This article was contributed by customer, Aiden.

When news and pictures of the new Evolution X was out, I was immediately sold. Specifications of the new 4B11, technical info of the twin clutch SST and the sheer looks and presence of the car was enough to make me sell off the Evo 9 and put a deposit down for the Evo X.  As much as I was sad to see my beloved Evo 9 go to the hands of another man, the very next day, I had already placed a deposit for a brand new 2009 Evo X SST.

As with most parallel importers, I too encountered the usual shipment delays and awaited for 4 months before the car was sitting at my door.  However, after staring and drooling at it for a while, I hopped in and took it for a spin around the block.  All grievances were put to rest.  I was thrilled by its sheer torque and power.  The car is absolutely amazing!  Its everything I thought it would be.

Now, like all typical petrol heads, many ideas came into mind.  I wanted to increase the power of the car, however my first priority was to improve the handling and stopping prowess of the car.  Weighing in at just under 1500kgs, the Evo X is anything but a lightweight contender.  Yes, the factory brembos are acceptable, however I wanted more stopping power, a lot more.  Also, the car sits far too high , and I needed to dump this bad boy to its knees.

I made a call to Joel and met up with him.  We decided to go for something out of the ordinary, 1 of Wilwood’s most massive callipers in their range, the TC6.  These callipers were meant for larger and heavier vehicles like the Humvee’s and Ford F150 trucks, therefore the Evo X would be peanuts in weight compared to these vehicles.  Paired with a set of Dynapro 4 pots to the rears, we were pretty confident that the Evo X would be able to stop when commanded to.  Only downside to the story at this point, lead time for the brakes to arrive was 3 weeks…. bugger.

Whilst awaiting for the brakes to arrive, something else had to be done (to cure my itch).  In the handling department, a set of JIC Magic RS Coilovers were sourced from Uber Garage and installed.  With the car lower and less roll in the corners, I was now more confident than ever with the car.  Not to mention, the car now looks heaps meaner.  I wanted to give the car a RWD type look, thus a set of Works rims were sourced.

I decided to use a set of 18×9.5” XT7’s for the fronts and a set of deep dished 18×10 XD9’s on the rears.  All I can say, I couldn’t have been more satisfied…

The weeks flew by and one fine day I received a call from Joel saying that my brakes have arrived!  Immediately, I flew down to his office to pick up 2 big Wilwood boxes.  Upon inspection, all I could say was that the calipers were one of the biggest I have ever seen!!!  In one word… WOW!  Immediately we went down to Uber Garage to strip off the stock brembos and test fit the new Wilwoods.  We needed to custom make brackets for the calipers as there were none off the shelves.  We used a “template” bracket, took some measurements and off to the CNC shop we went to get the brackets made up.

It took us 3 attempts (meaning stripping the brakes, and running to and fro from the CNC Shop) to get the front and rear brackets right so that the callipers would sit in the right position of the rotors.  IT SURE WAS A LOT OF WORK MAN!!  Kudos to all the mechanics who made this possible.

Alas, the brakes were finally on the car!  Paired with a set of Goodridge Braided Brake Lines, and armed with Motul RBF 600 brake fluid in its veins, I was ready to take it out for a spin.

The results?  Well, the car definitely brakes better than the stock brembos. WAY WAY BETTER… It feels as though my car’s got a parachute at the rear when I lightly depress my brake pedal, the clamping load on the rotors is simply extraordinary, and the car looks meaner and more aggressive with the massive brakes….

The verdict?  Although it was a long and painful wait, and the amount of time and effort spent pulling the brakes in and out and all that running around, I would say that it was all well worth the effort!!!!

The Evo is still undergoing surgery every now and then when I have the time. (And the money!!) Stay tuned to this blog for all further updates!!!

If you are looking to do nothing but an air filter kit for your Evo X, the Agency Power air filter kit has to be the answer to your mods.

Just a simple 30 minutes job, and voila, 16WHP gains at 5,300rpm!!

The dyno graph says it all!

Now in Stock!!

Engines for Mitsubishi Colt Version R 

Beam Light for Championship White FD2s

Original Honda wheel lock nut.  Very Rare, highly unlikely for someone else to have the same kind.

