What’s your real name?  Where do you live?
My name is Phillip Weston and I live in Hamilton, New Zealand.

What do you do for a living?
I am a vehicle broker for NZ New Cars.

What Mitsubishi(s) do you drive?  How long have you had it/them?
I currently own a 1991 Galant VR-4 Evolution along with two 4^th generation RWD Galant Turbo coupes – one’s badged as a 1980 Eterna GSR while the other is a 1982 Galant GT. These are commonly known as the Plymouth Sapporo or the Dodge Challenger II in the States.

How does the GVR4 Evo compare to, say, the RS, or other GVR4 trims?
The Evolution VR-4 is the 2^nd facelift/revision for the 5-Speed manual E38A and E39A JDM Galant VR-4s, produced from October 1990 through to May 1992 – the RS existed from 1988 and was upgraded to ‘Evolution’ spec following the 2^nd facelift. There are other JDM variants available such as the Monte Carlo and the Super VR-4, both of which had black leather interior, which the other variants had lacked. The Evolution models sported hood vents and extra front bumper grilles, 510cc injectors, Big 16G Turbo, 4 bolt rear end with LSD, and larger intercooler and piping, amongst other smaller changes.

Do you know how many GVR4 Evos were built?
According to the Japanese Automotive Federation homologation papers a total of 5057 ‘Evolution’ examples had been produced, spread out over the standard VR-4, RS VR-4, Super VR-4 and Monte Carlo VR-4 models. This may seem like a large number compared to the total VR-4s imported into America, however there would perhaps be a small percentage of that 5057 still around today due to the amount destroyed in rallying or taken off the roads permanently.

What originally attracted you to Mitsubishi?
I would have to credit my love of Mitsubishis to my father, who managed our local Mitsubishi Motors dealership when I was growing up. I vividly recall him bringing home brand spanking new ‘demonstrator’ models throughout the 80s and early 90s, which sparked my interest in models such as the Tredia, Cordia, Sigma and of course, the Galant. Sadly Dad passed away October 12^th 2010.

How do you use use your Mitsubishi?
Very carefully! It is more or less in factory standard condition and traveled approximately 2000 miles a year, so basically sits in the garage unused other than on sunny days.

What are your goals for your Mitsubishi?
My goal is to basically have one of the most cleanest and original E39A Galant VR-4s around, I feel they are a dying breed and will be worth something in years to come. That’s not to say I will not be modifying it, however any mods done will be subtle, tasteful and most importantly reversible!

Considering your goals, can you tell us about a couple of your favorite mods and how they help you towards realizing the goals you’ve set for the vehicle?
Just the simple modifications – a K&N replacement filter has been fitted, the cat converter has been removed, the boost raised to about 15psi and Ferodo DS2500 brake pads fitted. These mods turned the car from a slouch into… well… something slightly faster than a slouch, haha!

How often do you get together with other Mitsubishi owners in person? What do you do?
I would say perhaps every few months with various local clubs where we primarily do track-days, though there have been various social events plus car show events I have been involved with.

Tell us about something really exciting you’ve done with other Mitsubishi owners.
To be honest I haven’t really done a lot with other Mitsubishi owners in my VR-4 other than turn up to a few meets, however beginning of 2011 the VR-4 will be on display with the MMC club of NZ at the ‘4 & Rotary Nationals’ where we will be demonstrating the whole Evolution range from 0 to X.

Tell us about a time something broke and what it took to fix it.
I haven’t really broken anything on the VR-4, just had a few little niggly maintenance issues like sticking calipers, worn bushes, leaking clutch fluid hose etc.

What is your embarrassment moment – that time you made a stupid mistake?
Pass. I make lots of stupid mistakes, it’s hard to keep track and remember the most stupidest one!

What is your finest hour – that time you saw it all come together perfectly?
It wasn’t with the VR-4, but with one of the coupes I spent the last three days leading up to a track day fabricating custom coil-over suspension, fitting a front mount intercooler, getting a larger exhaust made up, fitting race tyres and basically applying the finishing touches on the morning of the day – the car went better than expected without any trouble and I truly think those days of hard work really paid off.

What’s the best part about being a Mitsubishi owner?  The most challenging?
I guess being the best part is like being the underdog – no one really assumes that a four door family sedan is going to wipe the smile off a V8 owners face at the lights. The most challenging would be the constant upkeep and maintenance required!

Which Mitsubishi communities do you frequent most and why? (What’s your screen name?)
MMC Club of NZ, Galant VR4.org, Club VR-4 (more for 8G Galants) and Austarion as ‘fuel’ or ‘dirtygalant’.

How have you benefited from your involvement in these communities?
I have gained a wealth of information from these clubs, especially Galant VR4.org as between the lot of us we would have experienced just about any and every problem that could go wrong with the VR-4 and someone is bound to know the solution.

How do you try to give back to these communities?
I feel I have a lot of back ground knowledge of Mitsubishi and all the model and variants available so when I can I am more than happy to share any information that I may know.

What keeps you going; keeps you motivated to pick up your wrenches?
I guess picturing the goal that would be achieved at the end, but I enjoy the art of pulling things apart and subsequently putting it back together again.

What’s next for your Mitsubishi?
Essentially some more maintenance to tidy up a few areas (ie the hood has stone chips across it and interior carpet and mats could do with being replaced) and address the remainder of the small mechanical faults like a noisy rear diff and sloppy gear shifter.

Who has helped you the most along the way with the car?  Any mentors?
Definitely my father, who initially got me into cars and Mitsubishis, although he wasn’t very mechanically minded, he still shared a great passion of car ownership and all the Mitsubishi models which has rubbed off onto me. A few other guys have helped me out along the way, would like to shout out to Bart of mivec.co.nz who happily helped me out when I first moved to town, and my local mechanics Shaun of Elders Garage and Brett at Don Campbell Motors who have helped me out when I couldn’t quite tackle the work myself.

What areas of vehicle ownership are most interesting to you?
Being able to show off a vehicle which generally represents you and your personality, and being proud to own such an example.

Is there a particular shop you’d like to recommend?
Garfield Wright from tunersnation.com, he’s been supporting Galant VR4.org and deserves a free plug!

Are you on Twitter?  Facebook?  Where can people find you online?
Sure am, I tweet @thelifeofphil and my Facebook is facebook.com/te71se.

So there you have it. For 2010, all the Mitsubishi Evolutions I to X plus 1, the “Zero.” Big thanks to Phil for sharing such a clean ride with us all.

What about you?

• How do you like the way our Evolutions series turned out?
• Which Evos did we miss this year?

Am 11 September, 2009, trafen sich vier Mitsubishi Fahrer zum ersten mal.
Die Mitsubishi Freunde Baden-Würtemberg wurden geboren. In den folgenden zwölf Monaten versammelten sich die Mitsubishi Freunde regelmäßig und am 11 September 2010 kamen fast dreißig Mitglieder zum Geburtstagstreffen (Birthday Meet).
Wir waren dort.

Grab a drink. This is an epic story. (Translation by Ingmar Micheel, aka: Viking)
My wife and I saved our nickels and dimes for months to finally buy our plane tickets to Germany back in April or May. I’m an army brat and used to live over there. The idea was to show my wife where I used to live, went to high school, and see the place I consider home.

Nehmt euch einen Drink. Dies ist eine epische Geschichte.
Meine Frau und ich sparten, für Monate, all unser Geld und endlich konnten wir unsere Flugtickets für September nach Deutschland kaufen. Ich bin ein Army-Balg und lebte dort drüben. Die Idee war, meiner Frau zu zeigen, wo ich früher gelebt habe, wo ich auf das Gymnasium ging und natürlich den Ort den ich als zu Hause ansah.

I had come across Mitsubishi Fan Forum (MFF) earlier in the year when we did our interview with Bodo Engemann and thought I would pop back in to say hi and mention that we would be in-country in September, if Mitsubishi owners in the area wanted to get together. Between various online translation services and help from MFF member ‘Tschippi,’ I learned there might be a meet during that time. I told them we would be there.

Ich stöberte im Frühjahr durch das Mitsubishi Fan Forum (MFR), als wir unser Interview mit Bodo Engemann hatten und ich dachte ich sage mal wieder „HI“ und erwähnte dass wir im September im Land sein werden, und uns freuen würden mit Mitsubishi Fahrern in der Umgebung zusammen zu kommen. Zwischen verschiedenen Online-Übersetzungsdiensten und mit der Hilfe des MFR Mitglieds Tschippi, erfuhr ich dass zur der Zeit ein Treffen statt finden sollte. Ich sagte ihnen, wir werden da sein!

