I’m glad that SEMA is over this year. While it is overall a pain in the ass, it’s a necessary evil to develop new business and show off your new products. This year’s SEMA was definitely slower with less foot traffic and booths had less “models”. Was it due to the economy? Probably since travel and women are two very expensive things in general. At the Cosworth booth, there were still quality inquiries and plenty of international visitors. Anyhow, it was great to meet some new people and overall I had a good time. Catching up with friends in the industry you’re too busy to talk to during work hours was cool too. It was cool to have surprisingly quite a few people hit me up with, “Hey are you Eric? I read your blog all the time.” If you ever see me, feel free to hit me up. It reassures me that what I write is good shit.

Mine’s had a booth in the Electronics hall. They were displaying their R35 GT-R and their parts for the car. While I am not always down with JDM style tuning, Niikura-san definitely knows GT-Rs and refinement. His cars are clean, simple, and fast. I have no doubt Niikura-san will be building an R35 with less parts, horsepower, and aero than some American tuner and still execute some smokage at some upcoming event. The funny thing is Jason, his man in the US, is a friend of mine’s from my high school years. Niikura-san and Jason came by the Cosworth booth to say hi to me which was cool of them.

The titanium muffler system is pretty nice. I would have gone with larger tube sizes myself, but I’m sure Niikura-san has a reason. Regardless, the titanium will no doubt drop some weight from the overweight pig of a whale we know as the GT-R.

Here we have the Cosworth 4B11T camshafts, fuel rail, and H-11 head studs for the EVO X. The fuel rail is a direct replacement for the stock rail with more flow capacity through the rail and can also be used when an external fuel pressure regulator needs to be plumbed in. The H-11 head studs are much stronger than the industry standard ARP 8740 head studs and are similar to the ARP L19 studs. L19 = fancy name for H11. Anyhow, the Cosworth studs have a proper dog tooth at the bottom (seats on cylinder block) to preload the fastener unlike the ARP L19 studs. Cosworth H-11 studs are available for SR20, 4G63, EJ20/25 engines.

Here we have the 2.23L 4B11T EVO X stroker kit complete with crankshaft, rods, and pistons. The crank retains the ability to bolt on the factory crank trigger wheel, rods are 4340 chrome moly, and the pistons are a brand new forging specifically for the 4B11T and machined with typical Cosworth precision. The pistons also feature the Xylan green skirt coatings, polished decks, and are completely deburred out of the box too.

Here we have the VQ35DE 3.8L Stroker kit as featured in the Castrol Top Shop Challenge. While we finished 6th place overall due to questionable rules (more on this later), the engine made 438bhp normally aspirated with virtually off the shelf parts. Same deal here: 4340 rods and crank and propietary Cosworth VQ35 piston forgings. On top are the VQ35 fuel rails too.

Here is the ARK Design EVO X sitting in their booth. The first time I saw the body kit, I thought it was a bit too much. In person it actually looks pretty good and the wheels are perfect with the car too. The wheels are available in 3 colors: silvery chromish, subaru gold, and a gunmetal type color. The wheels on this car are 19×9.5 +22 with 265/35/19 Hankooks for a zero rub fitment. The ARK booth looked pretty good too and they had all their new parts on display. The 6 piston 380mm front brakes and 4 piston 355mm rear brakes were the show stoppers for me. I can’t wait to test them out. They are 100% made in Australia and designed by an ex-Brembo engineer so no cheap ass China crap here. They have other fitments too like the R32/33/34 Skyline GT-R so I’m waiting for Andy to send me a set although he doesn’t know it yet.

Here’s the Cusco/Tomei GD Impreza which is supposed to be mighty fast. I guess we’ll find out at the Super Lap Battle next week. Tarzan will be piloting the car and he says although it doesn’t have massive power, the car is refined and fast. Looking under the car, I can see that it is one of the few JDM cars to sport proper suspension geometry at a glance. I would hope so since it is essentially a JGTC/Super GT GT300 suspension. It has hand fabricated front uprights and magnesium uprights in the rear! They look pretty race carish. Apparently this car was developed by Cusco’s Super GT team. Aero is by Voltex, suspension by Cusco, Hankook C91 tires, engine by Tomei, and fast ass driving by Tarzan. This is the car to watch.

I almost forgot this one. The Cosworth 4B11T EVO X cylinder head is coming probably in the first quarter of 2009. This head flows like a mother_ucker and will no doubt bring big power to the EVO X. The factory EVO X cylinder head is already very good, but the guys at Cosworth kicked up another 3 notches. The head will be complete with CNC ported ports, cc’d chambers, dual valve springs, titanium retainers, and all the other goodies. It will be available as a head assembly or complete with cams already shimmed with tappet buckets.

