tperkins mitsubishi descent into madness (evo 3, 6, 7 starion and pajero)

Stock wing painted, as well I had a carbon fibre NACA duct for the 6 that didn't fit worth a heck. Had to sand the heck out of it to get it to fit, then dropped it off to get re-cleared. 

Front bumper postponed again, so hopefully next week it can get done. 

Yesterday I changed the front door speakers. I was never really happy with the stereo, sounded weak. Ordered some new bits from crutchfeilds, pulled the door speakers off to find I already had some old diamond units in there. Hummed and hawwed, talked to my peeps then eventually decided to just change them because I wasn't happy anyways. Changed them.. much better. Which, could be because the drivers side tweeter had a broken wire and wasn't working lol. Anywho, whats done is done and its actually decent now. I also forgot to order some dynamat or something which I usually stick in the doors behind the front speakers. 

Had to whip out the solder gun because the front buckets have this little built in crossover for the connectors. 

You know... looking at these pictures I realized I could have just dropped the connector through the poly and used the crutchfield pigtails without having to solder anything lol. Oops. 

gotta love crutchfield

Bumper off to paint, finally. 

I was going to buy new grills.... but they were like 500$ by the time they shipped so... painting all this lol 

Fresh paint on the evo 7 bumper. I think it turned out really well, I also replaced all the bumper fasteners (well, most) and painted the grills and crash bars and stuff. I used POR15, 3 coats of that, then the grills got an additional 2 coats or POR15 Top Coat. This stuff is pretty durable, holds up well. 

Honestly, it always photographed pretty well. But I am pretty happy with where the car is at, it is a pretty awesome daily.

When the bumper paint is all cured then I will get that front bumper clear protected. 

Oh, and I changed the rear deck lid speakers finally. Crutchfeild spacers and pigtails made it a 15 minute job. 

Last week started innocently enough, with getting the evo 3 road ready (calling insurance, changing coverage, renewing the registration). 

Then, I decided to go visit my bro Alex in Red Deer. So, drove the 3 down, went for a cruise with Alex, then ended the night at a friends in Edmonton. Solid 600+ km for the old unit and it took it like a champ. This car is my worst car at being a car, it is a little tin can, its so stiff, loud, its hot inside.. but dang are you connected as a driver. 

The following day, had the timing belt and water pump changed.. this is a job I can do, but I would rather just let my bro Chuck do it, who has done hundreds of these things in the car (where its a pain), and just drop it off and pick it up. I don't get as many days at home as I would like and try not to spend the entire time working on cars. 

Finally, some preventative maintenance that was warranted. 

Timing belt was in decent shape, but it was stretched for sure. The up/down play between the cam gears was not insignificant. 
The water pump had also internally failed and was just starting to seep out of the weep hole

And the balance belt was due for replacement

I also got the AC recharged and I was loving life with AC on the 270 km drive home. Made the car so much more pleasant to drive, could have the windows up instead of cracking the two passenger ones to circulate some air. It was glorious... and then two days later it quit working again.. so I am not sure what happened with that. The machine that fills it also pressure checks it for leaks and it was solid, so to be determined. 

Then, I got home and packed up the starion bits, as I sold it. I just was not enjoying having this many cars, there was no overlap for spare parts, it was cool and old but it was slow and I really just didn't get to drive it as much as I'd like, so of the 4 cars (5 including Pajero.. which is next out the door), Starion was on the block. Again, great car, I just did not like having this many cars. Found the right buyer, dude seems cool and just wants to paint it, bring it back to life. I didn't love it enough to spend the 10k to paint it, so it went to a good home. 

Spares I had for it



It was way too low to get on the Uhaul, so I had to whip out the chainsaw lol. 

On the way out the door with the new owner. He is very enthusiastic about it, still texts me about it, has some sentimental reasons for buying it and seems to have a good plan in place. Honestly, seems like what i would have done with it so I hope he takes care of it, and part of the deal was him giving me first dibs if he ever sells it. 

We were babysitting this cute doggo for the week:

Supervising oil changes

Its really fun having a dog around, she was stuck to my side the whole time I was home. Shot bows with me, we went for walks, she was a very good listener. 

Oil changes with the underbody brace on that car are a pain, custom drain water bottle.

I then had bought an evo 9 turbo, seller said there were a couple broken studs.. no big deal. 

PO must have tempered the bolts in their attempts to remove them, and made a big mess of it. The holes were drilled crooked and my bits werent touching it, so I brought it to a machine shop who then accidentally cracked the flange. They then quoted me 3-4 hours to fix it... nice. 
So that spiraled into me sending the turbo off for a performance rebuild.. most likely. New billet turbine and compressor, but too be determined. I mostly want quick spool as I am not chasing numbers. 