Sidebar: How I have to do forums these days.
In trying to find people to interview for both Mitsubishi and Rally Gearbox Magazines, I’m probably registered on 100 forums at this point. The only way I can keep track of which threads I need to get back to is by subscribing to instant email notification on replies. Some forums send an email for each reply, but others only send one until you re-visit the site. Turns out, I misplaced the email from MFF at some point and thought the thread where I told them I was coming had gone silent.

Sidebar: Was ich in den Foren zu tun habe.
Bei dem Versuch, Welt weit für beide Bereiche „Mitsubishi Gearbox und Rally Gearbox Magazin“ Leute zu interviewen, bin ich wahrscheinlich in 100 Foren registriert. Der einzige Weg, auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben, ist das Erhalten von Instant Mails  die mich benachrichtigen wenn eine Antwort im Thread gepostet wird. Einige Foren melden sich nach jeder Antwort, aber andere senden nur bis man die Seite wieder besucht. Es stellte sich heraus, dass ich die E-Mail von MFR irgendwann verlegt hatte und dachte, dass der Thread, in dem ich ihnen sagte, dass ich kommen würde, zum schweigen kam.

So I head over to the forum to confirm the dates we’ll be in the area and to see if anyone wants to get together. Turns out, I’ve missed about four pages of discussion planning Geburtstagtreffen (Geburtstag = Birthday, Treffen = Meet). I’ve dropped the ball completely! FAIL!

Also habe ich das Forum nach Terminen, an denen wir in Deutschland sind, durchsucht.
So fand ich heraus, dass ich etwa vier Seiten über die  Diskussion zur Planung des Geburtstagstreffen verpasst hatte. Ich ließ alles fallen! Verdammt!

Of course, I reply to the thread, saying my wife and I will be there and trying to get details like where we’re meeting at what time and how much cash to bring along. Since Germany is nine hours ahead of Phoenix, there was usually a delay in responding back and forth, but there were a few times when I was up late enough to get that email notice first thing in the morning over there or vice versa.

Natürlich habe ich im Thread geantwortet, Ich erzählte es meiner  Frau und versuchte Details wie: „Wo treffen wir uns?,  Wann treffen wir uns und wie viel Geld brauchen wir? zu klären. Da Deutschland  Phoenix neun Stunden voraus ist, kam es in der Regel zu einer Verzögerung bei den Antworten, aber ein paar mal war ich lang genug auf  um dort drüben als erster in der Früh zu antworten.

And so it begins…
As Vanessa and I were sitting at the gate, waiting to board the first plane on our way to Frankfurt, I got an email from Tschippi letting me know the meet was officially set for 11 September and they had a sign-up sheet going in the thread. Since I was getting ready to board (and didn’t have time to browse to the site, login, find the thread, and do a copy>paste job on the Blackberry), I asked him to add us to the list. Just before I turned off the ‘Berry in my seat on the plane, I got an email notification that the thread had been updated, followed by another email from Tschippi wishing us a good trip.

Und so begann es …
Als Vanessa und ich am Gate saßen und darauf warteten das erste Flugzeug auf dem Weg nach Frankfurt zu besteigen, bekam ich eine Email von Tschippi. Er ließ mich wissen, dass  das Treffen offiziell für den 11. September festgelegt wurde und das es eine Anmeldeliste im Thread gab. Da wir kurz vor dem einchecken waren, hatte ich keine Zeit, die Website zu durchsuchen, mich einzulogen, den Thread zu suchen und mir alles auf mein Blackberry zu kopieren. Ich bat ihn, uns auf die  Liste zusetzen. Kurz bevor ich das „Berry“ ausgeschaltet habe, denn ich war bereits im Flugzeug an meinem Platz, bekam ich eine Mail, dass der Thread aktualisiert worden war und kurz gefolgt von einer weiteren Mail von Tschippi der uns eine gute Reise wünschte.

Vanessa and I were in Germany from September 2nd to 13th, so Geburtstagtreffen would be our next to last day in Germany. Almost daily, in the days leading up to the meet, I would find myself thinking about the meet. Would the language barrier be a problem? What models would they be driving? Would it be awkward? Would we have to leave early? Whatever. We were going.

Vanessa und ich waren vom 02. bis 13. September in Deutschland, so war das Geburtstagtreffen an unserem vorletzten Tag in Deutschland. Fast täglich in den Tagen vor dem Treffen dachte ich darüber nach ob es unsere gegenseitigen Erwartungen erfüllen wird. Wird die Sprachbarriere ein Problem? Welche Modelle werden sie wohl fahren? Wäre es peinlich? Würden wir den Abend zu früh verlassen? Wie auch immer. Wir gingen hin!

Geburtstagtreffen
Vanessa and I arrived at the location where everyone was meeting up that afternoon. Since we weren’t driving a Mitsubishi (we had a sweet little BMW 118d Combi), we parked off to the side. As we walked up to the group, I started noticing people turning to look towards us. I waved.

Geburtstagtreffen
Vanessa und ich erreichten den Platz, wo an diesem Nachmittag das Treffen statt fand.
Da wir keinen Mitsubishi fuhren (wir hatten ein süßen kleinen BMW 118d Kombi), parkten wir an der Seite. Als wir zu der Gruppe gingen, bemerkte ich, dass sich die Leute zu uns umdrehten. Ich winkte.

Most of them had team shirts on. Upon saying hello and introducing ourselves, pretty much everyone in the group came up to us, introduced themselves by name and shook our hands. Tschippi made a joke, suggesting I should now recite everyone’s names. Haha. Suuuuuuure.

Die meisten von ihnen hatten ein Team-Shirts an. Nach dem wir “Hallo” sagten  und uns vorstellten, kam so ziemlich jeder in der Gruppe zu uns, alle stellten sich mit Namen vor und wir schüttelten Hände. Tschippi machte dann einen Witz, Ich solle doch jetzt noch einmal alle Namen aufzählen. Haha. Sicher doch.

There were fourteen Mitsubishis there. Here’s where my American and UK Mitsubishi friends will be surprised – there were no DSMs or Evos. At first glance (at the front mount intercoolers), we thought there were a couple Evo Xs in the group, but it turns out, those were turbo diesel Lancers (Lancer CYO 2.0 D-ID). More on them later. I was immediately drawn to the 8th generation Galant Combi (wagon), as it reminded me of a Legnum. There was also a super clean Colt Turbo and a Grandis minivan in the mix. Excellent!

Es waren vierzehn Mitsubishis dort. Jetzt kommt was, wo meine amerikanischen und britischen Mitsubishi Freunde überrascht sein werden – es gab keine DSMs oder Evos. Auf den ersten Blick (vorne montierte Ladeluftkühler), dachten wir, es gab ein paar Evo XS in der Gruppe, aber es stellte sich heraus, das waren Lancer mit Turbodiesel (Lancer CYO 2.0 D-ID). Mehr über sie später. Meine Blicke zogen sich sofort auf die 8. Generation des Galant Kombi (Caravan), da er mich an einen Legnum erinnert. Es gab auch einen super sauberen Colt Turbo und einen Grandis  Minivan in der Runde. Ausgezeichnet!

As we waited for the last stragglers to show up, we looked at all the cars, and started chatting with Ingmar, who spoke a good amount of English. Someone told us one of the Carismas had a bathroom in the trunk, so we walked over to check it out. Sure enough, a tile floor in the trunk with the Mitsubishi diamonds in red. About this time, Sarah showed up with her super clean, blue Galant.

Als wir auf die letzten Nachzügler gewartet haben, haben wir uns alle Autos angeschaut und ich  begann mich mit Ingmar, der eine gute Portion Englisch sprach, zu unterhalten. Jemand sagte uns, dass einer der Carismas ein Bad im Kofferraum hat. So gingen wir gleich hin um das zu prüfen. Ja, ein gefliester Boden im Kofferraum mit den Mitsubishi Diamanten in rot. Zu dieser Zeit kam Sarah mit ihrem super saubereren, blauen Galant.

I couldn’t help but notice the front clip on her Galant. It was fairly radical, yet looked nearly flawless. When I commented on how this must have been the cleanest body kit installation I’d ever seen, Tschippi (who drives the red Galant) pointed out that all the Galants in attendance were sporting factory trim! Four Galants. Four different front clips. All OEM. All fantastic.

Ich komm nicht drum rum die Frontlippe an ihrem Galant zu erwähnen. Sie war ziemlich radikal, doch sie sah fast makellos aus. Ich muss anmerken, dass war das am saubersten verarbeitete Bodykit das ich je gesehen hatte. Tschippi (der den roten Galant fährt) wies darauf hin, dass alle Galants die anwesend waren auf Sportlichkeit getrimmt sind! Vier Galants. Vier verschiedene Frontlippen. Alle OEM. Alle fantastisch.