What is SEMA without parties? Although these days I am older and can’t hang with going to every party every night, I did make it out to the Pro-Motion party at Planet Hollywood. I was floating between two tables: Ark Design upstairs and the D-Sport table downstairs. If you add it up, there were 4 bottles of Grey Goose and 2 Bottles of Patron. Needless to say, everybody was pretty smashed. This year’s party was at a new venue and unfortunately they did not have any go go stands so Jimmy couldn’t get the kick ass go go pics like last year. Even without go go girls in your face, it was still a good time.

Top Row = Mike and Mitsuko from D-Sport, Roland from Pi UK, Troy from ARK Design, then its me (drinking a Rock Star and Grey Goose) and Saya on the bottom row. I’m not sure if Roland was used to pounding shots, but he was handling it pretty good. In the background behind Troy is Kitazawa-san from ARK Design Japan. He is the man responsible for several generations of earlier HKS EVCs, several generations of Apexi Power FCs, AVC-Rs, S-AFCs, V-AFCs, etc. Now he’s the brain behind ARK Design’s electronics and other goodies.

Here’s three overweight asian dudes (me, Daiji from C-West, Andy from ARK) and Tarzan. Usually in the US, Tarzan rocks the Dragon Ball Z style spiked hair and in other countries he rolls the more conservative hair style. This was the first time that I can remember in the US he was rocking the flat hair. We’ll see what he does with his hair at the SLB.

One other product that I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of was the Garrett EVO X bolt-on turbo. It is a direct bolt-on to replace the factory turbo. I did run into Kheim at Garrett (the designer), but I was about to do a video shoot and didn’t get to chat too long. The turbo looks good and I want to try one too. Since we’ll have an engine going on the engine dyno very soon at Cosworth, it looks like I’ll have the ideal opportunity to do this with no bullshit chassis dyno variables. It will be available in two trims: GT3071R and GT3076R and with two turbine A/Rs: 0.73 and 0.94. I just jacked this pic from Edmunds.

There you have the bulk of SEMA from my eyes. There are way more images on the 8gb SD card, but I just have to go through them. Maybe more later…

Cosworth has just released the 4B11T camshafts for the EVOX and the new Ralliart Lancer. This is the first available grind for the new Mitsubishi 4B11T engine called the MX1, Cosworth part number is 20004124, and MSRP is $749. Advertised duration is 266° with intake lift at 10.8mm and exhaust lift at 10.4mm. These cams can be used with the stock valve springs, but for sustained high rpm use (road racing) or beyond the factory rev limit, Cosworth single valve springs should be installed (part# 20004844, MSRP $325).

For independent test results, see here. For those of you too lazy to click with your finger, here it is below. Yes, you read it right: +40whp peak to peak and +30 lb-ft. torque with a big improvement in power band width (these are slightly inflated Dynapack numbers though…). Jesus, I’m wondering what the MX2 grinds will do. We’ll be finding out shortly with our own testing on the engine dyno. Maybe this way, there won’t be any leakage on the damn forums.

The AMS EVO 8 drag car is FAST. I believe its the world’s fastest drag EVO so congratulations to the AMS crew are in order.

AMS EVO Goes 8.42 @168.7 MPH - NEW WORLD RECORD!

However, it’s not the fastest 4G63 powered drag car. John Shepherd currently holds that title at 7.70@191mph in his Eagle Talon. John Shepherd is the Mitsu tranny master BTW and builds the transmission in the AMS EVO 8. Both of these cars are FAF (fast as fuck).

Now that would be fun to drive…

Congratulations to Ecutek, ADR Motorsports, Ralliart UK, and all others involved for finishing the 24 hour Britcar race at Silverstone with a completely stock engine. This was the car’s first time out and it set the fastest lap time within the beginning 30 minutes of the race and during the last 30 minutes of the race. Here’s an email from David at Ecutek:
————————————————————————————-

Ecutek are pleased to be able to announce it’s involvement in the Official Mitsubishi UK race programme.

Mitsubishi UK decided that the best place to publicise the strength and power of the EVO X is in endurance racing.

They commissioned a car build by ADR Motorsport and Ecutek was asked to produce a 400bhp package for the engine capable of running for 24 hours.

ADR Motorsports: http://www.adrmotorsport.com/news.php?newsid=46

The request was that the engine remain completely standard apart from external modifications.

We took the brief so seriously that we did not change the spark plugs, nor did we lift the cam cover or remove the sump.

