A new addition to the House of High Revving JDM....1996 Mitsubishi Mirage RS

Was finishing up the belt and hose service and got to tightening the belt tension. It was not tightening up and the bolt was being weird so I took it all apart. Whoops, those are both suppose to be straight. I have new ones on order now. 

So more proof that this was someone's track toy in Japan too. Took out the rear seat and what do I find? Harness connector.

Then there was the airbox mod i noticed. Nothing like the good drill airbox mod 

Fun stuff. 2 weeks to getting back on track. Can't wait.

I AM HERE FOR THIS :)

Diamonds are Forever

In reply to HaveBlue83 :

Hey there. I remember you from the mirage forums. I always enjoyed your ride as well. 

Was setting up the car for the first track day and was missing something. The GRM sticker. Fixed that with the retro stickers added in the store. Seemed like the right choice for the era of the car. 

So the first track day of the season was a little bit of a miss. I had the setup a bit wrong. It was a bit unsettled in fast corners. Part of that was because it was garage set and I honestly didn't have the best tools. So I'm fixing that since few will do alignments outside the box here locally. So I placed an order at FM for some paco hub stands and all of the tools to actually do it the right way. We will get it better aligned for the next track day. It's a learning experience as unlike the miata, there was not a lot resources for setting up a mirage for track days. Live and Learn and do better. 

So since no one around here really wants to do a proper alignment for the car, Time to get better tools. I only have a very basic set of strings for it and trying to do all that alone made for bad results. So time for an investment in better tools.

My hunch was right. User error in the prior alignment was leading to the issues on the track. It was just no good. So now I got the back all dialed in. Running 1.8 degrees camber and 1/16" toe out. For the front. 2.3 Degree camber and the target will be 0 toe front.

Now there is a reason I say target as the adjustment nuts are a mess. They painted the whole underside of the car with rustproofing in japan. Well they covered all of the bolts too. So everything has been a struggle to get off. I tried everything to get the adjust nut loose and well it was a big fail. So, time for new inner and outer tie rods so I can actually align the car. 

In the last post, I was not getting the adjusting nuts loose for the alignment. Well. It took a lot of acetone and a thread cleaner but finally had success. Got it all set. 

Spent some more time trying to dial this in a bit and got some more to work on. I have a small tire rub at the left rear so we will be pulling out the fender rolling and get that squared away. It wasn't a lot but definately not something that I want. I'll get that done before the next trip out. Also, she wanted a lot more camber so we will dial it in with closer to 3 degrees front and 2.25 in the rear. 

It's still a little pushy in the fast stuff. I've never had this aggressive of a LSD in a FWD car so still learning setting it up. I'm going to go with more and more shock in the rear till it's wanting to rotate. 

I also noticed the last session that the 3-4 shift was a little crunchy so I'll change the fluid and see if it helps. 

Finally, I need seats bad. Now that it's running in the 110ish range down the straights, she needs more safety gear for sure. Time to break out the welder and fab up the seat brackets.  

One of the vintage guys had this beast out for some shakedown laps. He was running with me. I glanced in the mirrors and there he was. What a treat to share a track with him. 

So yesterday was one of the best days I have had in a long time. I shared the track with my nephew for the first time! I had sooo much fun teaching him and he was a really good student. 

The car was just awesome the whole day and he had a blast. I took the car on back to back sessions for over an hour of straight running time and it was just like can I go out there for more? It's a keeper for sure. I finally got it all dialed in and I'm happy as heck with how it goes around the course. Now that I've got it dialed in, Time to get the driver dialed in too. As a bonus, I found my sunglasses that I've been looking for. 

The track season has ended here for me at least so time for a little work I have been looking at. 

So for the off-season I am making a change in the hub size. I am doing the switch to 4x100 hubs from the existing 4x114 setup. This is mostly due to availability of wheels. 4x114 are a pain to find good wheel options with FWD offsets anymore.

So the good thing is that it's pretty easy as the US versions of the chassis were all 4x100. Combine that with R53 minis having almost identical rotors but in 4x100, I had it mostly done in an afternoon. I decided the tie rods were probably due for replacement so those will be the last thing.

For fun, I fitted my Miata rims that are 15x8 on there and I think I can make it fit but long term I would look at a better offset rim.

So I have her parked for the winter and on to the winter project. 

For those who know Mitsubishi, You know there is a very active community of ECU tuning for the common man. The Ecu's from about 1998 on are all flashable and carry a common architecture across the different platforms. So for example, a 99 Galant ECU can plug right in to a 99 Mirage with the right rom flashed onto it. 

My mirage came with a non-flashable ECU. They never put flashable ECUs into mivec motors. They were all speed density non-flashable units. The rest of the line except the very base units were Flashable units with a MAF.

So what is a man to do? MAF conversion with a Flashable ECU. This is where the parts sharing of Mitsubishi in the late 90s/early 2000s comes in handy. There is a lot of things that are the same/similar with other cars. In my case, I'm borrowing from a 1998 Lancer GSR (CM5A Chassis) This was the baby evo that the US never got. All were 4 doors in a pretty plain package with the 4G93T engine (DOHC 1.8L with a 15B hanging off the front) and AWD.  

So why this one? The easy answer is that it's almost exactly the same as the 4g92 Mivec I have from a sensor and emissions point of view and it works perfect with the MAF and ECU I have. I can also keep the knock sensor with the multiple fuel/ignition maps based off the knock reading. That is something the US based ROMs don't have. 

So what will this all involve? 

1. I need to add in the flash port. Since it was a non-flashable ecu, they never put a flash port on it. This is pretty simple. I got the port from a galant in the JY over the weekend and I just need to add a pin to the ECU in pin 79 to connect the flash port. 

2. I need to wire in the MAF. This isn't too bad. It's just 2 wires I need to add to the ECU plug and then 4 more that I use from the existing engine harness. I got the MAF and the plug from the JY as well. So just need to make and route that harness. 

3. Mount the MAF. Now this was too easy. just had to change the lid on the air box to the US version. 

So, You may ask why bother. Well, for me it allows me to tune the car for US gas. I think I'm on the knock map way too much. And the other reason is well, I do have a turbo and a turbo manifold in the basement that would be a good fit for this. That may be next. 

I'm waiting for a couple of pins and a few odds and ends to come in and then I'll get this all installed. I'll post more pictures when I do it.