In addition to the Mitsubishis, there was a Suzuki in attendance which had a great sound system in it. Nein Mann by Laserkraft 3D came on the radio and every door flew open to crank it up. Vanessa and I laughed, as we’d heard this song about once a day since we landed in Frankfurt. Ingmar and Ralph, who had joined us in the conversation, told us how, the first time people hear this song, their first reaction is usually, “What the f*ck?” But it isn’t long before they start nodding their heads to the beat. Catchy tune.

Zusätzlich zu den Mitsubishis, gab es noch einen Suzuki, in den ein großes Sound-System eingebaut war. „Nein Mann“ von Laserkraft 3D kam im Radio und jede Tür flog auf und es wurde voll aufgedreht. Vanessa und ich lachten, da wir dieses Lied etwa einmal pro Tag gehört hatten seit wir in Frankfurt gelandet waren. Ingmar und Ralph, der sich bei unserem Gespräch angeschlossen hatte, erzählten uns, dass Leute die diesen Song das erste mal hören meistens mit: “Was ist das für ein Schei…?” reagieren. Aber es dauert nicht lange, bis  sie anfangen im Takt mit dem Kopf zu nicken. Ohrwurm!

Bonus German Lesson: Towards the end (of the long linked above), the bouncer (security) comes up and says, “Hey, junge mir platzt gleich das Hemd!” Which is to say, “Hey man, my shirt bursts!” (Like the Incredible Hulk when he gets angry.) So now our English-speaking readers can express their anger while working on their Mitsubishi auf Deutsch.

Extra Deutschstunde (für die englischen Sprecher): Gegen Ende des Liedes, kommt der Türsteher (Security) und sagt: “Hey, Junge mir platzt gleich das Hemd!” (Wie der unglaubliche Hulk, wenn er wütend wird.)

Shortly after the song ended, Torsten came over and handed out the address of the Karting venue in Stuttgart. We were on our way.

Kurz nach dem das Lied endete, kam Torsten vorbei um uns die Anschrift der Go-Kart-Halle in Stuttgart zu geben. Wir machten uns auf den Weg.

Kart-o-Mania
Real estate is at a premium in Germany, so the karting venue was actually on the fourth or fifth floor of a parking garage. Upon arrival, we all settled in to have a drink while the previous group finished their race. The waiver was signed (a simple agreement wherein racers accept personal responsibility for any injuries they might incur while racing), entry fees were paid, and balaclavas (like a ski mask, these are like a sock for your head, going between you and the provided helmets) were purchased.

Kart-O-Mania
Die Immobilien in Deutschland sind teuer, so war die Kart-Halle eigentlich in der vierten oder fünften Etage eines Parkhauses. Nach der Ankunft setzten wir uns erst einmal für ein Getränk, solange bis die vorherige Gruppe ihr Rennen beendete, die Verzichtserklärung (eine einfache Vereinbarung,  in der der Fahrer erklärt das er bei Verletzungen selbst die Verantwortung trägt) unterschrieben wurde und bis das Startgeld bezahlt und die Sturmhauben gekauft waren.

As the track boss went over the rules, he was told there were non-German speakers present, which he assumed was just Vanessa. He would explain a rule in German, then look directly at Vanessa and tell her in English. We thought this was funny. Tschippi told me the first run was warm up and qualifying, then it was going to be Mitsu Fruende Formula 1 when the green lights came on. We strapped into our karts.

Der Chef der Bahn erklärte die Regeln, dann wurde ihm gesagt das es auch nicht deutsch sprechende Teilnehmer gibt, er nahm an das nur Vanessa ihn nicht versteht. Er erklärte die Regeln erst in Deutsch und schaute sie dann direkt an um ihr die Regeln in Englisch zu erklären. Das fanden wir natürlich lustig. Tschippi erzählte mir im ersten Lauf würden wir uns warm fahren und gleichzeitig  die Qualifikation machen. Sobald das grüne Licht an geht, sollte die Mitsu Freunde Formel 1 starten. Wir setzten uns in unsere Karts.

The race
I’ve only karted once before this, so I pretty much suck at karting. I was making a conscious effort to stay out of the much faster people’s way. Through about half the corners of the track, I was staying outside to give the faster guys the holeshot. Who wants to see his hot lap messed up by a rookie messing up the racing line? Vanessa passed me, and I couldn’t pass her, so I came in dead last.

Das Rennen
Ich bin davor erst einmal Kart gefahren, so dass ich hier ziemlich versagt habe. Es war, für die ganzen schnellen Leute, eine echte Anstrengung mich zu überholen. In etwa der Hälfte der Kurven auf der Strecke, bin ich ganz außen geblieben, um den schnelleren Jungs die Ideallinie frei zu machen. Wer will schon, dass seine schnelle Runde von einem Anfänger vermasselt wird, weil er ihm die Ideallinie versaut? Vanessa zog an mir vorbei und ich konnte sie nicht mehr einholen und so belegte ich den letzten Platz.

The award ceremonies
We were sitting in the restaurant area waiting for the results, which I thought would be a print-out with our times so we could compare them with each other. Suddenly, the lights went dim and Eye of the Tiger began playing over the speakers. The spotlight came up on the track boss, who announced the results to great fanfare.

Die Siegerehrungen
Wir saßen im Restaurant-Bereich und warteten auf die Ergebnisse. Ich dachte wir kriegen einen Ausdruck auf dem wir unsere Zeiten vergleichen könnten. Doch Plötzlich gingen die Lichter aus und es wurde „Eye of the Tiger“ gespielt. Ein Scheinwerfer schwenkte auf den Hallenbesitzer, der die Ergebnisse mit großem Tamtam ankündigte.

I came in 14th of 14 competitors. Yes, dead last, but I’m chalking it up to superior German driving skills and international courtesy on my part; not wanting to mess up any faster racers’ lines on the track. I was called to the stage and presented a medal. Next up, Vanessa was crowned “Fastest Woman from America,” with a medal and bottle of champagne!

Ich war 14. von 14 Teilnehmern. Ja, der Letzte! Die deutsche Fahrkunst war überlegen doch ich kann die internationale Höflichkeit auf mich nehmen. Ich wollte den anderen ja nicht die Rennlinie vermasseln. Ich wurde auf die Bühne gerufen und bekam eine Medaille. Als nächstes wurde Vanessa als “schnellste Frau aus Amerika” mit einer Medaille und einer Flasche Champagner gekrönt!

To the victors go the spoils, and there was champagne spraying everywhere after all the winners were announced.

Die Sieger bekamen Pokale und dann wurde mit Champagner gespritzt  nachdem alle Gewinner bekannt gegeben wurden.

The Photo-op
We rolled out from Kart-O-Mania, headed to dinner at Lemberghalle, but stopped in a parking lot beneath a giant power plant for a photoshoot of all the cars together. While everyone figured out how to arrange the cars for the picture, some of us stood off to the side and talked cars.

Das Foto-Shooting
Wir fuhren vom Kart-O-Mania in Richtung  Abendessen zur Lemberghalle, aber wir blieben auf einem Parkplatz unter einem riesigen Kraftwerk, für ein Fotoshooting mit allen Autos, stehen. Während alle heraus zu finden versuchten wie man die Autos für das Bild platziert, standen einige von uns an der Seite und sprachen über Autos.

Ralph showed me the engine in his diesel Lancer and it was pointed out the engine is sourced from VW/Audi. Top speed is limited, but the the limit in the Audi is higher than that of the Lancer. Ingmar said it can be frustrating to be on the Autobahn, maxed out at 215kph (134mph) and have to get out of the way to let an Audi with the exact same engine pass you.

Ralph hat mir den Motor seines Lancer gezeigt und es wurde darauf hingewiesen das der Motor von Audi VW stammt. Die Höchstgeschwindigkeit ist begrenzt, aber die Grenze im Audi ist höher als im Lancer. Ingmar sagte, es kann frustrierend sein wenn man auf der Autobahn, bei 250 km / h (155 Stundenmeilen) die Grenze erreicht hat und einen Audi mit dem selben Motor vorbeilassen muss.

Yes. Ralph and Ingmar spoke of going 134mph on the Autobahn as if it was no big deal.

Ja! Ralph und Ingmar sprachen von 155 Stundenmeilen auf der Autobahn, als ob es keine große Sache wäre.

