Mitsubishi Colt Evo - Build info

Sort wheelbase or not?
"The wheelbase Lancer Evo VI is 2510 mm, Ford Fiesta S2000 is 2489 mm
and wheelbase the Mitsubishi Colt Evo 2520 mm"

Body
One week after April Fool the team bought a Mitsubishi Colt CZ3. Then a 90 hp front wheel drive Colt was stripped down to bare metal and the various modifications needed to fit the Lancer Evo 4WD layout. The Lancer Evo engine dropped into is new custom mounts, as it needed to be place to make sure all other driverain components would fit perfectly.

At the same time can be corrected by the claim that the car has a short wheelbase so that it can succeed. Namely, for example, the wheelbase Lancer Evo 6 includes a 2510 mm, the S2000 for Ford Fiesta in the 2489 mm wheelbase and our Mitsubishi Colt Evo 2520 mm.

All-wheel drive system includes mechanical differentials front and rear (electronically controlled are banned in rules). Fiberglass hood, side skirts, bumbers. Side skirts are universal M3 side skirts. Custom made carbon fiber door cards and some other interior panels.

Engine & Gearbox
Finnish rallysprint Special Saloon class5 4wd cars minimum weight was guite high 1330 kg. (Check y2011 update bottom of this page) Team commissioned the local company AKE-Gears Ltd to build a tough, five-speed manual dogbox. Gearbox is linked to an Ikeaya Formula sequantial shifter.

Engine head has only slightly modifications on it and compression ration is mild +9:1 and also a 45 mm inlet restrictor is required. Mild because WRC cars used nowadays 10-11:1 and over 2.5 bar boost! Engine is controlled by a MoTeC ECU and tuned by Asko Kosonen (ex. Jari-Matti Latvala and now TMR race engineer).

Finnish turbocharging specialist FIN-Turbo Ltd (on hire in team facilities) designed a ball-bearing turbo that takes into account the 45 mm inlet restrictor. Tial blow-off and wastegate valves can be found on either side of the turbo.

NOTE! Although the actual maximum readings have never tried to retrieve the dyno but.. Currently the engine has been measured over 550 horsepower and the best part that it's a fully driveable from 3500 - 7500 rpm. Note that we use only 1,7 bar boost!
 

Development
This is a learning year we testing / race and try to find good snow-tarmac-gravel set-up. We were aware that it was going to be very difficult for us at the beginning of the first season. But having said that, we’ve seen lot of progress with the car. You can say power means nothing without control. In the middle 2007/summer car get's the diffrent central diff, rear suspension structure change, installing the Motec controlled intercooler, radiator and oil cooler waterspray system which has dropped the engine temperature 10 celsius! Autumn 2007 the Colt Evo get's widen the trackwide by 80 mm (~ 3 inch)! That takes lot of work. End of year 2007 summer we've also spent a lot of time looking at how we can further refine the car's geometry to suit twisty tarmac events.

The target are get a Colt a more responsive with better traction and more balanced. At year 2009 autumn we get new wrc-type rear suspension and in 2010 spring also front suspension has update to WRC-type fully adjustable fabricated steel links. Both end use Reiger external reservoir dampers and blade/tube type adjustable anti-roll bars. Note that example front suspension parts is over 20 kg lighter than stock Lancer Evo parts. Year 2010 snow and ice engine setup package has readings 475 hp / 660 Nm with only 1,3 bar boost and fully driveable from 2500 - 7000 rpm. Note that with this setup tested max measured torque with bigger boost was ~800 Nm in 3500 rpm! Our turbocharger supplier really rocks. Here we go a again... We enjoyed racing really and put a good show sometimes.

2011 tarmac racing

2011-
Year 2011 national Automobile Association has decided BAN race fuels. So we using now stantard 98E pump fuel. To compensate this same time the class minimum weight reduce of 1230 kg was 1330 kg. So we can take a large part of the additional weights off! The car is the rules minimum weight. We also build a new engine because using 98E fuel and power still over 500 hp and torque is now over 800 Nm! The latest update is 13-inch front brake discs (8/2011).