More photos from the TME shoot

Devolution: How do modern Evos stack up against a ten year old icon?

By Seth Hester
Photography by Bob-e and Seth Hester

Near the heart of Nashville, Tennessee, lies Lane Motor Museum. Their exhibition floor features vehicles throughout history, mainly European, with over 150 automobiles and motorcycles on display. The museum's tag is “Unique Cars from A to Z”, which is apt. There are several vintage racecars, microcars, amphibious cars, a massive military LARC-LX that looks like it could flatten houses at will, and a host of other vehicles to see.

I’ve had multiple visits in attempt to absorb everything, discovering something new every time. This museum is a bit of heaven for car guys, offering insight into vehicles we've dreamed of and read about, but not actually seen. Text cannot properly convey the wonder of this place, and a visit is in order to fully experience all it has to offer.

Under the exhibition floor is a massive basement, and a friend signed us up for a tour. Here, there are many vehicles in various states of restoration and build, as the museum staff is always striving to keep them in working order. The guide was showing us all the cars and talking about them, when I came around a corner and saw it, one of the greatest Evo treasures imaginable: A 2001 Evolution VI GSR Tommi Makinen Edition.

Some time after the tour, I placed a call to Jeff Lane, the director of the museum. I explained a bit about EvoM, and asked if I could come by and shoot some pictures of the car. Fortunately, Mr. Lane is a car nut, and he allowed me to do a lot more than that. Let the games begin.

We met on a Friday afternoon, and the car was parked outside the museum. It was strange seeing a VI in real life for the first time. Visually, this car is striking. The red paint scheme is adorned with decals that conjure images of full Makinen Marlboro/Ralliart racing livery. The exterior of the VI flows well. Though some could argue its appearance is a bit dated, I think the whole car is aggressive. The front bumper is asymmetrical for a cooling inlet that is completely functional, the body contours are sharp, the depth of the wheel arches just right, and everything makes sense to me.







Opening the door, the interior is very spartan. It makes an Evo X look like a luxury car inside, and that's no small feat. Though it has a Momo wheel, nothing else really stands out. There's not even a radio in the car. The seats are similar to Evo VIII seats, but with the fore/aft adjustment on the side instead of underneath, and red inserts with T. Makinen stitched into them. The dash and gauges are minimalistic and simple; it is an econobox that has been morphed into an AWD rally terror after all.



With a turn of the key, the aural assault is surprising. It was downright loud for a stock car, and sounded awesome. Think of an Evo VIII with only a cat-back, and you’ll be on the right track.

Jeff has a nice little loop he takes around the museum, which includes some seriously twisty city streets, a sharp on-ramp, and a short blast down the interstate back to the museum. After a very exciting round with him at the helm, he surrendered the wheel to me. Although I did lean on it a bit, I couldn't bring myself to flog on this museum piece (literally) too much. But I did get a good enough feel to share some things.

This is an unabashed racecar. Immediately when sitting in the driver's seat, I noticed the stiff stock motor mounts transmitting vibrations through the steering wheel at idle. The suspension damping on this car is brutal, making our stock Evos seem like easy chairs. We hit a pothole and I knew we weren't in Kansas anymore. The crash went up my spine, rattled my brain, fillings threatened to come out, I was in love.

The weight difference is stark. I was tired of reading varying weights on the internet, so we weighed three Evos for this article (more on that in a bit). The lack of heft really shows in the handling, and the turn in was very crisp. This car has an earlier generation of active yaw control, but it was still very nice to feel the reduction in push from an older Evolution. Like all Evos, it has a point and shoot nature. It just shoots easier and with less drama than its heavier offspring.



This car also has an adjustable spoiler, which is pretty trick.



Acceleration was very good for a totally stock car. Though this car was build long before Mivec controlled cam gears, they aren't missed, because the TME has a special turbocharger that spools quicker than standard GSRs. It has a convincingly better power:weight ratio than any stock US Evolution I've driven. Overseas cars are mapped more aggressively, the car pulls with authority to the rev limiter (which Jeff was happy to hit), and doesn’t have the high RPM wheeze-and-die our cars are known for.



Transmissions in Evos confuse me. In my experience, the newer model year of car, the more notchy and feisty the gearboxes tend to feel. This trend continues. I really loved the shifting feel in the VI, and it easily has the best Mitsubishi shifter I've used.