I got the evo 7 wing back from paint, turned out well. Then went to the job of removing the evo 8 wing to install the evo 7 wing back on.

15 minute job turned into me touching up the trunk and re-ceramic coating it, just where the base of the old wing touched was not fully covered by the new wing, so it looked dull and scratched. 

Out in the wild

Didn't know what to think of it at first, I never really liked the 7 wing.. but it looks right to the point where I will probably sell the other wing and just leave this one on. The lines work with the front bumper much better, it is shiny and new, paint matches well.. I just like it. 

Then, I had a change in plans and didn't go back to work the day I was scheduled, so changed the brakes on the evo 3. This was supposed to be a place holder until I did the brembo swap, and the pads and rotors were pretty inexpensive... but I just like the wheels on that car too much now I am really not in much of a rush to commit to the brembo swap. 

Also, getchurself one of these. 

before / afters. 



Before / after from when I picked it up to now before/after

Time to celebrate evo 7 retirement from daily duties (at least for the winter, still on backup duties). I did the thing I do and made the car too nice to winter drive and the plan was always to fix pajero and replace it for next winter... got half way there.  

I put 21,000 km on it over the last 10 months, did a bunch of work, handled it all. Great car. Currently building a turbo for this car, have injectors in the pile, might do some mild cams and then tuna next spring if all goes well. 

Went for a short cruise for some pictures, just needed a couple people to drive two cars. I drove the 6.  



 

Pajero replacement is here. Unfortunately, still haven't gotten Pajero fixed, currently getting cam and crank sensors swapped, new timing belt. Half hoping to see a smoking gun in there but he said nothing looked unusual. 

Bought a 2014 Toyota Tundra Double Cab SR5. Pretty basic bitch of a truck, has 185,000 km already.. but the way the market is now I am pretty happy with it. I think I got a good price on it, 1/3 the cost of this truck new. 

PO / Toyota Canada got me stacks of maintenance items that I am going to put into a spreadsheet to see where its actually at, but the truck runs well, no rattles, clunks. Just, feels solid. It has front bilstein shocks set to max height (2.5" front lift), so the tires look a little goofy right now. 

Before picking it up I brought it to Element Autoworks in Leduc, AB to repair some dents that the box had that I know would have bothered me. 

Clean carfax other than an accident in the rear right which had 0$ in repair, I am thinking it got rear ended and pushed that bumper into the corner of the box there.  

On this side, PO hit the ditch or something and left a dent / scratch in the box. 

Fresh paint

Re-assembled and cured in the sun

The truck came with winter tires as well, so I bought some take offs from a 2021 Tundra and some slightly larger rubber (275/70r18 vs 275/65r18). Plan is to mount the winter tires on the rims it came with, the new rubber on these new rims, and then sell the rubber that came with it that just looks a little too small for my taste. 

Bringing it home, also came with the cover and a toneau cover 

New floor mats

All my roadside gear I had in a bag fits into this little cargo thing, pretty pumped on that

Fueling up for the first time, seems like it gets around 12.5 to 13.5 L/100 depending how fast you're driving... so since I put regular in its actually cheaper to run than Pajero was and not that dissimilar to the Tacomas, add like 1.5L/100 everywhere. 

I have went to the wrong side of the truck a few times and used the wipers trying to signal a couple times. First LHD vehicle and first vehicle that runs regular fuel I have had in over 4 years. First v8 ever.

Well, it all started because evo 7 needed a tune. And then I accidentally bought an evo 9 turbo for a steal at one point. So I thought to myself, might as well get this evo 9 turbo ready for the evo 7 (which has the smallest turbo of all my cars). 

ANYWHO, brought to a local machine shop to extract a stud the PO broke, then heat tempered and my bits couldn't touch it. In their efforts they cracked my flange. 

I know Art a little, talked to him to see if he had a spare hotside.. ended up offering to fix my flange and OEM rebuild for me for a great deal. 

So, I sent the turbo off, he looked at it, we discussed goals, told him I wanted response above all else and a little more chooch (evo 9 turbo already good for an additional 30-40hp chooch over stock turbo at same boost levels) and ended up with that. 

So, he did a 49mm billet compressor, and a 9 blade turbine, updated the bearings and did a "performance build" which included balancing, blah blah. He was a total bro and threw in a wastegate he had laying around, and ceramic coated the hot side for free. 10/10 would recommend. Paid 300$ for the turbo, paid him 600 USD to rebuild it.. all and all this is a nice upgrade now for pretty dang reasonable prices. 

https://artgennariturbo.com/

So far, loving truck life again lol. So much room in the box for activities. 

Then I found out 4wd didn't work. 