We changed the oil, fitted a new turbo and higher flow injectors. The engine is totally stock, it using the stock air filter and airbox and a high flow exhaust with catalyst.

The car competed in it’s first event last weekend at the Britcar 24 Hour race at Silverstone.

Like all new car builds everything was last minute.

The car missed qualifying and as it crossed the line for the start of the race it had completed a grand total of 5 laps and for one of those it was on fire!! {turbo oil feed pipe union failed}.

The single aim of entering this race was to prove the endurance of the car and not to worry about position.

The bare fact that the car finished in 25th place does not do justice to it’s performance. The final position was due to a fuel tank problem which meant we could neither fill the tank up or run it to empty, meaning we had to pit 45 times compared to others who pitted as little as 9 times.

It produced a fastest lap 30 minutes from the start and again 30 minutes from the end. That shows it’s class.

It completed 1651 miles (2657kms) without an engine hitch.

We ran a PC in the car and using FlashCAN we datalogged the whole race. We were able to use remote desktop via GPRS to access this PC and analyse the log files. This allowed us to make changes to the ROM file during the race and then program a spare ECU in the garage and when the car came in for a pit stop we could change the ECU.

We only had to do this three times as we made some fuel and boost trims.

This is a major achievement for the car and for Ecutek and of course benefits all of our partners with the experience we have gained.

More images here: Mitsubishi Works Rally Team

While finishing my Lexus the other day over at XS, Rob from D-Sport mag was over there finishing up his dyno testing on a brand new Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart. If you remember this is the Lancer model that Stephen sent me some shots of while a photographer was doing some catalog/ad shots for Mitsubishi back in April 2008. I guess it is finally released.

The Lancer Ralliart is going heads up against Subaru’s WRX. It shares the exact same engine as the EVO X and even the dual clutch transmission from the EVO X MR. However, it lacks the good stuff like active diffs and super AYC. The rear subframe and suspension seems to be a bit different from the EVO X too. The Ralliart also lacks 0.6″ of track width, many of the EVO X’s aero enhancements, blister fenders, and….well let’s just say it’s not nearly as buff as an EVO X. But for around $30k decked out including tax and license, it might be a pretty decent deal. For one thing, you know the engine will be a whole lot stronger than a Subaru’s: Subaru had a recent recall because everybody’s pistons kept breaking (sucks to be them). Anyhow, read more about the Lancer Ralliart here at Edmunds.com.

CLICK FOR DYNOSHEET
What’s wrong with this picture? It’s rated at 237bhp (flywheel), but it cranks out 222whp! Perhaps Mitsu is trying to keep the spread between the EVO X and the Ralliart a little bigger and/or they are trying to keep insurance costs down for the semi-rich kids (rich kids get the EVO X). Either way, it’s a good thing. A smaller, single scroll turbocharger, smaller intercooler, smaller exhaust, and probably more conservative ECU tuning yield about 40-50 less hp at the wheels than the EVO X 5 speed. I didn’t have time to grab a EVO X dyno sheet, but the EVO X makes more power everywhere. Anyhow, the more turbo cars, the better for the tuning world. I’m glad Mitsu released this car. Hopefully more manufacturers will follow suit.

11 days ago I turned 35 years old. I think the physical decline started around 26 which I’m sure was expedited by the uh…partying, alcohol, girls, working long and late hours, carbon monoxide from the dyno rooms, etc. Exercise was non existent and still really isn’t present in my life. I think I should start soon or else my health will take a shit. These days, if I strain myself physically it takes days for me to recover. If I party too hard it takes days to recover. If I work on a car too late into the night and stretch muscles I no longer stretch regularly it takes days to recover. Damn, I used to bounce back overnight. Talking to the older guys at Cosworth, they all say “You ain’t felt nothing yet.” I’ve already started to regulate my diet which has helped a lot. I eat less fried foods, watch the fat intake, and eat more fruits and vegetables. Just by improving my diet I’ve already lost 5 pounds. Exercise is next and then quitting smoking. For you younger guys take care of yourselves and prolong your youth.

Reality aside, I had a nice bday. I took the day off from work and my girlfriend took me to lunch at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey. I had the best $18 Pastrami sandwich ever. Screw your New York delis: believe it or not the Ritz will fuck up your favorite deli’s Pastrami (I’m absolutely serious). Afterwards we went to Santa Monica beach and it was the perfect day with a nice breeze and clear skies. That was pretty chill. In the evening we went to have Taiwanese dumplings with my mom and we talked and had cake. It was a nice day.