The brakes are one component that has continued largely unchanged other than upsizing to handle more weight. Seeing the red Brembos shine through the wheels feels like home to every Evolution owner.

The test drive concluded too soon, but I think it would have still felt that way even if I had driven a lot longer. This Evo really hearkens back to a time when Evos were built for homologation purposes- designed to win races first and foremost. There is not an inch of fat or options to compromise its mission statement. And to me, you couldn't build an Evolution more perfect.

For more information on Lane Motor Museum, please follow this link: http://lanemotormuseum.org



This article wouldn't be complete if we didn't bring newer Evos along for comparison purposes, so we brought my friend Eric's IX and my X. We corner weighed all three cars. Then we photographed them together outside the museum next to the LARC-LX.









Chassis comparison and specifications:

CP9A Evolution VI GSR Tommi Makinen Edition
Curb weight. Front, rear distribution: 3041 pounds. 60% front, 40% rear
Corner weights: FL-895 FR-944 RL-614 RR-588
HP: 276@6500rpm (Stock rating, actual power is higher.)
TQ: 275@4650rpm (No dyno data for this vehicle)
Upgrades: Stock

Test notes: ¼ tank of fuel. Unable to dyno due to location, but I think this car makes even more than 300. If I had to gamble, I'd put it around 240 on the Dyno Dynamics we often use.

Positives- Early version of AYC helps combat understeer. Featherweight for a turbo AWD car in this day and age.
Negatives- No radio, no comfort, no sissy stuff. This car will be too hardcore for 99% of the population and probably even some Evo enthusiasts.
Overall- The epitome of stock Evo racecar.


CT9A Evolution IX SSL
Curb weight. Front, rear weight distribution: 3352 pounds, 60% front, 40% rear
Corner weights: FL-1026 FR-981 RL-649 RR-696
HP: approx 340@6000rpm (267whp Dyno Dynamics)
TQ: approx 340@4200rpm (266tq Dyno Dynamics)
Upgrades: Dyno4mance tuned Ecuflash.

Test notes: Full tank of fuel less two gallons.

Positives- SSL package moves the car a bit upmarket, best version of the 4G63 inside, nicest looking of all Evos in my opinion.
Negatives- No SAYC on USA models.
Overall- The one you want as a daily driver.


CZ4A Evolution X GSR SSS
Curb weight. Front, rear weight distribution: 3510 pounds, 57% front, 43% rear
Corner weights: FL-1024 FR-989 RL-735 RR-762
HP: approx 385@6200rpm (309whp Dyno Dynamics)
TQ: approx 385@4600rpm (308tq Dyno Dynamics)
Upgrades: Ultimate racing full turbo-back exhaust, upper IC pipe, and Dyno4mance tuned Ecuflash.

Test notes: ¾ tank of fuel. Spare tire out, Recaro child seat in, weighed as driven.

Positives- SAWC safety with SAYC oversteer on demand, good stock audio, stock seats rule, exceptional factory HIDs.
Negatives- Most of the positives above contribute to the scale crushing curb weight, insanely short gearing makes for a buzzy highway commute, notchy transmission.
Overall- Has taken some time to catch on with the CT9A faithful, but absolutely an Evo at heart.


I’ve been on Evom a lot of years, and have been on staff about a year and a half. Over that time, one of the threads that demanded the most work as a moderator was the Evo X vs. Evo VIII and IX thread. There were tons of opinions and shots from each camp. One of the largest complaints of the Evo X was the increase in curb weight. But after driving the CP9A, I bet that Evo VI owners felt the exact same way about the Evo VII!

As I mentioned above, we were unable to dyno the VI. We use a Dyno Dynamics, so the numbers you see might seem low. For reference, a stock 2003 Evo VIII makes about 205whp on this dyno. A stock IX and X both make in the vicinity of 215-220.

Here is an overlay of my car and Eric's IX from the pictures. He just ordered some Ultimate Racing bits of his own, so his car should pick up a good bit of power after installation and retune. He values quietness, so the stock cat-back will remain. It will be interesting to see what his final numbers are.



As these cars sit, I think the X is fastest of the three, followed by the VI.

The power did not deter Jeff, and even though he owns the VI, the IX was his favorite car of the three. He pointed to his VI: "That car is awesome, but it is a racecar. It will beat you to death on the street." Then he pointed to the IX: "This is the one I would drive everyday. Its comfortable, has a nice (leather) interior, and isn't too loud."

