I was pretty confident that I would do well in the advanced group but I was rather disappointed because we were stuck behind some pretty slow cars. To make matters worse the cars were barely track prepped and the SRT8 Charger in front had snow tires on. It obviously didn't do well against the Evo's. As we left the stagging area and headed on the track I immediately got on it, since everything was warmed up from before. I was definitely harder on her than I was in my last session. Rob was given a 10 second lead, and by the end of the 1st lap I started to catch up to him. By the end of the 2nd lap I was on him. Then by the time we both got to the 3rd lap we were stuck behind the charger and we both had to slow down since there was no passing allowed. As frustrated as we were there was nothing we could do except for Rob to flash his Hi-Beams at the guy and nearly making him crash into the wall... HAHA The charger didn't seem to happy on the track but we weren't too happy either... My impression of the second session is pretty much this... My car kicked ass hands down! The tires got lose enough for me to have a little fun and pull slight drifts from my corner exits and the turn in was simply amazing and stunning. I just wanted to go faster and faster but my lack of gas and my rising oil temperatures caused me to slow down earlier for a cool down lap. Hopefully I can fix this issue soon.
My final verdict of the entire track day weekend. Amazing. I can't tell you how much fun it was unless you were there. I've never experienced anything like it. If you were there and you drove your car the right way you would know. If you weren't then all I can say is you missed out on good clean fun. It's a great track for beginners it's not that fast but you can still have fun especially if the car is tuned for it.
Part 1 The camera was located in Howard's car and Rob's wife was driving the Evo X in front and I was in my Evo that was in front of her. The commentary is also provided by Howard. Enjoy...
Today at the track was nothing short of, well, FUCKING AMAZING. My car took the tight turns and straight away like nothing happened. Even with my slightly off alignment I was able to take the corners hard without the tires scrubbing. It was fantastic. The cars that showed up were amazing as well. BMW M3's, race prepped Ferrari 355, many porsches, too many Subaru's if you ask me, and also Evo's. There were a few civics and automatic cars that didn't do all that bad. The staging session was actually fun. I got to talk to a lot of different people and get to know how their cars were setup. It wasn't too suprising to me that a lot of the novice road course guys didn't have a clue on how to make their cars better. It was still fun to talk to people and learn a thing or two about other cars for once. Today was not a day to prove to everyone that one person was better than the other but just a day to have fun and learn how to drive on the track. That damn WRX wagon behind me kept trying to cut into the corners and get on my inside line, too bad he was understeering so badly that he scrubber off most of his corner entry speed and lost almost all the speed he had for his corner exits. Haha. I do want to go on the track with the blue STi that had a fear no Evo sticker on though...
The overall impression of the track was amazing!!! It's a nice street styled track, as the pavement was nearly 5 years old and wasn't exactly flawless. The Spec R springs worked amazingly. Words can not describe how much improvement can come from just a spring upgrade, especially if you go with SWIFT springs. Just brilliant! The tighter sections of the course really allowed my car's overall setup to shine. The "aggressive" negative camber up front gave me the best turn-in capabilities as possible mixed in with the stripped out trunk and rear seats in my car. The tail just loved to kick-out. The instructor became a bit hesitant when I exited one of the corners a little too spirited-ly and the car nearly went side-ways. The car felt extremely balanced and poised, the rear-end of the car was able to rotate better than ever. The only way I can describe my track experience today is, FUCKING INCREDIBLE. Don't get me wrong, I love opening up my car when ever and where ever but it's true, the track is a completely different experience.
Bottom line, it doesn't take coilovers to have a great handling car. It's all about the way you set things up and most importantly it's about the driver more than the car. I find that many "tuners" these days are quick to jump the gun on the suspension front and go straight into coilovers. Adjustable height isn't the best thing in the world especially when the "tuner" has no idea what he/she is doing to them. It's better to start slowly and figure things out as you go and from that point on fine tune certain things like tire pressure, camber settings, toe angle and weight bias in the car.
Not too many pictures today: A taste of the cars that were there...
If you're a New Jersey resident that's part of a car club or just really into the whole car scene then you are obviously aware of the infamous Edgewater meets that occur every Thursday nights. If you get there by 9PM you will have the pleasure of seeing the Honda boys and Cobalts roll in and cause all kinds of fuss. When everyone starts to settle down you get to realize that 9:30PM slowly rolls around and Audi's, BMW's, Porsche's, Evo's, Sti's, and etc... all start to trickle in. Some come alone but others come in teams. You're also greeted by the people that are coming out of Starbucks, Pathmark, and Borders. Some just want to go home while others want to see what all the bright lights are and the loud exhausts.
The scene starts to explode. By now cars are bumping their stereo systems and people are showing off their exhausts while others walk around and mingle with the enormous crowd of people. When I mean crowds I mean 70+ heads with at least 50+ cars easily. This is like HIN (Hot Import Nights) on steroids and the best part is, it features cars that people actually drive. Some on a daily basis others are just for weekends; but whatever it may be I can assure you that you won't see a show whore amongst the crowd being towed in on a trailer.