The fastest car at the meet
Robert drives the turbo Colt. I believe they said it makes 160hp and is faster than anyone else there. Robert prefers to drive late at night so he can go faster with less traffic. While the Lancers have HID headlights and few people will try to pass before they catch them, the Colt does not have HIDs and, since it’s a small car, Robert ends up running right up on people on the Autobahn and having to slow down until they get back over into their own lane.

Das schnellste Auto auf dem Treffen war Roberts Turbo Colt.
Ich glaube sie sagten er hat 160 PS und ist schneller als jeder andere dort. Robert fährt lieber  nachts damit er bei weniger Verkehr schneller fahren kann. Während die Lancer Xenon Scheinwerfer haben und einige Leute sie deswegen  passieren lassen, bevor sie selbst überholen, muss der Colt ohne Xenon oft bremsen da die Leute denken da kommt nur ein kleines Auto und dann vor ihm auf seine Spur ziehen.

Driving on the Autobahn
Many people think the Autobahn is a racer’s dream, with unlimited speeds and no traffic, but over 80% of the Autobahn now has speed limits. Unless otherwise posted, the limit is 130kph (80mph), though there are a few places where one can still go unlimited.

Das Fahren auf der Autobahn
Viele Leute denken, die Autobahn ist ein Racer’s Traum, mit unbegrenzter Geschwindigkeit und keinem Verkehr, aber auf über 80% der Autobahn gibt es jetzt Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungen. Soweit nicht anders angegeben, ist die Grenze 130 km/h (80 Stundenmeilen), obwohl es ein paar Strecken gibt die unbegrenzt sind.

In my personal opinion, the biggest appeal to the Autobahn is this:

Meiner persönlichen Meinung nach, ist der größte Reiz an der Autobahn:

1. Everyone – everyone – uses their turn signals. Every time.
2. Rechtsfahren. No one -  no one – passes on the right.

1. Jeder – alle – nutzten ihre Blinker. Jedes Mal!
2. Rechtsfahrgebot Niemand fährt auf der rechten Seite.

If you are passing traffic and see a car pull out ahead of you to pass a truck, for example, before you flash the high beams or let off the gas, they already have their signal on and are pulling back over to the right. Absolutely fantastic. When I told everyone how drivers in America will ride the left lane or pass on the right (or not even use their turn signals), they were troubled by this information. How can you pass someone safely if you go to move back over to the right and find a faster car trying to merge left? It’s stupid and a sign of poor driving. Shame we’re so used to it here in the States.

Wenn ihr im Durchgangsverkehr seit und ihr seht ein Auto das vor euch an einem Lastwagen vorbei zieht, als Beispiel und Ihr Lichthupe gebt oder vom Gas geht, haben sie bereits ihr Blinker gesetzt und ziehen wieder auf die rechte Spur. Absolut fantastisch! Als ich allen erzählte, wie Autofahrer in Amerika immer auf der linken Spur fahren oder einfach auf die rechten Seite wechseln ohne den Blinker zu setzen, waren sie durch diese Informationen besorgt. Wie könnt ihr sicher fahren, wenn jemand zurück auf die rechte  Spur will oder ein schnelleres Auto versucht sich links einzuordnen? Es ist dumm und ein Zeichen von schlechten Fahrens. Schande das wir es so in den Staaten machen.

Lemberghalle
Thomas runs Lemberghalle, which is a hotel, restaurant with a festhalle on site. A festhalle is like a ballroom where you might hold a wedding reception or party. We show up to find Thomas has pulled out all the stops. There are Mitsubishi ASX posters everywhere. Mitsubishi balloons, Mitsubishi lanyards (for keys, badges, or whatever), and even Mitsubishi candy in bowls. Amazing.

Lemberghalle
Wir fuhren zu Thomas. Die Lemberghalle ist ein Hotel und ein Restaurant mit einer Festhalle an der Seite, wo Ihr eine Hochzeit oder eine Party feiern könnt. Wir sahen das Thomas alle Register gezogen hat. Es waren überall Mitsubishi ASX Plakate, Mitsubishi Luftballons, Mitsubishi Schlüßelbänder (für Schlüssel, Karten oder was auch immer) und selbst Schalen mit Mitsubishi Süßigkeiten. Wunderbar!

Dinner was a fantastic buffet, with Schnitzel, chicken Cordon Bleu, pommes chips (like french fries, only round), Spaetzle (flour, dumpling-like noodles), salad and drinks. Sabrina ordered one of my favorite drinks, a Spezi (pronounced “SCHPATE-zee”), which is Fanta Orange and Coca-Cola mixed 2:1. This drink is so popular in Germany, Coke actually bottles it themselves as Mezzo Mix.

Das Abendessen war ein fantastisches Buffet mit Schnitzel, Hähnchen Cordon Bleu, Pommes, Spätzle (Mehl, Knödel-ähnliche Nudeln), Salat und Getränke. Sabrina bestellte eines meiner Lieblings-Getränke, eine Spezi (ausgesprochen “SCHPATE-zee”), das 2:1 mit  Fanta Orange und Coca-Cola gemischt wird. Dieses Getränk ist in Deutschland so populär, das es tatsächlich in Cola-Flaschen als Mezzo Mix verkauft wird.

There was ketchup for the fries/pommes, but everyone wanted gravy and supplies quickly ran out. When Thomas brought out more gravy, there were actually about five or six people who ran up to get gravy for their fries. Of course, this was all in good fun; not that people are that hardcore for condiments in Germany. As this article is already extremely long, let me just say – the food was phenomenal.

Es gab Ketchup für die Pommes frites, aber einige wollten Soße für die Pommes. Als Thomas die Soße brachte standen tatsächlich fünf oder sechs Leute auf um Soße für ihre Pommes zu holen. Natürlich war dies alles ein riesen Spaß. Da dieser Artikel bereits sehr lang ist möchte ich nur sagen – das Essen war phänomenal!

Gifts
When I interviewed the folks at Mitsubishi earlier this year (recording lost in a hard drive crash, sorry), I was presented with a really sweet Mitsubishi Drift Team shirt. I also had a Mitsubishi Owner Day (MOD) 2010 shirt and an Evo hat with me when we showed up to the meet. Since Ralph and Ingmar were such gracious hosts, making sure Vanessa and I could communicate with everyone in the group and knew what was going on, I gave Ralph the MOD shirt and Ingmar got the team shirt. I gave Tschippi the hat, but since he doesn’t wear hats, it ended up going to Torsten, who put it on right away and resumed clowning around with the group.

Geschenke
Als ich einige Mitsubishi Fahrer im Frühjahr interviewt habe (die Aufnahme ist bei einem Festplattencrash verloren gegangen, sorry) wurde ich mit einem wirklich schönem Mitsubishi Drift Team Shirt beschenkt. Ich hatte auch ein Mitsubishi Owner Day (MOD) 2010 Shirt und eine Mütze mit Evo dabei als wir zum Treffen kamen. Da Ralph und Ingmar so freundliche Gastgeber waren und sicherstellten das Vanessa und ich mit jedem in der Gruppe kommunizieren konnten und wir wussten was los war, gab ich das MOD Shirt Ralph und Ingmar bekam das Team Shirt. Ich habe Tschippi die Mütze gegeben, aber da er keine Mützen trägt landete sie bei Torsten, der sie sofort aufgesetzt hat und mit der Gruppe rum gealbert hat.

Thomas becomes an honorary member of the club
From what I was told, Thomas has driven ONLY Mitsubishis his entire life. He went out of his way to decorate the festhalle with Mitsubishi for our event and he does this sort of thing on a regular basis. In addition to celebrating the 1 year anniversary of the club, Thomas was made an honorary member of the club and presented with a club shirt, complete with his name on it. Awesome.

Thomas wurde zum Ehrenmitglied des Clubs.
Wie mir gesagt wurde hat er sein ganzes Leben nur Mitsubishi gefahren. Er schmückte die Festhalle mit Mitsubishi Artikeln für unsere Veranstaltung und das auf freiwilliger Basis. Gleichzeitig zur Feier des 1-jährigen Bestehens des Clubs wurde Thomas zum Ehrenmitglied des Vereins gemacht und er bekam ein Clubshirt mit seinem Namen drauf. Sehr schön!

Movie time
Some of us were later outside smoking, when word came that everyone needed to be inside, where we went behind the divider wall to the other side of the festhalle and the lights were dimmed for a movie. They had made a video showing pictures of all the meets the group has had since their first on September 12, 2009. Again, awesome.

Movie Time
Einige von uns die draußen rauchen waren, wurden gebeten rein zu kommen. Wir sollten hinter die Trennwand auf die andere Seite der Festhalle gehen, wo die Lichter für einen Film gedämmt waren. Sie hatten ein Video, mit Bildern von allen Treffen die die Gruppe seit dem 12. September 2009 gemacht hatten, erstellt. Auch genial!

