As I mentioned in my last post, Mike Warfield at GST Motorsports tore into my car and prepped it for what was supposed to be a long weekend at Thunderhill last weekend. He found a lot that was broken:

• The tune was a mess. Bad air/fuel curves were a likely contributor to my overheating issues, and had me running dangerously lean at high revs.
• When Works installed the AMS oil pan, they snapped off one of the studs that holds the pan in place. Rather than fix it, they instead put more silicone over the hole to hide their mistake. Pan had to be removed yet again to fix the stud. No more leaks after the last R&R.
• Lots of small overheating issues were tracked down to loose clamps and pin holes in my radiator hoses (not sure how or why). All was fixed and no more lost coolant.

The re-tune that fixed my air fuel curves also showed just how much better the tuning work by GST really is. They dropped my peak boost from 27 to 25, played with the MIVEC, and managed to give me not only an extra 20whp but also improved the area under the curve and gave me power that came on a few hundred RPM sooner.

I picked up the car on Thursday of last week before towing up to Thunderhill for a private test day. Mike offered to come up to help me out with any problems that might arise.

Boy am I glad he did.

The car felt really good. The re-tune helped power delivery and made the car much easier to drive. Unfortunately I was still running very hot water temps, but I managed to drive around it. In my second long stint, I all of a sudden started having VERY high EGTs (1800-1900F). I pitted, and Mike tore into the car.

He discovered that the fuel pressure was low, caused by a vacuum line disconnecting off the fuel pressure regulator. Turns out that’s the vacuum line Works chose to tap into for my boost gauge was connected to the fuel pressure regulator, and they neglected to secure the hose with a zip tie. It worked it’s way loose, and dropped my fuel pressure under peak boost. BAD NEWS.

I went back out with a fully functioning car, and turned a flyer of a lap; running 2-minutes flat (going over the cyclone), which is by far the fastest I’ve been in the car. And that with 2-year old Toyo R888’s well past their best days!

Unfortunately that lap would be my one and only. Going through Turn 1, I heard a pop and smoke started pouring out from under my hood. I thought my car was on fire, and was afraid to start a grass fire by driving off, so I drove up to the bypass and killed the motor. I got out of the car to get an extinguisher from a corner worker, but the smoke started to subside.

After the tow into the pits, Mike once again set into the car. Judging by the oil all over my engine bay, there clearly was a major failure. After a little digging, I heard 7 words you NEVER want to hear, “I found a hole in your block.” The oil was pouring out of an opening in the back of my block. There is a bolt in the back of the motor that helps locate the balancer shafts, which is now missing… along with all of the threads around it. Only thing we can think is that when the motor was assembled the bolt was cross threaded. The pressure and stress in the motor finally took it’s toll and blew it out.

The motor will now need to be completely torn down and will need at least a mild rebuild. That’s ~$10k in checks to Works now down the drain (or poured all over the track in my case).

I spent the rest of the weekend sharing a friend’s ‘88 BMW M3, including racing it in the BMW CCA Club Race that Sunday. My experiences in both cars finally convinced me to do what I was planning to do once I started having problems; the Evo is going to be converted to be a gravel rally car (soon to be with a new motor) and I’ll road race my 2002 M3.

So, now a fresh start. GST is going to help me convert the Evo to Rally America Open-class specs. I’m already in touch with some great Mitsubishi rally car builders from the UK to source parts, and I’m hoping to be able to rebuild the car and go out for my first event at the start of the new year. Wish me luck!