Although some things are unavoidable... You're probably on the right track. Well as things start getting interesting and everyone is just, plain and simple, having a good time relaxing and talking the stress of the work week off; guess who decides to show up and ruin it all... Johnny Law. Not one. Not two. But five marked police cruisers show up to break up the crowd. There was one that was an unmarked one just chasing random civics out of the parking lot, mainly for not stopping at the stop sign or having a ridiculously loud exhaust. Needless to say this was the sad end of the car meet for tonight, it might have been better if people just learned how to behave themselves or maybe if the state of New Jersey wasn't so broke off their ass. Who knows... All that matters is this is a taste of what the next few weeks of the summer will hold. Edgewater, NJ is the place to be at if you want to see real cars, for once.
On a side note, my car drove... perfectly. The front motor mount made all the difference in the world and the springs just began to seat and feel better than ever. The shifts felt precise and true to the feel. It was just great. Taking the on ramps at speed meant having my Recaro seats hug me even tighter than before as I whipped passed the turn at speeds which nearly were double that of the limit posted. Sway bars will be next and then I'll see how she really performs. =]
As the time flew by I added various different aftermarket parts on to my car. The first thing I added was the JDM Evolution IX Rear bumper which was pre-painted from the factory in Japan. Then I changed my brakes and exhaust. I used DBA 4000 slotted front and rear rotors with their unique kangaroo paw design used for their internal disc cooling system, Ferrodo DS2500 brake pads front and rear, Endless Stainless Steel brake lines, and then I added a Blitz Nur Spec R 80mm exhaust. This could only be achieved through Phil@201Motorsports and Fizz Motorsports!! The exhaust gave the car newfound character as the brakes gave it gut wrenching stopping power. At this point the air filter was changed to a WORKS Drop-In unit and the foglight bulbs were changed to Heon H11 55w endurance yellow bulbs. The fog lights greatly improved visibility in dense fog conditions. It was also time for me to change the rubber around my BBS goodness. I decided to go with Falken Azenis RT615, the price was right and the tires are great!
The next day I took my car to ATX Motorsports to have the clutch changed from OEM to a new ACT XTSS clutch kit with prolite flywheel and a stainless steel clutch line. They (Larry) performed a flawless job with the installation and the clutch was definitely different. Engaged just as easily as the OEM unit but it held the power and just didn't want to let go. Did not have any lock out issues at all while owning it. This will not be the last clutch I'll ever have or consider but it was good when I had it installed and up until now.
A few weeks later I was back to modding my car, this time I just received a brand new HKS EVC V Electronic Boost Control system from Hiro @ JonDemand. The unit was flawless and installed with ease. Controls boost like a dream and is as easy to tune as any other manual boost controller. The price was also fantastic!! I also got a chance to install my Apex'i intake that I received from TRT Motorsports in Flushing, NY. It filters dirt out of my turbo and engine while still making power. I think that's the ultimate win-win situation.
A few more oil changes later and after my 30,000 miles maintenance done I ordered up a set of SWIFT Spec R springs and TEIN front camber plates. It wasn't hard to install either parts but it was time consuming. When it was all over with, I took the car out for a test drive and it was night and day. The springs made all the difference int he world when they were paired up with my Bilstein MR struts. The body had less roll and being that it's a progressive spring, it just made me want to keep taking corners faster and faster. Truly an amazing piece of engineering.
One night later I installed Blox Racing's front engine mount for the Evo. I could not believe the difference this piece made. $75 made the car shift gears like a dream. I thought the metal bushings made a difference, I was dead wrong. The new front mount makes shifting the transmission like its a bolt action rifle. Nothing is caught up, just smooth in and out with a nice tight feeling to it. Very positive feel from the shifter and the shift itself. The clutch is even more consistent due to enormously reduced engine movement during shifts and on/off throttle situations. Thanks Speed Element!
Here in this blog, I will follow the evolution of my 2006 Lancer Evolution MR as it goes through a series of upgrades and modifications that I perform myself and add on various aftermarket parts. I will update this site as I continue to add/do things to my car.
A little about my car. I bought her in May 6, 2006 at Maywood Mitsubishi with only 15 miles on the clock. The metallic that were mixed into the Graphite Gray paint glimmered as the showroom lights lit up the entire body. The weaves on the OEM spoiler could be defined clearly as 1x1 weave. The forged aluminum BBS wheels were piece of art with low profile Yokohoma Advan A046 tires wrapped around them. It was more beautiful than words could ever describe it.
When I started her up the purr from the 4G63 with MIVEC was amazing, mixed in with it was the TD-06 16G turbo that spun graciously as the engine was at idle and purring away at 800rpm. Everything was smooth and quiet. I stood there in the showroom starring at the car in awe. Even to this day I still can not believe that it is mine.
Here's a few pictures of when I first got her home.
So this past weekend I decided to go on a hunt for the domo collection at 7 Eleven. To my surprise every 7 eleven between my house and Manhattan were sold out. So my girlfriend and I decided to try one last time... Today (11/1/09, Sunday) at 11AM we stopped by a 7 Eleven by my house and what did we find...? A brand new shipment of fresh Domo straws!!! ...Hotness. After two days of searching we finally have all four!!
NYC at night has to be the most awesome-est thing you'll ever see or experience in the world, especially on Halloween. Minus TLC people, they just kill the drive...