Basically, I wanted to test it before hunting season, so I went for a little drive on the beach, put it into 4, went for a drive and rear wheels started sinking. Then I noticed it didn't change into 4. Stopped, put it back to 2, then to 4, tried to drive back and forth to get it to work, nothing. Tried to turn it off in 4wd and turn it on to get 4wd to engage.. nothing. Checked the owners manual, found out the fast blinking light meant service 4wd system. 

Got pulled out, tried to get 4wd to engage around the parking lot, nothing. Tried again when I got home, nothing. The next day I tried and it worked fine. All day yesterday and today it is working still today lol, so.. I don't know. Still going to get it looked at before winter as the PO offered to pay for that because he felt bad it wasn't working.. good guy. Some guys are saying the actuators can get sticky when they aren't used and it should be good, but another guy suggested looking for water in the connector. 

Last few weeks I have been at home, doing chores, hunting etc. 

It all started when I woke up with covid on September 3rd. I was supposed to be going bow hunting elk in the next few days, so although I was in no shape for that (cough, runny nose, blah blah) I started picking off things for the truck. I was scheduled to go to Sherwood Park Toyota for a few things, I called them, explained the situation and asked what they wanted to do and they said to re-schedule the appointment. 

So, I called Kal Tire, told them I had loose tires, COVID, could I drop them off outside then pick them up, pay over the phone? They says sure. 

Of course, it didn't go that easily. They put 80 PSI in the tires lol. On one of the 4 they also didn't wipe the wheel before putting the balancing weights on so they fell off on the trip to my parents house in the box of the truck. 

New tires are a 275/70r18. The tires I replaced with them were a 275/65r18, and the stock tires are a 255/65r18. So, went from like a 31" tall tire to a 33" and change tall tire. These tires seemed to kill about 1L/100 in fuel economy, have made the odometer read about 3% inaccurate, and made no change to the speedometer which my GPS tells me is still accurate? Riddle me that. 

You can maybe notice in some of the other pictures the rear right bumper was pretty close to the box of the truck. Fixed that with a tree, some ratchet straps, and some jumping. Backed up to a big tree, got my biggest ratchet strap, hooked it around the internal supports on the rear bumper and gave er the beans. That worked pretty good, but in the end I jumped on the strap to get it back to normal. On the carfax there is a collision reported with a 0$ repair to the rear right, so someone must have bumped him in traffic. 

Then I changed the oil, cabin air filter, engine air filter. 

Also installed this rubber skirt that was missing. 

Oh, and I removed the front hood bulge plastic and fixed some plastic tabs that had cracked and replaced the plastic clips. It would pop out on the highway when you passed a semi, which was annoying. Seems fixed now. 

Big unit

I re-booked at Toyota, took the truck in for transmission fluid service and to check the 4wd. They couldn't find anything wrong, of course, but found that the front diff was low on fluid. They also changed the transfer case fluid. Funny enough the PO paid EM's Lube Shop to change the front diff fluid about 4000 km ago.. so that's nice. Also nice to know all the fluids in the truck are new now. The trans fluid.. sure I could have drained it, topped it up, drained it, topped it up, but it was pretty nice to just drop it off, have them flush it, and pick it up completed. 

Too fix the pretty neutral stance, I ordered some rear shackles. Drop the spare tire, loosen the 4 bolts, lift the rear and tap out the old shackles, lift it some more and install the new ones, drop it to the ground and torque them then bing bang boom you're done, from pulling it into the shop to pulling it out was like an hour and a half. 

They can be set to 1" or 1.5" lift but I just set them at 1", I think it turned out swell. 

I also adjusted the headlight height (which wasn't done before with the 2.5" lift in the front) and the lights seem quite a bit better. Amazing when you just direct it at the road what happens. 

Also did some work on the 7. I ordered the wrong fan, hoping it would work. USDM evo 8 was like 60$ off rock auto, but since mine has auto climate it will not work. 400$ OEM seems to be my option. 

I did install a cabin air filter in the car. They have a blank cover that you can just cut off, then order a cabin air filter for an evo 8 and screw it in, works a treat. 

Truck stuff

Truck stuff, 

Not much going on with Pajero, if there are other countries familiar with the GDI that have any ideas, its still broke haha. 

So far, I have checked: replaced with a known good spareMAF, replaced fuel filters, replaced plugs (while doing a  compression check which was very healthy), traced wiring harness, unplugged (cleaned, inspected) and replugged all engine plugs, new fuel, inspected ECU for obvious burns and fried bits (found none), swept the throttle bodies with my meter to check functionality. 