I differ. I've had a lot of Evos and loved them all, so I’d probably be happiest owning one of each of these cars. But if I had to choose one, it would be the VI Tommi Makinen Edition for sure.

Project Evo X- Basic bolt on mods

We're not at BMW N54 power levels, but its not bad for two less cylinders! Ingredients: 2008 Evo X GSR, Ultimate Racing full TBE w/ O2 housing and upper intercooler pipe, K&N drop in, GST boost assembly, and Dyno4mance tuned Ecuflash mapping. Red graph is all, blue is stock CBE, heaps quieter, but crazy resonance at high RPM from flapper valve. Need to get that rectified so I have a quieter solution. As you can see, the power difference is nominal.

Images of the car:

The Death of Speculation

Perception of an unfamiliar product does not equal reality. Although sometimes unaware, many of us have probably been influenced by the opinions of others who don't have all their facts straight. This is a problem that runs amok on internet car forums.

It all starts out innocently in our 10w30 powered corner of cyberspace- Data for a new vehicle is released, and people react to it. Based on that, opinions are formed, lines drawn, sides chosen, and finally, the cannons begin to fire. I’m sad to admit I have partaken in this by sometimes commenting on vehicles I had absolutely zero real life experience with. One such car was the Nissan GT-R.

As any thirty-something who was a product of the Gran Turismo generation, I have an affection for Skylines. Nevermind the fact that I’ve never driven one and have only seen a couple in my life, I love them. They’re highly tunable, twin turbocharged, rev happy inline six cylinder cars with a robust all wheel drive system that demands respect. So imagine my skepticism when the first iteration we see for retail in this country loses its traditional style manual transmission, gains a good degree of heft, and gives up its proven straight 6 for a V6.

Ah, the internet forums were ablaze with words like “pig”, “autotragic”, and “bastardization.” You see, when formulas deviate and don’t conform to what we deem as right, we might sometimes grow arrogant and believe we know better than the engineers behind the scenes. We sometimes might proclaim failure over something that could be sheer brilliance. Different, mind you, but still brilliance. And such is the case with the new GT-R.

I have a friend and fellow car enthusiast who works for Nissan corporate. This lucky schmuck has driven a Nissan GT-R on more than one occasion, so please realize that my name calling has more to do with envy than anything else. Said schmuck morphed immediately into superhero during a fifteen second phone call yesterday when he asked me to come outside, because he was bringing a GT-R by my office!

Fast forward a few minutes, and I’m standing outside my building, waiting for aforementioned chariot to come visit. I didn’t want to look too excited, but some of my friends and co-workers knew what I was up to. So we did not all look like starving, wide eyed pigs in our pen, I placed them like well camouflaged snipers in various places, lookouts where they too could see the GT-R, but not where they would interfere with my turn to roll in the mud.

I heard him before I saw him, the GT-R sounded like an aircraft on final approach. A moment later it arrived, a black on black example that had a mighty curb presence, with all the subtlety of a stealth fighter you might happen to catch a glimpse of while in a military hangar. The yellow Brembos shone out of the rims in stark contrast to the rest of the car. The Bridgestone tires were massive and war torn from serious use. Although the car weighs in at around 3800 pounds, it was smaller to behold than I expected.

My friend offered me a look in the cabin, and I was impressed. I found the materials in the GT-R to be of substantially higher quality than what you would find in an Evo or STI. The seats, the digital dash, and the steering wheel are all quite upmarket in comparison.

And what I thought was the climax of the story turned out to only be the beginning. My friend came along with a couple of his co-workers, and one was a gentleman who had some track time in this car. At this point that I was informed that he would be taking me for a quick ride!

So here is where the fun starts. The torque this engine produces is just senseless. It starts pulling relatively low in the powerband and then never relents. Weight is much less of a negative factor when you have ample power to offset it.

One thing that a person who is new to the GT-R will notice right away is the transmission. This is an unapologetic racecar with a transmission designed for performance first and comfort last. The shifts are lightning fast, often violent, and you find yourself already rocketing forward in the next gear before you could have completed an upshift in a traditional manual car. I have never been a fan of these newer style transmissions because they isolate the driver from the full experience of man and machine interface, but there is no denying that they are substantially faster. I guess that Nissan engineers asked their product planners if they want to have a slower driver actuated clutch or they just want to go fast. Voila. We got the racecar transmission. Don’t pout, it is awesome and perfect in this application.

