Uncorking the Evo X
After having a 1992 car as my newest vehicle, moving to a 2008 Mitusbishi Evo X was quite a jump in technology. For those of you not familiar with modern day import tuning techniques, there are a lot of available resources that will allow you to alter or modify how the computer in the car controls the car itself. I consider the Mitsubishi Evolution X to be the Mr. Potato head of import tuning. That is to say once you have the methodologies figured out, you can change out parts on the car relatively easy and adjust the computer to recognize the difference.
Diving into the fuels maps, timing adjustments and throttle settings of a car is not some place you want to wander alone for the first time. I was lucky enough to enlist a guide along this first attempt as Chris Wirth offered up almost an entire day one weekend to explain the ins and outs of tuning the Mitsubishi Evo X. While Chris does not own a shop, I consider his opinion to be above and beyond what most shops comprehend about this car for one predominant reason: He is data logging everything the car does, every day, all the time. (I am pretty sure he has been doing this since birth) I first met Chris in 1997, when I found him using a 386 laptop to tune his 1996 Eclipse at the time, using some ODBII software I had never heard of. The Evolution X has marked a rebirth for Chris, as I see him digging once again into learning everything he can about this new car. If the name is not familiar, you may know him as “hiboost” on many of the online forums. He also just took first place at the 2009 DSM Shootout in the Evolution X class.
From the Factory
The Mitsubishi Evolution X is an amazing car, period. I was able to get the car out to Watkins Glen twice so far after almost owning it a year, and out of the box it drives and handles amazing. When it come to putting power to the ground however, Mitsubishi takes quite conservative approach to tuning this car for street use. One could say the power is being strangled out of the car. By having overly rich fuel maps in inappropriate power ranges, the car under-performs for every day driving. It has the same hesitation feeling of when you turn your air conditioning on and take off from the light.
Uncorked
Using the Tactrix OpenPort cable combined with the latest version of ECUFlash and EvoScan, Chris was able to manipulate everything from fuel delivery to timing curves.
The result was an approximate 22 hp gain, without changing any physical components of the car, with less boost. Adding a manual boost controller and re-adjusting will easily put the car into a 30 HP gain. You can actually tune the boost from the ECU, but it is a derivative of 3 different tables, based off of engine loads. Frankly it becomes a lot easier to turn a dial. Regardless of our power estimates, the car is a new completely new car to drive. It is responsive, smoother and more consistent throughout the power band. There is no hesitation and car drives like it should have when Mitsubishi handed over the keys.
Cookbook
There are already plenty of resources online to get you going with tuning the Evolution X. Most of the resources have been published on the Evolution M forums. Keep an eye out for Chris to summarize them all soon, and consider hiring Chris to tune your car for you if it is a little overwhelming. Not only does he give you a baseline tune that will be easy to upgrade from, but he takes the time to give you the resources for you to tune yourself.
The alternatives to tuning yourself or hiring Chris to do the work are to send your ECU in to one of the larger shops to have them tune it. Many of them claim 50HP gains for the minor cost of $500. While I can not dis-prove their results, I have seen the tune that Chris first had on the car after paying to have it done. Not only is the power mis applied, but the gains were not even close to the published amounts. It’s amazing how you can make your own numbers look good when you own your own dyno.