After the video, a fruit and cheese tray was brought out and we all enjoyed digestifs (after dinner shots, basically). I was coming down with a nasty cold and it was getting late, but we still managed to have several conversations about politics, the economy, and how much our worlds, as Mitsubishi owners in different countries, were similar.

Nach dem Video wurde eine Obst-und Käseplatte aufgetischt und wir genossen alle ein paar Kurze. Ich wurde müde und mir war kalt und es war auch schon spät, aber wir haben noch mehrere Gespräche über Politik und die Wirtschaft geführt und wir merkten wie sich unsere Welten, der Mitsubishi Besitzer in verschiedenen Ländern, ähneln.

Vanessa and I didn’t want to leave, but we knew we had an hour-plus drive back to our hotel near Heidelberg. We all stood outside under the stars, counting down the seconds to midnight, when the official 1 year anniversary occurred, then we shook hands and said our goodbyes.

Vanessa und ich wollten noch nicht gehen aber wir wussten das wir eine Stunde für die Rückfahrt zu unserem Hotel in der Nähe von Heidelberg brauchten. Wir standen alle draußen unter den Sternen als  der Countdown bis Mitternacht gezählt wurde, als das offizielle 1 Jahr-Jubiläum eintrat und verabschiedeten  wir uns und schüttelten allen die Hände.

In closing
If you’ve read this far (and I hope you have), we’re pushing 2600 words in this post, making it the longest we’ve ever run on Gearbox Magazine. Why is it so long? Because this experience represents exactly the single most important reason why Gearbox exists. As Mitsubishi owners, we have something in common with people all over the world. We care about our cars and trucks, we take the best care of them we can, and we enjoy spending time with our Mitsubishi friends. The things we have in common with each other can help us to better understand our differences.

Zum Schluss
Wenn Ihr bis hier gelesen habt (und ich hoffe doch das habt ihr), dann habt Ihr über 2600 Wörter gelesen. So ist dies der längste Beitrag den wir je hier auf Gearbox Magazin veröffentlicht haben. Warum ist er so lang geworden? Na weil diese Erfahrung genau der Grund ist warum es Gearbox Magazin gibt! Als Mitsubishi Besitzer haben etwas mit allen Menschen auf der Welt gemeinsam. Wir kümmern uns um unsere Autos und LKWs, wir pflegen sie so gut wir können und genießen die Zeit mit unserem Mitsubishi Freunden. Die Dinge die wir mit anderen gemeinsam haben, können uns helfen besser zu verstehen wie unsere Unterschiede sind.

The challenge
Go to a Mitsubishi meet in another city, another state, another country. You are part of a very important, global community of automotive enthusiasts and you have a lot to offer. You have experiences and ideas and stories which your brothers and sisters under the diamonds will appreciate and understand. We have all learned so much about our Mitsubishis from posting to forums and chatrooms online, but it is when we meet face-to-face that we truly get to know each other as friends.

Die Herausforderung
Geht zu einem Mitsubishi-Treffen in einer anderen Stadt, in einen anderen Staat oder in ein anderes Land. Ihr seit Teil einer sehr wichtigen, globalen Gemeinschaft von Automobil-Enthusiasten und Ihr habt eine Menge zu bieten. Ihr habt Erfahrungen und Ideen und Geschichten zu erzählen, die eure Brüder und Schwestern unter den Diamanten zu schätzen wissen. Wir alle haben so viel in den Foren und Chatrooms über unsere Mitsubishis gelernt, aber nur wenn wir uns von Angesicht zu Angesicht treffen, können wir uns als echte Freunde kennen lernen.

Special thanks to Enrico Tschipke for making sure Vanessa and I knew where to go for Geburtstagtreffen before we even got on the plane in Phoenix, to Ralph Wolter and Ingmar Micheel for helping us to communicate with everyone else in the group, to Conny and Sabrina for making my wife feel at home while we guys were talking cars, to Torsten Koschinski for printing out the day’s agenda and making himself available as a point of contact for anyone who got lost during the day, to Robert, Stefani, Marco & Ramona, Sarah, Thomas, and ALL DIE MITSU FRUENDE for making 11 September 2010 one of the greatest days Vanessa and I have ever known.

Besonderen Dank an: Enrico Tschipke für die rechtzeitige Registrierung für das Geburtstagstreffen, so das Vanessa und ich wussten das wir dabei sein können bevor wir in Phoenix ins Flugzeug gestiegen sind. An Ralph Wolter und Ingmar Micheel die uns geholfen haben mit allen Leuten in der Gruppe zu sprechen. An Conny und Sabrina dafür, dass sie meiner Frau das Gefühl gaben zu Hause zu sein, während wir alle nur über Autos redeten. An Torsten Koschinski für das ausdrucken der Tagesplanung und der Adressen, um somit sicher zu stellen das niemand verloren gehen konnte. An Robert, Stefani, Marco & Ramona, Sarah, Thomas und an ALL DIE MITSU FREUNDE die den 11. September 2010 zu einem der schönsten Tage für Vanessa und mich machten!

We will find a way to interview you all and we will find a way to meet again…

Wir werden einen Weg finden Euch alle zu interviewen und wir werden einen Weg finden damit wir uns wieder treffen werden …

There was no way we could meet everyone in attendance, and we’re sure we missed a few cars and events, but we wanted to roam the lots and snap a lot of pictures to share with our brothers and sisters who couldn’t attend. It sucks that the little point and shoot Nikon we used to get these pictures added the date to all of them, but our resident photog is currently on vacation in Colorado so we had to improvise.

Note: Gallery displays 20 images in each batch. There are something like 150 here. Don’t miss the gallery pages beneath the following thumbnails to see more images.

[nggallery id=1]

MOD was a great time as usual. BIG TIME THANK YOU to everyone at Mitsubishi who gave up their Saturday (and likely many more days) to make such a special day for all of us. There are two more MOD events in the US this year – at the factory in Normal, Illinois (September 18), and at the Mitsubishi Motors North America Eastern Zone HQ in Swedesboro, NJ (October 16). Your fellow Mitsubishi owners want to see your Mitsu there. Plan on attending.

More info on MOD can be found on the MOD home page.
Are you a fan of Mitsubishi yet on Facebook?

Does your Mitsubishi race team have an official name?  What would that be?
Smith Auto Racing.

What Mitsubishi do you race?
1992 Galant VR4

What’s your name and role in the team?  Where are you located?
Ron Cochran – owner/driver – Visalia, CA
Troy Cochran – driver – Waterford, CA
Vernon Brunges – engine tuner – Visalia, CA
Don Sprayberry – crew/design – Fresno, CA

What do you do for a living?
Ron: Owner/CEO, Smith Auto, Inc.  (6 Central Valley Auto Parts stores)
Troy: Owner/President, Valley IGA plus+ (supermarket)
Vern: I am a cardiovascular ICU Registered Nurse, as well as the owner of RaVer Motorsports.

How did you all come to do this together?
Ron: Life long quest for SPEED!!!
Troy: Ron is my father.  We have been racing motorcycles and cars my whole life.

What type of racing do you do with the Galant?  How long have you been doing it?
Vern: Land Speed Racing at El Mirage dry lake in the Mojave Desert and the Bonneville salt flats in Utah.  About 5 years.  Actually, I just support the car.  The car belongs to Ron Cochran.  He is the owner of several auto parts dealers in the central valley of California.  He and one of his sons, Troy Cochran, drive the car and hold the four different records attributed to the car.  Ronnie is the epitome of a land speed racer:  friendly, older guy with volumes of stories to tell over a steak diner.  Another vital crew member is Don Sprayberry.  He owns a couple wrecking yards and helps out at every opportunity.  He is credited with designing the oil system mods that have eliminated bearing failures for us. My wife, Patty, has acted as the crew chief at two events that I couldn’t attend;  she uploaded the ECM changes needed between runs and generally bossed the guys around to keep order when problems came up.  Without her help at Speedweek this year we would not have hit the 224mph mark.  She licensed at 200mph during the event, too.
Ron: Motorcycle, rally, and land speed racing owner/driver for 40 years.
Troy: I’ve been involved in land speed racing since 2004.

Why did you choose this Galant to race?
Ron: All wheel drive and availability.
Troy: The VR4 is all wheel drive and that benefits us in the Production Class…  plus the Smith Auto/Mitsubishi engine is bullet proof.
Vern: I like the owner so I enjoy helping him.  He already had the Galant so that dictated the platform we went with.  The car had already been set up for LSR, but at this point nearly nothing remains of the car as it was in that incarnation.