This car handles well for a big car, but the real beauty is the point and squirt nature it has. It goes something like this: Setup for corner, enter corner, stay on line, stand on throttle earlier than you would dare in most other cars, blast toward horizon like freaking rocket. This car’s balance is not upset by its abrupt power. It just gets there faster… A whole lot faster than you’d think physics dictates it should.

And so my ride came to an end as fast as it began, but left me with a real opinion to replace months of internet bile. And I am left to conclude that the GT-R is an awesome, serious track car that is not to be trifled with, an affordable supercar that can slay giants more than twice its price. I'll even go on record as saying its the best car I've ever ridden in. Godzilla is finally here in the States, and it hasn’t been watered down at all.

Project 135i- Engine performance

With a smidge over 1200 miles on the clock, the Vishnu PROcede installed, and more seat time, I'm ready to talk about the performance of the 1series.

The engine is a peach. As you can see from the graph, power and torque are up globally. Low end torque is softer than my 335i, but the overall mapping is much nicer across the board. At wide open throttle tip in, it just pulls harder and harder to the point that getting in trouble in a hurry would not be an issue. The tires will lose traction and rip on the 1-2 upshift, and again on the 2-3.

There is some concern about the high RPM puke-n-die. I spoke with Dustin at Vishnu about this, and he said it is intentional for hot air correction. I've revved it just beyond 6500 on the street, and I have not felt it exhibit this behavior at all. Looking at the shape of the dyno graph, this power reduction would be really easy to detect.

I'm satisfied with these numbers, particularly since they were attained with only 860 miles on the car. With 200 pounds less weight, nearly 20whp more, less mods, and a superior area under the curve, this car would humiliate my poor little old X in a contest of speed.

Project update 12/22:




Intakes and corresponding mapping picked up a ton of power on the dyno.

Purple- Stock
Red- PROcede S0 Doomsday mapping
Navy- PROcede S1 nonDoomsday mapping + intakes

Project 135i- Initial review

I've had a few requests for a 135i review. I can accomodate that, but only partially, because the engine isn't fully broken in yet. So far, I haven't spun it higher than 4500rpm. I have a Vishnu PROcede en route and dyno time scheduled, so the power portion of this review will have to be saved for a slightly later date.

The first thing that struck me about the 1 series was its fit and finish. This car was screwed together much better than the Evo it replaced. It also has higher quality components than the Evo: Instruments, dash, seats, body panels, headlights, paint, etc. This lessens somewhat when compared to my 335i. While the instruments and seats are the same, the dash plastics and materials are visibly downmarket from the 3 series. I guess they have to have a few solid reasons to justify the price difference.

I am loving this transmission. The notchy shifter in the Evo X was one step from making me go completely postal; the shifter in this car is like butter. Slow standing starts on an incline couldn't be easier thanks to the hill holder feature, which also helps to minimize clutch wear. The gearing has allowed me to return better fuel economy than the Evo, even with two extra cylinders and another liter of displacement. Since the powerband is wide, the somewhat taller gears are not a problem.

This car is more nervous than an E90. Again, I haven't really had the chance to really put it through its paces, but it has less poise than the E90. The wheelbase is suspect, as well as the small front tires. The car can go from understeer to oversteer with throttle lift, but it pushes way more than I would like. This is not to say the car does not handle well, but its a pretty convincing downgrade when coming out of an SAWC Evo X.

The drive by wire on this car is a bit laggy. The engine and turbochargers are NOT laggy, building boost strongly from 1400rpm, but I never thought I'd say the throttle mapping on a Mitsubishi would be so superior to a BMW.

The powerband of the BMW's N54 engine is lucious. I have awesome passing power in sixth gear from low speeds, something you'll never see in a turbo four. With this car weighing in at 200 pounds less than my Evo X or my 335i, its gonna be downright nasty-fast with the PROcede installed.

The runflat tires are garbage. This is evident when you hit a pothole or especially an elevation imperfection. There's one such spot on the Interstate I hit going home everyday that makes me feel like I am being uprooted when I strike it. Really bad.

The open differential is cheese, and I'm sure I'll notice that more when a few miles pile on.