Mechanic so far has: double checked everything I did, metered each individual wire to the engine bay, confirmed fuel pressure and hpfp, changed the cam sensor, found a relay under dash that clicked (try to start, takes 4 times to start every time, first three times it starts and dies, fourth time it starts and idles like a swiss watch where-in you'd not know theres anything wrong, he tried replacing the relay that clicks and it made no difference... likely the engine is looking for something the first three times it doesn't see, then it bypasses that on the 4th and thats when that relay clicks on), he was also able to pull the actual codes with MUT-II setting on evoscan, and found codes:

12, 13, 14 and 15 (MAF, IAT, TPS and idle servo), IAT is integrated into the MAF, he tried to adjust tps and idle servo, he also found a service manual, he checked the throttle valve controller using the check chart he found. 

We tried replacing the ECU with a used one I found, known functioning, and got the exact same results. This truck has a pile of PCMs and blah blah, there is one for the engine, there is one for the high pressure fuel injection, the transmission has one, the speed sensor has one, the ac has one. Old school tech. 

Note, that the symptoms there exactly match what is going on with the truck. 

Didn't find anything. At the start I ordered a cam and crank sensor and timing set so he could try those, see if he sees anything while doing those. He was the last person to change the timing belt so he is the guy to do it. I also have the new speed sensor for the bay which I found heavily discounted BNIB old stock off eBay so I bought that to give it a whirl, also a new throttle position sensor for the throttle body. If those two dont change it, there is a little speed control PCM I am going to try and change, as well as a knock sensor which I had purchased years ago just in case. If these don't fix it.. I will just sell it for a loss, with the tundra I am hoping to fix it and sell it to get my money back out of it, but you know how that goes.

In reply to tperkins :

Mitsubishis, man...sorry to hear that the Pajero is giving you so much trouble. I hope you and your mechanic can get it figured out.

In reply to obsolete :

Yeah, I mean it has 160,000 km and is almost 24 years old at this point, so it made it well past the warranty lol. Just, what happens when they are ahead of the curve, being that it is drive by wire and the first v6 gasoline direction injection engine that was mass produced, at the time this is the tech they had to make it happen and I am dealing with it on the back end. 

Mechanic is a stud, hes the guy you want to work on it, but unfortunately he is not in the best health, doesn't have a lot of time to devote to it, so he just picks away when he can. 

Spent a billion dollars on some headlights for the 7. When Jon was driving it, the car looked amazing but the headlights let it down so much I just had to. 

Yuck

New OEM 

Ricer mods on the Tundra, 

LED interior lights, this was actually a nice thing to do because I found a few times before there wasn't enough light when I have been digging around in my tool boxes. 

License plate lights made it look less old.

New Hella headlights, "5000k" high output ones.. 14.90 cad off rock auto and they actually made a pretty noticeable difference on the highway. Nice bump without being E36 M3ty to other motorists. 

Truck stuff, 

Found an old washed-up canoe that was totaled that probably floated away from someone's house this spring in the flood. It was almost broken in half so I cut it up to make a bookshelf for my sister. 

Killing grouse 

Fissin'

Like honestly, this is a pretty good truck. On the highway with these tires seems like I get around 13.5-14.5 L/100, so not amazing but similar to what the Pajero got with the big summer tires on it, and this runs regular fuel as opposed to premium.  

All caught up on this. Awesome thread! 

In reply to Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks! Today I was was like dang nobody comments anymore, then read back and realized the first 3 to 4 pages were better lol. 

In reply to tperkins :

Comments have been going down recently for real. 

Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to tperkins :

Comments have been going down recently for real. 

I was hoping a Pajero specialist knew what was wrong with it haha

Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to tperkins :

Comments have been going down recently for real. 

Just lurking, really have nothing to say.  To paraphrase something I read a long time ago, I feel like a fish reading about a man talking about how his knees hurt 

My mind still boggles at the concept of "paint correction" with respect to the results you get.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

It's actually a pretty fun DIY thing, you can get really good results at home.

Stuff happened on the Pajero... not actually sure why he removed the intake manifold and I don't think it fixed the issue, but dang how gross lol. He did replace the knock sensor which was underneath that mess. 


24 years of GDI'in

I even went to see it in person again lol. 

Anyways, I don't think anything is fixed so, getting pretty close to selling it for whatever. Haven't had it in my possession for a year. 

Found the squeak on Tundra that was driving me nuts. I didn't notice on install the interference. 

No more squeaks (tears)

Mounted the winter tires, probably the best set of winter tires I have personally had. 

Installed a tidy light bar, 

Also washed out the frame, changed the oil, greases the zerks etc. Booked the truck in at Sublime Surfacing. 
(Considering it gets dark before I leave work now) -> light bar -> https://flic.kr/p/2nXZp6F

Installed evo 7 headlights 

And got a dent from the lawn mower I guess...

So I guess I might as well paint that rear quarter, and while I am at it might as well do the hood and front fenders now that it isn't daily anymore. 

Is the car pad locked to the ground? Advanced security!