 Type R Keychains

Type R stickers

 Honda Tshirts

Type R Caps

NOW… we are becoming Honda boutique…

Honda Maketh the Man.

The power of dreams…

The setup that was originally on the car.  3 hot laps in Pasir Gudang sent the Defi oil temp to 118 degrees C.

Comparison between Earl’s 25 row core and the GReddy 13 row core. The Earl’s core has a much higher denser fin pitch and row count even though the overall size remains the same. A larger core was not chosen for packaging reasons and also taking into account the overall cooling performance required.

The core looks abit slanted due to the angle that the photo was taken. Some minor adjustments were made to give better clearance when the bumper was fitted. The final orientation of the two coolers is like \ / where the bottom edges are closer together.

You can see the greater tilt of the passenger side oil cooler core to provide some deflecting for the incoming air.

Frontal of the car after the installation of the twin coolers. Here you can really see the cooling surface that the twin coolers provide. The cores are tilted backward to give better ground clearance and for the passenger side core, it is tilted a little more so that it can deflect some of the incoming air towards the air filter sited directly under the passenger headlamp.

This article was contributed by Dennis; Ex-Evo owner and DIY Maestro.

 Turbocharged cars are notorious for their ability to overheat while being pushed hard, so much so that many of the high performance turbocharged production cars come from the factory with some form of heat management for engine oil – some do it via a water-to-oil cooler as per Subaru and others with a air-to-oil arrangement such as the Lancer Evolution.

The standard Lancer Evolution IX is a pretty capable car on the track but the one crippling problem it faces on the track is heat management – oil temperatures hit north of 130°C after just pushing 3 hot laps at Pasir Gudang. If you intend on taking your Evo down to the track often, you will quickly find that the standard oil cooler to be insufficient to meet your cooling needs especially in our blazing tropical climate.

The subject car in this example was built to be track-capable machine and yet be civilized enough for daily use. Some engine strengthening work was performed to cope with the APEXi RX6 turbocharger kit which replaced the standard item and this combination makes well in excess of 500bhp.

This car has plenty of power to have fun at the track yet the owner is unable to let the car loose on the track for more than 3 hot laps at any one time as the dreaded oil temperature warning lights will start flashing to show oil temps to be in excess of 130°C. Proper heat management in this example is even more critical as the RX6 turbocharger relies solely on oil for lubrication as well as cooling. Overheated oil will cause a breakdown of lubrication for the engine and can catastrophic failure of the turbo.

To ensure that this catastrophic loss of lubrication does not occur, the oil cooler setup for the car had to be upgraded. After doing some research, we found several standard options commonly available in the market.
- to add another standard oil cooler core to be placed on the passenger side, some custom work required for the lines and a stock core needs to be located.
- to install an aftermarket oil cooler kit which added an additional core on the passenger side, like the HKS Oil Cooler kit.
- to replace the standard core with an aftermarket core

After seeing how some of the above-mentioned setups held up to track work, we went whole hog and went for a twin cooler setup featuring two 25 row Earl’s Temp-a-cure oil cooler cores. The twin coolers were installed behind a Test & Service bumper which featured large intake ducts for the oil coolers and evacuation vents at the sides to ensure consistent airflow through the cores.

One commonly neglected aspect of installing a custom oil cooler kit is having shrouds built around the core to direct available airflow through the core to maximize its effectiveness. A simple shroud was made from lightweight plastic and moulded to fit snugly behind the bumper to give a ram-air effect to the oil cooler cores.

The results are exactly as we expected for the car.. A picture tells a thousand words so take a look at the peak value for the oil temperature – this photo was taken after the car had done 7 hot laps at Pasir Gudang.

A peak of 107°C and when the car came back into the pit area after cool down lap, the oil temperature was hovering just about 90°C – we have finally eliminate the demons of oil temperature.
This is a huge improvement from the standard setup and is highly recommended for everyone who intends to head to the track often.

Points to note:
1. Test was performed on 29th June 2008-07-04
2. The same engine oil of the exact same grade was used for the original track session in Pasir Gudang and this recent test after the oil cooler upgrade
3. Test was done at between 4 to 5pm as the track was too crowded earlier.