Got a favorite story to share about building or racing the Galant?
Ron: We raced and worked on the car for three years before any success.
Troy: When the boost kicks in on that little engine, you’ve never felt anything like it!  It has violent power!  This isn’t funny, but on my last run of the day, I put a beer in the intercooler tank so when I get our of the car in the shut down area after the run I can have a cold beer while I’m waiting for my chase vehicle to push me back to the pits.
Vern: There are tons, but the last event of this year gave us a good one.  Troy was driving at the two day event at El Mirage.  We succeeded in raising his record to nearly 213mph on the first run.  The track is dirt, and last year’s lack of rainfall had led to a dusty plowed up mess to run on this year.  Imagine stepping onto powdered dirt that your feet sink into an inch or more; now you have an idea of what we we’re running on.

I instructed Troy to hug the left side of the track as close to the cones as he was comfortable and then to fade to the same position on the right at about three-quarter track.  In theory, he could avoid the worst torn up areas by doing this.  At best, our view from the chase truck is a big plume of dirt, but then there was a huge cloud of dust, and for a moment we could clearly see the profile of the Galant.  For a fraction of a second I allowed myself to consider the possibility that the car had flipped…   so many things went through my mind:  Would the cage I built protect him, did we have a drivetrain failure from something not being tightened properly, did we have a catastrophic engine failure…?

As it turned out, the car was fine; rubber side down, shinny side up, firing on all four cylinders.  Troy said the car had begun fading to the right on its own and was nearly sideways about 200 yards from the timing lights.  Since he was so close he decided to stay on the throttle to the end.  When he popped the ‘chute at the timing lights it torqued the rear of the car back so hard that it flat spotted all four tires, ruining them and sending up the huge cloud of dust we saw.  Reviewing the datalog showed that all four tires were spinning by 196mph; he went through the timing lights at 208mph with a speedometer indicated speed of 220mph! I don’t think anybody can question his balls-to-brains ratio.

What have you already accomplished with the Galant?
Ron: We’ve set 10 separate Land Speed Records and earned life membership into both El Mirage and Bonneville 200mph Clubs for me and my son Troy.
Troy: My dad has done 6 of those records and I have done 4.  Dad had broken 3 records at Bonneville and 4 at El Mirage and I have broken 1 record at Bonneville and 3 records at El Mirage.
Vern: We hold the PS record in both F and G engine classes at Bonneville and El Mirage.  224+mph on the salt at Bonneville and 214+mph on the dirt at El Mirage.

When giving the car the final once-over before a run, what sort of things are you looking at?  What are your primary concerns at this point?
Ron: Engine temp, ice in intercooler, fire bottle pins pulled, and chute pin pulled.  All other concerns taken care of before get in line to run.
Troy: We always take the car to the dyno before we race so we know that the car is ready to go fast.  Race day, we just warm it up, I strap in, and I try to hit my shifts smoothly at 9500rpm, and point the car straight!

Walk our readers through what happens between when you get into and out of the Galant for a run and your concerns each step of the way.
Ron: I enter the car and strap in, run engine to around 200 degrees temp, run intercooler pumpe (liquid-to-air), wait for the starter to wave me off.  First, second, and third gear are a blur (very little traction), fourth gear to 9500rpm, quickly into fifth without losing boost.  Focus on keeping the car straight.  All 4 wheels are spinning from start to finish under full throttle.  At 224mph, the download shows over 240mph wheel speed! At 200mph, the car feels and steers like it weighs 100lbs.
Troy: I like to get in the car early in line.  I just sit and relax and think how fortunate I am to have such a GREAT father that lets me drive this car!  When the boost kicks in…  there is nothing like that feeling…  it plants you in the seat.  Lots of power!

And when the car gets back to the pits?  What then?
Troy: Vern does the computer download to see how everything went on the run.  Vern is the whole reason this car goes fast.  Smith Auto does the engine build, but Vern makes the engine go FAST!

What does it take to go 200mph?  Mechanically?  Mentally?
Ron: A bullet-proof engine.  We’ve broken every part that can be broken.  We overcame a lack of lubrication and head gasket problems in the first three years and have very little problems since.  It takes 909hp on an all wheel dyno to go 224mph at Bonneville (approximately 15% loss in the drivetrain).  It has to make 2 three mile passes at 47 pounds of boost at 9500rpm without exploding like a hand grenade.  Then you have a World Land Speed Record!  Uptight and tense until I blast off.
Troy: Vernon Brunges, engine tuner, and Smith Auto, engine builder.  All I do is hold the throttle to the floor and try to point the car straight.
Vern: In theory, it only requires about 500 sustainable wheel horse power to go 200mph.  Given the Galant’s awful aerodynamics it may need more.  At speeds of over 200mph the HP requirement increases at an exponential rate: the requirement arguably doubles for the next fifty miles and hour.  I say arguably because our experience has shown us that that is a too conservative estimate.
Ron: If we’re going to hit 230mph this year, we’re easily going to need another 200hp.

How is that mechanical/mental prep different from, say, drag or road racing?
Vern: The biggest differences between drag racing and LSR lie in two areas:  First, weight is not a factor in land speed racing.  In fact, often we have to add weight to cars to battle aerodynamic lift at over 200mph (our class specifies OEM body profiles).  Second, we do not have to worry so much about drivetrain strength.  Sure, we need a very healthy transmission (which TRE has generously supported), but the transfer case, driveline, rear differential, and rear axles are still stock.  Those items would probably explode with the first hard launch if we attempted a drag launch with good tires.  Which reminds me, we also use narrow, tall tires with lots of air pressure for both gearing and minimizing rolling resistance. LSR is about smooth and easy power application since we have a greater distance to reach top speed.
Ron: Very little difference.  Road racing is long and drawn out; LSR is very quick.
Troy: I’m no pro so I don’t know.  I’m just having fun spending time wiht my father.  This is something I grew up doing with him.  We were always riding motorcycles or going to races when I was younger.  Racing, to me, is a great hobby and it gives me valuable time with my dad.

How do you address the aerodynamic shortcomings of the Galant for this type of racing?
Ron: I compare it to a brick.  We are building an Eclipse land speed car which will address the aerodynamic problems of our Galant.
Troy: It’s a flying brick.  We have lowered the car as much as we can.  It seems to drift or hover a little bit at speed.  We might try to add some weight for next year to keep the power to the ground.

Given the amount of power needed to sustainably run at over 200mph, how much fuel does the Galant consume on a run?  Can you convert that to MPGs?
Ron: It gets approximately 1 mile to the gallon.  (Warm up and a 3 mile run at Bonneville equals 4 gallons of A8C race fuel consumed.)
Troy: It will make (2) 1.3 mile runs at El Mirage, including warm up, on 4 gallons.  We run A8C (118 octane, leaded) race gas.

Does land speed racing such as this require any specific equipment not generally prescribed in other forms of racing?
Ron: Two 20lb fire bottles and an SCTA approved roll cage.  20spf driver protective equipment.
Troy: We use the same spec racing suit, helmet, shoes, gloves as NHRA.  The car needs to be teched before every race by an SCTA tech official.

How would you rate ride quality and cabin noise at 200mph plus?  Is the cruise control still functional?
Ron: Ride quality is equal to track quality.
Troy: The cruise control is my foot pushing that throttle through the floorboard!  That little Mitsubishi engine’s pounding out over 900hp sounds so good!  It is so much fun to drive.  I am fortunate to be able to drive a great car, go speeds that no one has ever done in a 2 liter production sedan, and spend time with my dad at the same time.

What’s next for the Galant?
Vern: We are replacing the intercooler and stepping up to the AEM second generation ECM this spring.  Our current IC is costing us at least 65-90 whp.  Our current one is a pathetic little liquid to air setup that I quick-fab’ed using two OEM air to air cores from Mazda Turbo IIs!  Keep in mind that I did that back when 500whp was our goal.  Now that we’ve nearly doubled that output we’re seeing intake air temps nearing 200F with a restrictive pressure drop across the core of 4 psi or more.  The new AEM promises to be far superior as far as ease of use and programming is concerned.  Were it not for the release of the second generation of AEM ECMs we’d be stepping over to Motec this winter.
Ron: I hope to go 230mph+ at Bonneville in August.
Troy: Crank up the boost and go faster in 2010.