The following Saturday, my friends took me to the Lucky Strikes bowling alley in Torrance and we rented 2 lanes for 2 hours with unlimited beer, appetizers, and bowling. Fuck we had a lot of beer and tequila. Well, not much tequila compared to my previous years, but enough to get me pretty faded. Troy, Asami, Dave, Kaori, Carolyn, Yaya, Nick, Mike, Mitsuko, Daigo, and Andy all made it out and it was a good time. It was way more chill than my birthday parties of the past, but I enjoyed it just as much. 250 people showed up to my 28th bday party in little Tokyo at a bar we rented out and EVERYBODY went home trashed if they made it home at all. Those days were fun, but I don’t think I can hang like that anymore. Anyhow, the one thing I look forward to in the second half of my life is wisdom. Whatever happens, I’ll be smarter and more experienced than I used to be. I hope it all carries over into my car, engine, and tuning work. I’ve only been doing it for 18 years now! I guess you can say I’m a lifer.

This little ass 7″ cake was pretty tasty.

After our guys in the head shop did some flow testing and measurements, they found that the EVO X head is pretty good for a stock head. There’s no doubt we will improve its efficiency even more since Lyon will develop the ports, Steve will develop the bad ass seat profiles, and we’ll be using oversize valves. We have a formula here at Cosworth that Lyon developed to calculate a cylinder head’s efficiency and the factory EVO X head is the highest efficiency head that we have measured out of a production engine. The factory Nissan VQ35 takes 2nd place. We’ve never measured a Honda K20, but I have a feeling it would be king. I don’t have too much K20 experience myself, but the little experience I do have has told me the K20 head rocks. Anyhow, we’re talking 4B11T EVO X heads. We are starting port development, but we’ve developed an initial chamber design. It looks like the chamber will need some work because of casting core shift and an uneven shroud area behind the valves. If you want the ports to flow the same, you have to deshroud them the same too after all.

The top cylinder has oversize stainless intake valves and oversize inconel exhaust valves. The two chambers are actually machined differently. After Steve designs the seat profiles and the chambers see a second revision, flow testing will determine which chamber design to go with. Development can be super time consuming.

Mark the machining wizard set up the head on the CNC to do some initial cutting. Before actual port shape development is started, you have to start with consistent ports. This quick initial CNC cut will make all four ports consistent.

Of course if you’re going to offer a nice CNC ported head, then you’ll have to offer a proper head gasket to go with it. The factory Mitsu 4B11T gasket is good and is better than any factory gasket we’ve seen, but they did some strange things on the sealing ring to improve sealing. Mitsu did achieve a higher sealing force, but at a price. Cosworth has designed a better gasket with not only even more sealing force, but a more consistent seal over time. Coming soon to a Cosworth dealer near you.

If you’ve never heard of it then chances are you don’t need one. Dry sump oil systems are god’s gift to man. ALL race engines use some form of it, but even your production based engine can benefit from a dry sump system if your car’s factory oil system cannot keep up with your car’s capabilities. Some platforms that have crappy factory wet sump systems are the Nissan Skyline GT-R, Subaru Impreza WRX/STi, Toyota Supra and the Mitsubishi EVO 1-50. Sure, custom pickups, baffles, trap doors, and Accusumps are great for a track day/club racing car, but most all out serious effort cars will require a dry sump. I made the mistake of thinking a wet sump oil system with all the aforementioned bells and whistles would be adequate, but I lost a $20k engine thinking that. This is your chance to learn from my mistake. After going to a dry sump, the XS GT-R had absolutely ZERO lubrication problems. If you are building a serious effort car and have the budget, a properly designed dry sump system is the ultimate in lubrication. Remember, oil is to an engine, what blood is to the human body. I know some guys who go out and race their cars knowing they might loose an engine due to oil starvation. I don’t see the logic in that. They’ll spend an extra $1200 on that 3.5″ exhaust in case they want to make 800hp in the future, but they won’t spend the extra money on a dry sump system. Lame? Totally.

Dry sumps can benefit both drag and road race cars that live in high G situations. For an excellent description of a dry sump system, check this page out. For those of you who have serious cars, a dry sump is a must. In summary, a dry sump system eliminates the possibility of oil starvation due to oil sloshing, eliminates the possibility of pump cavitation, eliminates air bubbles in the oil by means of either an air/oil separator or baffles in the tank, and allows your engine’s crankcase to operate in a vacuum for increased horsepower by eliminating windage. A crankshaft, rods, and pistons operating in a vacuum mean that they are not subject to the laws of aerodynamics since there is no wind resistance in a vacuum. All this provides your engine with trouble free lubrication and increased horsepower.

