As I write this, it is less than a week until I leave California for St John’s and the start of Targa Newfoundland 2008. I know it’s been quite a while since I last posted to the blog, but the reason for that has been the fact that my car has been undergoing it’s final prep for the event by the crew over at WORKS. Being that the Mitsubishi has not had a true nut-and-bolt inspection of every part since it came back from Targa in 2007, on top of the fact that I decided to make some last minute changes, it was no surprise that my Evo spent quite a bit of time up on the rack at the WORKS shop at Infineon Raceway.

The suspension overwent a full overhaul, with some modifications needed to the rear springs to avoid binding. All of the suspension arms, bushings, and mounting points were inspected and everything was reassembled and tightened.

 To try to avoid our early exit from the competition like we saw last year, a fresh clutch and flywheel was installed. The transmission was removed from the car and rebuilt, with a new 4.11 HKS final drive installed during the rebuild. With the new taller gearset, the car should be capable of the maximum allowable roadspeed of 200kph in 4th gear. By eliminating a shift up to 5th gear and the associated dramatic drop in revs, we should be able to find some more time in the high speed stage.

The cooling system was also freshened — the radiator needed to be removed for some other work to be done, so the system was flushed and a new light coolant and water wetter blend was put in when everythingwas  reinstalled.

The rear differential had lost most of it’s locking in the past 2 years of driving, and had picked up a pretty nasty whine that indicated a bad bearing. It was removed from the car and sent to TRE for a performance rebuild. The new diff should offer tighter locking and better rotation along with greater durability.

In the interior if the car, we had to relocate the rally computer to accommodate the co-driver seat repositioning we did earlier in the year. The guys at WORKS fabricated a bracket to hold our Timewise on the passenger side door and put it within reach of the co-driver. This is how the rally computers tend to be mounted in professional rallying, as it keeps the computer close at hand but swings safely out of the way when getting in and out of the car.

From this angle you can see just how far back the seat has been moved, and the new position of the Timewise. You can also see the fire extinguisher and safety triangle required to be within reach of the co-driver.

 The driver’s controls haven’t changed, with the exception of the addition of a quick-release on the steering wheel.

One last change made in the interior was to install a Sparco helmet box in the rear seat area. WORKS created a simple aluminum base to mount the helmet box on, which also is designed for easy removal and acccess to the fuel pumps. Not pictured here is a net which I later installed over the top of the helmet box to make sure our radio headsets (used during transits) don’t fly out.

One of the final changes we made was to remove the Beatrush aluminum belly pan and install an APR Carbon Fiber splitter. This part reaches backwards to beneath the motor, and has a nice deep lip that extends out from the APR spoiler to increase front downforce. With the car still exhibiting a fair bit of understeer in high speed, sweeping corners, anything should help. We’ll just have to be careful to not curb cut and damage the spoiler mountings.

With some fresh 265/35-18 Toyo Tires R888’s mounted on our 18×9.5″ Volk Time Attack rims, the car is ready to race… and it looks bad-ass!

The car was finally loaded on to the transporter for the long trip to Newfoundland. The rig is owned by Bill Arnold, my friend and the person who introduced me to Targa when I co-drove for him in 2003. The truck is a total beast, and comfortably carries both of our cars with a full array of spares.

Bill and Rhett, our lone service crew member, loaded the Evo up..

 …where it will safely sit behind Bill’s 3-time overall winning BMW Bavaria for the week-long trip.

The next update from me will be on our arrival in Canada for the start of the event. Please stay tuned!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 8:03 pm and is filed under Installs & How-to's. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.