Photo: Speedhunters, Linhbergh Nguyen

Where will you be doing you next attempt at the record?
Ron: El Mirage in May and Bonneville (SpeedWeek) in August.
Troy: Our season starts in May and goes to November.  We run once a month at El Mirage and August (SpeedWeek) and October (World Finals) at Bonneville on the salt.  Anyone can come and watch.  Once you come watch you’ll want to get a car and run!
Vern: Our first event for the 2010 season is May 15 and 16.  This event will be at El Mirage near Victorville, California.  Spectators are welcome, and the pits are open to everyone without any special pass.  It is also a popular off road vehicle destination so there are camping site available, too.  Attending an event and getting a rule book is about all it takes to get involved.  New competitors will find a friendly welcome.

Editor’s Note: Mitsubishi Gearbox Magazine editor, Brian Driggs will be attending the El Mirage event on May 15-16 for the express purpose of meeting the Smith Auto team in person.  He’ll be taking a LOT of pictures and hopefully shooting extensive video for the Gearbox readers.  Stay tuned for details closer to the event!

Who has helped you the most along the way?
Ron: Vernon Brunges and Don Sprayberry.
Troy: #1, my dad.  #2, Vernon Brunges.
Vern: Our introduction to land speed racing came from Greg Carlson.  He approached us for help with his ’94 Nissan 300zx twin turbo.  We eventually got him the record in his class, and we learned a lot along the way.  He is a LSR guy from waaay back.

Photo: Speedhunters, Linhbergh Ngyuen

Who do you look up to in the Mitsubishi community?
Vern: As a person, Jon Ripple is my favorite person in the Mitsubishi community.  He is a small business owner who shares many of the same experiences and trials that my wife and I did running RaVer Motorsports.  He seems to maintain a far better attitude than I did, however.

Andrew Brilliant is a fellow Mitsubishi competitor who I met through LSR racing and who I now consider among my friends.  Great guy with tons of knowledge who is quick to share anything that will help a fellow racer.

Mike Reichen is another person I’d like to mention.  He is a true hero among Mitsubishi owners with his standing mile endeavors and accomplishments.  I’ve talked with him many times on the phone and through emails.  He, too, is quick to share insights; the kind of friendly competitor who makes racing fun for me.  He hasn’t made the transition to LSR yet, but our records will have some serious targets on them when he does.  (To be fair, Jeff Gerner has an Audi that has the potential to gun for us this coming year, too.)

What do you see as the biggest issue facing the Mitsubishi community today?
Vern: I can’t group all Mitsubishi owners into one community.  There are too many segregating factors with elitists and purists weakening the common bond.   To me, community refers to those with similar interests and attitudes whether that is a small group of people who get together on the weekends or a few competitors who correspond over the phone and only gather for serious racing a couple times a year.

Is there a particular Mitsubishi shop you’d recommend?
Vern: TRE has never disappointed us, and the owner is a super guy, as well. Kiggly Racing is another small business with excellent products and great customer service.  Can’t forget Shawn Church, either; I highly recommend Church Automotive Testing to everyone.

Do you spend time on any Mitsubishi sites?  Which ones?
Vern: My schedule allows little time to play on forums now days.  And as I’ve gotten older I can step back and admit that too much time is spent defending one’s accomplishments on the internet.  I do not enjoy the drama of dealing with haters and doubters, and I will no longer give some nobody who I will never meet in person the power to raise my blood pressure.  Unfortunately, that does mean I also miss the opportunity to interact and share with tons of great enthusiasts, too.  Sorry for the negativity; it comes from 12 years of owning a business in the import racing niche.  I can truly say that my involvement in racing is now fueled by the satisfaction that comes from my own accomplishments regardless of what others think or feel about what we’re doing.

Modifications:
Engine: head porting and camshafts purchased from John Sheperd, Kiggly Racing valve springs and main cap girdle.  Machine work done at Ron’s shop – Smith Auto.  Magnus 8-injector (440cc primary, 1680cc secondary) intake manifold, pistons, and aluminum rods.  AEM ECM, Twin Fire injector driver, EGT amplifier.  Full Race exhaust manifold, box-stock Garrett GT45R, TiAl wastegate and blow off valve, late Mustang throttle body.  TRE transmission and modded transfer case.  Drive Shaft Shop front axles.

With few exceptions, the rest of the car was custom fabbed at our shop, RaVer Motorsports.

Videos:

What would that be?
Rochester DSM One Lap Team

What Mitsubishi do you race?
This year the team is bringing two cars to the One Lap of America. The 1992 Galant VR-4 that the team ran last year and a 2008 Mitsubishi Evolution X GSR. If you break it down outside of One Lap, we have some pretty strong roots in Mitsubishi. Out of the four of us going, we have two Evolution X, one Evolution IX and Tim has transitioned from his 1992 Eclipse GSX to the Galant VR-4 for his track events.

In what series?
The only official series we run is the One Lap of America every year, if you call the second consecutive year a regular occurrence. Most of our tracking revolves around using the various driver’s education courses to get onto the track. We run with the various groups like the Niagara Region PCA and call Watkins Glen our hometown track.

What’s your real name and role in the team? (Do you have a screen name online?)
It is interesting that you asked about screen names, as the world has made a strong transition into representing real names online with the growth of social networking.

Stephen Burke (nrvous)
Timothy Harper (greengsx)
Sean Caron (tevenor)
Chris Wirth (hiboost)

For One Lap, you can either be a driver or a transit driver. For us, everybody’s role is driver as nobody in our group wants to go on this trip without driving the tracks.

Where do you live?
We all live around the Rochester NY area, which is that equally snow buried area between Buffalo and Syracuse.

What do you do for a living?
Sean, Chris and Stephen all work within the Information Technology realm in some fashion, while Tim breaks the mold as a Analytical Chemist.

How did you all come to do this together?
We came together as friends through the Rochester DSM club, which was the local car enthusiast club for organizing our Mitsubishi addictions. We came together to race on One Lap of America in 2009. While Tim may object, the rest of us like to blame this on his mid-life moment of wanting to take the “once in a lifetime” trip he had always dreamed about.

How long have you been doing it?
It feels like we have been modifying, breaking, and fixing Mitsubishi’s to make them better for racing since birth, where in reality we all dived in around the mid-90s. We have been on the track for years, starting into the SCCA solo events about that time and getting onto the real track time around 2001-2003, depending on who you talk to.

Why did you choose this Galant to race? Features? Benefits?
The first reason has to be availability. As much as we would have loved to have a selection of cars at our disposal, we had a vested interest in the Galant VR-4 as a platform and we had one that became available. It was actually Stephen’s car that had been built up over the years, but Stephen was moving to a Mitsubishi Evolution X. That made the car mildly expendable and having a car  that we could walk away from was important. The real attraction was that we had so many race parts between the VR-4 and Tim’s 1992 Mitsubishi Eclipse that we knew we could make a pretty competitive car for the event. The benefit was that it had enough room to fit three guys, otherwise we would have taken the Eclipse that was already track ready.

Got a favorite story to tell about building or racing the Galant?
To ask this question in a garage with the group of us hanging around, we would talk for longer than this article could possibly accommodate.

Building it up, there was a lot of pressure in a short amount of time. The most fun in the build process was closer to the end when the paint and the decals really transformed the car. All of the hard work up to that point turned into a lot of glowing pride as we represented such a nostalgic look into Mitsubishi racing history. It brought a grin from ear to ear.

We took a lot of pride in what we did last year and it wasn’t just the build up of the car and all the work we did to build a following and land some really cool sponsors. We had a great time and earned the respect of our fellow compeitors some of which had no idea what the hell we were driving. After the Motor Trend article came out that really put the finishing touches on what was an epic journey for us.

What have you already accomplished with the Galant?
Surviving the One Lap of America trip in 2009 was a milestone. It is amazing to take a four door sedan which started as 195 horsepower and produce a reliable track car up closer to 450 horsepower.

When giving the car the final once-over before a race, what sort of things are you looking
at?
Brakes, Brakes, and mostly Brakes. We have just driven the car for hundreds of miles if not more, so we have a grasp on how it is running, engine wise. The only thing that we want to ensure is working better than anything is the braking. When you are driving a relatively blind track for the first time, the brakes can make up a lot of mistakes.

What are your primary concerns at this point?
One Lap of America is a unique event. You only have three hot laps, making every mistake compound. The first concern is keeping control of the car and not over-driving the track.  You put a lot of effort into trying to learn a track that you may have only watched videos of, or seen a map of.

