Alignment

12.13.07
After installing the coilovers I took the car to get aligned. I wanted to try some street settings, just a lttle bit more agressive than stock in order to take advantage of the coilovers, hopefully without confusing the difference in handling. Since it is winter time here and there has been some snow, I kept it relatively conservative. One interesting thing to note that I had not though of was that in order to chieve these numbers, the front camber plates were not set evenly, but asymmetrically. This could be due to the stock lower camber bolts not being identical, or weight distribution, I don't know. The goal was to have something relatively neutral so I could more easily recognize results and adjustment from the coilovers.
I did not try to align for any significant oversteer, as I want to first see how the handling responds to damping changes, and also how the bigger Progress rear bar affects body roll.
These are the settings I am trying for daily street driving and street "coilover tuning" (messing around):

Naturally, once I am better acquainted with the suspension and effects on handling, I will try more aggressive settings when I put the stickier tires back on.

JIC FLTA2 Coilovers

This past weekend I got the opportunity to get some used JIC FLTA2 coilovers for a really good deal. Since I bought the car it has had Tein S-Tech springs on the stock struts that the previous owner had put on. These are notorious for their tendency to be too soft, too low, and horribly mismatched with the stock struts and the resulting ride quality (or lack thereof) can attest to this. Although I bought some stock springs to get rid of these soon after I bought the car, I had been holding out on installing them because of the likelihood of the stock struts being worn out by the Teins, and didn't want to shell out for installing and aligning the stock springs, only to have to buy new struts soon after and do it all over again, only to end up stock. Not that there is anything wrong with stock on this car, but the cost to benefit ratio seemed a bit disproportionate for my goals.
Donour Sizemore, another local Evo owner and SCCA instructor who races in STU class (quite successfully) had had these on his VIII RS, and was ready to step up to something more serious. With a rock bottom price including installation that I could not refuse. Before he owned them they were on the Showcase Evo, which won ESP at SCCA nationals in '04 or '05. They do not have the standard spring rates, but rather a unknown combination that the Showcase guys selected, probably 8/10k respectively.
The suspension is pretty stiff now, which is what I wanted,but also not as low, also good. I have not yet had the chance to play with the settings or race them yet, but the street handling (not comfort haha) has improved immensely.
Donour took the car an I on a test run on a tight and twisty road in the Sandia foothills after we installed them. Besides actually being a little scared in my own car for the first time (I was reminded of those gin and tonics I enjoyed the night before in the VIP section), I was also reminded of how much improvement is needed with my driving, and that at this point I must overcome the temptation to add more power and focus on improving my skills through more seat time and keeping a handy stock of consumables like tires, brake pads, etc.
Unfortunately I forgot my camera at home, so I don't have any pictures. I look forward to learning to use the car and suspension more to their full potential.

TBE, MBC, Walbro, ECU Flash dyno tune

Yesterday, 11.16.07 I dynoed my Evo VIII on a DynoJet at Pro Power dyno services in Rio Rancho NM. Cameron Dawes tuned the car for my current modifications using EvoScan for datalogging in conjunction with the DynoJet readings, an LM-1 wideband A/F gauge, and ECU Flash. The red line is the baseline map and the blue line is the tuned map.
293 awhp, 303 awtq. SAE corrected, dyno is at 5300' + elev., about 63* F, 18% humidity.

Stock airbox and filter
XS Engineering downpipe
Test Pipe (no cat)
HKS Hi Power exhaust
Forge manual boost controller
Evo IX diverter valve
T-bolt clamps
Walbro 255 LPH fuel pump
21psi. according to DynoJet boost reading (supposedly high), boost gauge in car reads about 19psi, so not much over stock, if at all.

Don't ask why the chart only reads to about 6700 RPM. I wasn't driving so I don;t know. Maybe it was just falling off after that? I would have liked to see how much though...

We had some runs with more power (>300hp+) but started seeing a little bit of knock and some strange boost and hp/tq fluctuation, so we tuned rather conservatively. After about 9 or 10 pulls the car was getting pretty hot and we started to lose some power. It didn't look like we were going to get much better power during the session so we stopped there.

Driving away from the dyno facility I definitely had a boost leak at 5k RPM, which has since subsided for the time being, but this would explain some of the inconsistent numbers, and perhaps some lost power. I did a boost leak test just a few days before this and the pipes were holding 22+ psi pretty well, and only taper off after a few minutes down to about 17 psi where it would rest for 10 min+.

The car definitely feels significantly more responsive after the tune. Driving it really seems to reflect what the dyno sheet shows, more power sooner and smoother than before, with more at the top where it used to run out of steam, and a much more stoich and stable A/F ratio throughout the powerband. I was pleasantly surprised by the peak power and gains we made yesterday and am allot more confident in the car's performance. Driving it now, although we
produced pretty good peak gains, I am also happy about where in the RPM range the power was added. I am satisfied with the results we made for what I have so far, but not satisfied for the long run of the car though :) I'll be in touch with you in the future for more tuning.

272 cams are next, and I have some other special fueling plans underway.

This is the launch of Config.8! I have been meaning to create something like this for quite some time now while I am "learning by doing" my real site's construction. The purpose of this blog is to document and share information about my involvement and experiences with cars and driving, specifically to the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution aka Evo, and serve as a resource of information pertaining to cars and driving in general.The name Config.8 (configure-eight/"configurate") represents the combination of the idea of configurating the vehicle and my life according to my needs and vision, and 8 represents the generation of Evolution that I own, the VIII. Although the Evolution IX has since been released, the VIII is significant as it is the first generation of Evolution available to the American market. "Configure8" would have been better, but some clever person with good taste in domain names and nomenclature already took that one.Abbreviating it to "Config." was inspired by the fact that PCs use Config files. I honestly don't know anything about them, how they work or what they are for, but I have seen them so I figure that it may work to use "Config". I use a Mac at home and a PC at work, and unlike my fascination with cars for their own sake, I am really only interested in computers as far as the design, creative multimedia, and communication capabilities they afford me. Beyond that, I am not inherently interested in computers themselves and how they work. I bet that will make Mac-hating pro-PC people snicker because it fits a cliche of a Mac user. That's ok. Just remember that I use a PC too, so anything you want to stereotype about me also applies to your platform!My online identity is Hokiruu (google that and see what you get) because my real name is Uuri Koh. It's a royal PITA of a name to have because the average American has a hard time pronouncing, trying to listen to, or even acknowledging the existence and validity of forgeign languages or the majority of names that don't come from the Bible. Mostly the spelling is a hassle ("two U's, in a ROW, really?" Thanks alot mom...), but I am also constantly correcting (or giving up on correcting people) on the pronounciation (Ooh-ree is correct, like "Ooh really?"), people assuming I said Yuri, Ernie, Orlee, Rico (Uuri+Koh phonetically="Rico" to some) etc. Then there's the whole origin sharade "Is that Israeli? Russian?" "No, It's Korean." "Korean, really? You don't look Korean." "I'm half Korean." "What's the other half then?" "German." "East or West German and North or South Korean?" "Um..." "Well that's an ODD mix!" "Uh, thanks... I guess..." If they only knew what I was actually thinking right then...The word Uuri ("Ooh-dhee") in Korean means "us, ours, together." You know, the whole unity and everybody's friend thing. Koh or Ko is a common Korean and Chinese name. In traditional mythology the Ko people emergrd from the rocks. I guess this could be why I have such an appreciation for rocks, boulders, and mountains.Well that's enough of the boring introduction BS. If you actually read all this you must really be bored and/or know me personally already, or are fascinated for some other strange reason I cannot possibly fathom. I promise from here on out this blog will be... whatever it is.