"Beat the GT-R around Streets in the blue Evo. I still want to take my kids to bassoon practice with it, though. And you know how I hate getting my hands dirty. I'm an 'arrive-and-drive' kind of guy. Get it right or pack your stuff, Pal."
With these words from Scott Oldham, IL's big enchilada, it was clear from the outset that Project Evo, our long-term 2008 Mitsubishi Evo GSR, wasn't to be a one-string banjo. The boss wanted a fair fight.
A fair fight? Not the words you'd expect to hear when it comes to challenging a 2010 Nissan GT-R, one of the most comprehensively fast cars extant.
Truly Dual-Purpose
Streets of Willow Springs is a road course in the high desert of Southern California. It's got a mix of corners, cambers and speeds. It's technical. Every weekend you'll find guys there running in events and setting quick times with their modified street cars. Plus, it's local, and we've got plenty laps of it under our belts. The perfect yardstick of speed with which to measure Project Evo against the GT-R.
Now, you've heard of making a dual-purpose street/track car before, but we would take the concept to a more rigorous extreme than your typical weekend-warrior track-day guy. (You'd be surprised how inspired you can become by the thought of being forced to stand in line for food stamps.)
Here's what we mean. Anyone can gut an Evo, throw on slicks and an unrelentingly stiff suspension, run race gas and go hunting GT-Rs. The beauty of the 2010 Nissan GT-R and the 2008 Mitsubishi Evo, though, is their duality — their ability to serve duty in the daily grind and then, in the blink of an eye, turn a smokin' lap time or dispatch lumpy back roads at a pace few cars on the road at any price can match. Breadth of talent. It's what makes a car special. Eroding this in the name of a quick lap time would be unwise on several levels.
As such, Project Evo would be modified within the same limitations as a box-stock GT-R. Street tires, pump gas and civility were mandatory, meaning Project Evo would retain a full interior and working creature comforts. Any weight reduction would be incidental in the substitution of stock parts with aftermarket ones. Can't toss the A/C, backseats or anything else. Irreversible modifications to the body shell are also out.
Track-specific alignment and ride height adjustments were also forbidden, though we did allow for the tweaking of the Evo's dampers during its track outing. Why? Because the GT-R has adjustable dampers but not adjustable ride height. Get the idea?
Both cars rolled up, went through a check of fluids, lug nuts and such and then went on the track.
What this means is that this is not your typical comparison of apples to steroid-infused mangoes. The 2008 Mitsubishi Evo would have its work cut out for it.
Power
Our long-term 2009 Nissan GT-R has run the Streets in 1:25.68. The last stock Evo GSR we ran there did it in 1:32.51. We'd have to find nearly 7 seconds in the Evo. (Maybe we'll take a look at craigslist for jobs we can do at home, just in case we fail.)
There would be no hope of matching the 2010 Nissan GT-R in the speed of its Getrag-designed dual-clutch gearbox. It shifts really, really quickly. Even more quickly than veteran IL tester Josh Jacquot, if you can believe that. This built-in advantage for the GT-R would add up over the course of a lap. We would have to find time in the Evo elsewhere.
Matching the GT-R's power-to-weight ratio would be a good start. In doing so, the Evo should be capable of matching the GT-R's acceleration. But to get the same power-to-weight ratio as the GT-R, the 3,521-pound Evo would need about 430 horsepower. On ordinary premium pump gas, this is a lot to ask from the Evo's little 2.0-liter inline-4, but on the 91 octane called "premium" gas here in California, it would be damned near impossible.
Never underestimate the power of smart people, good hardware and bull-headed perseverance.
The most dramatic of the changes is the bolt-on Garrett GT30R turbo, which came alive once we installed the 3.0-inch AMS Widemouth downpipe. Supporting mods to maximize volumetric efficiency include Cosworth MX1 camshafts, an AEM intake and a variety of AMS parts like an upgraded intercooler and its associated plumbing, plus a new exhaust. High-flow fuel injectors from Injector Dynamics that are rated at 1,000cc/minute handle the fuel side of the equation, while a stronger ACT clutch and flywheel helped us turn this thermo-chemical ballet into motion rather than smoke.
Project Evo ultimately produced 388 hp as measured at the hubs by a Dynapack dyno on said 91 octane, which is essentially an indication of 430 hp at the flywheel depending on which magical factor of theoretical power loss in the drivetrain you want to apply.
Obsessive tuning by Road Race Engineering was key to making such extreme power both safely and with repeatable effect. It's all about knowing when to say when — bigger power numbers were found during the final tuning process but deemed too unstable for the real world of inconsistent octane among different fuel brands and widely varying ambient conditions.
Grip
In the name of grip, it's tough to beat wider tires and a suspension that can take advantage of them. The Evo's stock Yokohama A13c tires boast some of the stickiest carcasses you can find on a production car. Still, there's that width factor, and there's room for more tire in the Evo's wheelwells. (Plus there's that looming pink slip.)
Remember — no changes to the body shell. So this precludes rolling of the fender lips to stuff in mega-width tires. Still, we were able to fit 265/35R18 Bridgestone RE-11 tires, summer tires that are 20mm wider than the stock ones. These meats, sourced from Tire Rack, were matched with 18-by-9.5-inch forged-aluminum Volk Racing RE30 wheels, each an inch wider and 4 pounds lighter than the cast-aluminum Enkeis that come stock on the 2008 Mitsubishi Evo GSR.
Grippier rubber can make a car handle strangely if it results in the suspension exploring unanticipated regions of its camber curve. This camber loss due to body roll is of particular concern on nose-heavy cars with MacPherson-strut front suspensions like the Evo.
The solution, additional roll stiffness, was found in a set of AST coil-over suspension pieces by Vorshlag. These units comprised a complete bolt-on solution, including camber plates (which our self-imposed rules dictated must remain in a single setting for street and track), coil springs and double-adjustable dampers.
Braking improvements were had from Stoptech front pads and braided-steel brake lines with Project Mu brake pads in the rear.
Test Track
With this stage of tune, Project Evo put up these numbers at our usual test track:
• Braking from 60 mph: 111 feet
• Skid pad: 0.99g
• Slalom: 71.3 mph
• 0-60 mph: 4.4 seconds (4.0 seconds with 1 foot of rollout)
• Quarter-mile: 12.4 seconds at 113.4 mph
There's an asterisk on those acceleration runs — the factory launch rev limiter precluded an optimal launch with Project Evo's newfound rev-intensive power delivery to the detriment of its ET and 0-60 time. Trap speed, however, is relatively insensitive to how well a car is launched.
As per our usual protocol, we also tested the 2010 Nissan GT-R at the same venue.
• Braking from 60 mph: 113 feet
• Skid pad: 0.94g
• Slalom: 72.7 mph
• 0-60 mph: 3.8 seconds (3.5 seconds with 1 foot of rollout)
• Quarter-mile: 11.7 seconds at 119.6 mph
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