It has been over 15 years since Cosworth has manufactured a pump for use on a non-Cosworth designed engine, but for those of you who remember the legendary Cosworth Slimline pump, you’ll also remember that it was THE pump to use back in the day. This day was actually way before my time since the Slimline pump went out of production before I was old enough to legally drive, but older guys like Mr. Mike Kojima, told me that even TRD used the Slimline. Anyhow, we’ve designed a new 2 stage ultra wide gerotor scavenge pump (wider than 3 standard width rotors) that will handle just about any 4 cylinder. In the case of the Subaru EJ, the dry sump system will be used in conjunction with a Cosworth high volume stock location pressure pump (based on the factory casting), billet CNC oil pan (”machined from solid” for you Brits), bespoke (another Brit word) bracket, pump drive, and HTD belt. The customer will have to fit his own tank, filters, coolers, and hoses.

The system should be available toward the end of summer so don’t pick up the phone just yet. Imagine, a trouble free day at the track with your Subaru: no oil pumping out of the valve covers, 15 baffled catch cans, hoses running everywhere, and checking the oil level every 5 laps. An enjoyable day at the track is when all you have to do is drive and smoke that dick head that thinks he’s bad ass because he’s got some Brembo GT Monoblock brakes. Yeah, you know its fun to smoke those dicks. Anyhow, future applications include the EVO X. If you guys have any other applications you want, let me know!

Stephen Quinn who used to help out here and there at XS several years ago sent me an email telling me about a photo shoot he saw going on at Cal Poly Pomona (he’s going for his ME degree I think). Just outside the quad at the CLA building, was a photo shoot of the new Lancer OZ Ralliart something or other. I think it’s supposed to compete with the WRX and not the STI. Anyhow, here are some excerpts from Stephen’s email:

“…We THINK this is the new Lancer OZ Rally edition because my friend swears he saw that through the lens of his camera on the back of the car. I did not get any rear views of it so I cannot say…The car looked like an Evo X to me from a distance but I immediately noticed its lack of Brembo’s both front and rear. The wheels were also different than those of the Evo’s. They seem to be some sort of gunmetal version of the stock Lancer wheels. The thing that shocked me was the fact that the car had an intercooler. Mitsubishi’s previous excuses for the “Lancer OZ Rally” seemed to me like stiffer springs, bigger wheels, and a few badges here and there. If this thing does have the Evo X motor, Mitsubishi has REALLY stepped up their game. The car does not have the wider front fenders like the Evo but does have an identical hood to it. The front facia looks a mixture of the Evo’s agressive lip with the stock look of the Lancer bumper. Car looked pretty sweet. Let me know what you think!”

It looks like an EVO X from far. Just like some chicks: good from far, but far from good. I’m sure the press will beat the crap out of the car and tell us what they think.

What do I think Stephen? Personally I think it looks a bit too close to a EVO X. I’d be pretty pissed if I bought an EVO X for $38k and some kid rolls up with the same looking car for $25k. When you look at a WRX and STi you can clearly see the difference in levels of trim. I hope we’ll be able to tell the difference with the EVO X and the OZ Rally.

Ed Loh from Motortrend Magazine tells me this car is the Lancer Ralliart edition. No OZ, not rally, just Ralliart.

Cruising the web, I googled ‘Cosworth’. On the first page, ‘Mahle Powertrain’ popped up. I clicked it and looked under history and there is a fairly detailed time line on Cosworth’s history. For those of you who don’t know, Cosworth Engineering was the company that Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth started back in 1958. There were many parties who bought and sold Cosworth throughout the years, but Audi purchased the entire Cosworth company back in 1998 and sold Cosworth Racing to Ford. The engineering, castings, and manufacturing units continued operating as Cosworth Technologies. In 2005 Cosworth Technologies was purchased by Mahle Powertrain. The division that we all know and love for the Subaru, Mitsu, and Nissan parts is Cosworth Racing. It is also where I report for duty everyday.

If you have some spare time, and you probably do if you’re reading this, check these links out:

1929-1979

1980-1999

2000+

If you have lived in the forest for the last 30 years, have no idea why a Subaru long block costs $17,000 from Cosworth, or are just too young to know, then you should read this book: Cosworth: The Search for Power. I read this book cover to cover when I first started working for Cosworth. If you are a genuine car nut then you’ll enjoy the read about Cosworth’s illustrious history. If you’re not a genuine car nut, then go back to reading Performance Auto Sound or HCI magazine.