This car shines at just being a great vehicle. Its quiet as a church mouse, its comfortable, the leather is of high quality, and the ride is fine if you aren't testing the runflats over bumps. The standard hifi radio is even good, even though I had my heart set on the premium unit. I upgraded the tweeters from some leftover Focal Polyglass componets, and they sound brilliant. Even at 25x4 on the main speakers and 40x2 on the subs, it seems to have plenty of power.

Although this review is a mixed bag, I think this car is a way better canvas for performance than a 335i. It is a couple hundred pounds lighter, after all. The brakes are just massive, and should be amazing with better pads and a good aftermarket fluid. The understeer could be helped with wider front wheels and tires to match the sizes of the rear. A rear swaybar and a hot alignment should help a ton as well. None of this stuff is expensive. All that with the aforementioned PROcede should make this one heck of a run ride. Add all that in with the fact its a RWD car with an almost 50:50 weight distribution, and things are looking good.

As a total package, I have absolutely no regrets going from the Evo to this car.

More coming soon...

Project Evo X- The trouble with 10

As many things that are outstanding with the Evo X, there are some negative issues that are worth mentioning:


1)Weight. This is the Achilles heel of this platform. A two liter four cylinder engine is just too small of a powerplant to move around a car that weighs 3500 pounds. For an Evo X to be able to accelerate like an Evo IX, it needs more power, to the tune of 25whp. With the stock turbo on this car, there is just not as much potential in the forward thrust department unless you have a larger financial outlay for modifications.

2)Transmission. I’m not going to mince words, the gearbox in this car is not really good. It is compromised with a shorter final drive than the IX to make the extra weight a bit less obvious. The downside of that is poor fuel economy and high RPM on the interstate, making for loud and buzzy travel, particularly with an aftermarket exhaust. The other thing about this transmission that is unacceptable is how notchy some of them are when upshifting to second and third gear in normal driving… It was a borderline gear grind in my first X, but my second one is a lot better.

3)Paint. The overall shape of the sides of the X are concaved like lots of modern cars, but this one allowed tons of pebbles and road debris from the front tires to spray the sideskirts and rear sides, causing several small paint nicks down to primer. Mud flaps in the front and a 3M clear repellant skin were the best workarounds for this. I have Rally Armor flaps only on my current X, and it has seen no damage. My prior X looked sandblasted on the side from the rock spray without these flaps.

4)Interior rattles. I don't expect this out of a Japanese car, especially a new one. There is a glove box door rattle (really common in these), an ash tray rattle, and door rattles.

Project Evo VIII- History

The first Lancer Evolution for sale in the USA was the Evo VIII, and I was an early adopter. Having previously owned a second generation turbo Eclipse, I knew the potential of this engine.

Back then, I had a 2002 WRX with modest upgrades, including an ihi vf30 turbocharger. A lot of us had jumped from Hondas into the WRX camp. When it was announced that Mitsubishi was finally bringing the Evo here, we were buzzing with endless speculation, most of it guesswork based on absolutely nothing. The general consensus among our group was that the car would be dumbed down for US consumption. One of the leading thoughts was that the US Evo would be neutered of its 16G and instead receive a carryover T25 turbo from the Eclipse.

Boy, were we dead wrong. The VIII with only a few negative changes hit the US with a vengeance. I knew I would probably do something stupid if I saw one, and avoided Mitsubishi dealerships altogether for a couple of weeks. This did not last. I went to our local dealership to see the car in person and took a test drive. Within ten seconds behind the wheel, my WRX morphed from a tuner wagon into a relic from an ancient civilization in my mind. The Evo didn't have an impossible to service boxer engine. Instead, it had a proper inline engine, razor precise steering, gearing that wasn't hijacked from a truck, a huge stock turbocharger, and bright red Brembo brakes that looked like they could stop a train.

Shortly later, I went to another Mitsubishi dealership and promptly traded my WRX in on the Tarmac Black Evo VIII you see here. I'll never forget the homecoming, pulling it into my garage the first time, and dragging my wife outside to see.

"What do you think?", I asked excitedly.

"Man, ricer wing!", she replied casually.

Every man should be so lucky to have a woman like this in his corner.

Two days later I brought it to work for the first time. One of my co-workers and friends who knows and shares my automotive tastes saw it in the parking lot and ran upstairs to tell me: "Dude... Black turbo Mitsubishi. Brembos, rims, hood vent... In our back parking lot. Did you see it?!?"

"I'm pretty sure the keys are in my pocket.", I replied.

And so began my time with Evos. Its been a long ride, and I have miles of stories to tell.