Walk our readers through what happens between when you get into and out of the Galant for a run and your concerns each step of the way.
The event is a very strong team effort on race day. While there is not enough time to make all of the prep work happen, the driver of the event tries to get out on the track early to walk some of the turns. This isn’t always available, but it gives a chance for the driver to focus on what is coming up and to start running through entry and exit points of the turns.  While the driver walks the course, the co-driver preps the car. After a long night of travel, this means getting all of the gear out and giving the car a once over to ensure everything is where it needs to be. We stiffen the shocks for the track, check the fluids and pull the wheels off to make sure we have plenty of braking still in place to make things go smooth.  We do a lot of balance with tire pressure depending on the conditions and the track.

Getting called to grid is pretty straight forward, unless something didn’t go well during the prep stage and we are short on time. Lining up in grid, each driver goes through his own mental routine to be ready. Anything mechanical is out of our focus now, so it is all about where to run and trying to find a line that works.

For the One Lap of America, you have one recon lap to drive around the track to learn the turns. After one recon lap you return to grid and get staged for your 3 lap timed run. That recon lap is huge. You have to drive conservative, but take note of the areas that aren’t so smooth. That recon lap also shakes out the cobwebs and brings everything into focus.  Anything that you drive mildly smooth, you don’t change and all of the focus goes to the problem turns to make them better.

After an eternity of waiting for that recon lap, the next time in grid moves really fast. The adrenaline is already moving and all of the butterflies have been ingested. There are five cars on track, so you make some quick negotiations with your group to ensure nobody is in a position to pass anybody else. The next laps are about time, and not about passing.

The only Galant specific concern we ran into last year was aerodynamics. For most of the tracks with a bunch of cars who do not know the lines, we overcome everything with horsepower and braking. That was different for the large tracks like Sebring and more importantly Daytona. You quickly realize that around 140 MPH you are driving a box that does little for keeping the car down on the track.

And, when the car gets back to the pits? What then?
Most of the events have two sessions, after the morning session it is time to go back and feed back to the team what the car and track is doing. We send the same person out on the second event, to use the track experience to improve our time.

What does it take to go the distance? Mechanically? Mentally?
Mechanically it is a different form of assault on what we used to consider “race parts.”  While aluminum brackets keep things light, anything load bearing or vibration intensive gets replaced with something stronger. While the car only needs to survive 3 hot laps on the track, that happens 16 times over the course of 8 days with 3000+ miles connecting them all together. It should be the new testing ground for all new products entering the market.

Not to pick on the great state of Ohio but we ran into some of the most lunar like roads in that state. Some of the pot-holes were big enough do some damage and we were no exception. We broke a rear upper control arm on our way to Kentucky that almost cost us the race. Luck for us Curtis from GalantVR4.org saved our butts but the whole trip is punishing on the cars and if you think about it there are so many unique parts on these cars that sometimes its the little parts that you said “that will never break” end up leaving you stranded.

Mentally it takes a solid team. The time on the track is the easy part. Finding a rhythm to get between the tracks, prep the car, load it back up and keep momentum going is the hard part. Then there is the personal part of it all. Spending a couple of days together with friends is cool. Spending 8 days of non-stop driving, racing, and wrenching can put a strain on any bond. You have to be careful who you chose to ride along with because once you set out there is no turning back. We are lucky and even though we have our moments we can handle the pressure and still remain friends.

How is that mechanical/mental prep different from, say, drag or rally racing?
By spreading the event over 8 days, you go through a maturing phase of learning how to handle an endurance race. At the opening meeting they joked about how you find all of your frustrations by the 3 day then you fall into a balance out of necessity. They were right.

How have you tuned the car for what kind of powerband? Flat torque curve? Peaky?
The first rule for us was to tune the car so it would come back home agian. It’s easy to rag on us for not running 10′s with the Forced Performance FP3052 turbo we were using but we witnessed first hand last year as the high dollar GTR and a 520HP Sti both retired from the race with “tuning” realted mechanical failures. So we dialed the car back a bit running 25psi of boost and conservative timing up top to give us a good cushion against knock.

Keep in mind that not every state offered the same quality of fuel and our elevation changed too so we used water/meth injection to insure we had all the ocatane we needed. Pulling everything together is the best damn tuning system on the planet, ECMlink which was easy to use and easy to adjust on the fly if need be.

The car uses a HKS 264/272 cam combo, 2-216 FMIC, a home made custom intake manifold, and the FP 3052 turbo. That means that the car isn’t going to make a lot of power below 3000 rpms but by 3500 rpms all hell breaks loose and we enjoy 355 wheel hp and flate torque cure all the way to 7500 rpms.

How much fuel does the Galant use during events? On the road? How much fuel do you use during the series? Average MPGs for the entire series?
Tim wanted to keep careful records of our fuel economy but after about 1000 miles of ridicule those records were hidden away for ever. We budgeted $1000 for gas and that was overkill. The Galant with three guys and a trailer got 21-22mpg on the road and about 7-8mpg on the track. We were happy with that milage considering the amount of spare parts we were hauling around and the size of some of our drivers. At the start of the race we were wishing for a bigger gas tank but the reality is that we got about 300 miles to a tank while we needed a driver change about every 270miles (that would be every 100 miles if we caved to Mike’s walnut sized bladder).

What other expenses are involved when budgeting for the One Lap of America series?
The only set cost is the entry fee. Beyond that we have to budget for the consumables of the car, including the Tire Rack approved tires, and two sets of brakes. Then the cost is the trip itself. 9-10 nights of hotel rooms, fuel, food and random expenses that pop up. For the first time entry, you have to make sure you have race suits along with SA rated helmets along with all of the gear you might need to bring. A good estimate for the whole show is $6000 if your car does not need to be upgraded before the race.

What’s next for the Galant? Why?
This year the Galant is being strengthened by addressing the weak points that were exposed last year. Last year we broke a rear upper control arm, blew oil out of the catch can, ran out of injector (99% duty cycle), and the POS GM MAF we were using flaked out every time it rained. So here is a short list of what’s on tap for this year.

Harper built crankcase catch can
Curtis built sub-frame connectors
Pina Motorsports rear upper control arms (sponsored by the fine folks at GalantVR4.org)
Adjustable cam gears (sponsored by Tom “autobahntom” on GalantVR4.org)
Siemen-Deka 880 injectors (sponsored by Garfield Wright and www.tunersnation.com)
Corbeau race seats
Some sort of harness bar

To make the suspension and chassis strong we are installing a set of Pina Motorsports chromoly rear upper control arms which were purchased for us by the GalantVR4.org community. TunersNation donated a set of 880 injectors to help us with our fuel issues and a set of there rear sub-frame bushings which along with a set of sub-frame connectors by Curtis from GalantVR4.org should help tighten up our 200k+ mile 18 year old ride.

To improve our wet weather drivability we are ditching the GM MAF (POS) in favor of a speed density set-up using ECMlink. Tim is building a large crankcase catch can. Three laps of a lot of crankcase pressure caused a lot of pressure in the engine, causing a lot of oil blow out into the overflow can. It is expected while racing, but we need a larger crankcase catch can to accommodate.

As with any racing vehicle we will have to go over every inch of the VR-4 and root out problems so they won’t kill us during the race. Right now the car needs a rear wheel bearing, new strut housings for the koni inserts, a head gasket, and new hoses for the radiator. I am sure that list will grow by a mile as we get deeper into the preparation.

Can people come watch?
People can definitely come by and watch. Last year all of the tracks were open to the public and visitors were given free reign of the sites to get down in the pits, interact with the drivers, and hang their heads over the barriers geting closer to the action then you could ever get in any other type of racing. We were suprised last year that they opened up Daytona at lunch time for some high speed “wink..wink” parade laps. Some lucky GalantVR4.org members who showed up to support us hopped in the One Lap VR-4 and we all screamed like school girls racing at 110mph around the high banks.

Now we are not implying we can give rides because frankly we can’t. But we love what we are doing and nothing makes us happier then to see guys take time out of there day to come down and check us out. At every event last year we had a crowd of hard core Mitsubishi people come down and it really helps us. Not only do we get a boost from it but at the end of the day the support we got from Mitsubishi community got our photos into August 2009 issue of Motor Trend. When you take into account all the other cool cars that were there like the GTR, Sti, Evo, Ultima GTR, M3-M5-M6, GT2, GT3, etc all of which were trying to get into the magazine seeing our 17 year old Galant VR-4 get more photos then the race winning GTR was really special for us.

Where and when?
We have the schedule posted online, which people should check before coming out.
http://onelap.rochesterdsm.org/the-event/

Friday, April 30th – The Tire Rack in South Bend, IN
Saturday, May 1st – Road America Elkhart Lake, WI
Sunday, May 2nd – Mid America Motorplex Pacific Junction, IA
Monday AM, May 3rd – Hallett Motor Racing Circuit Jennings OK
Monday PM, May 3rd – Tulsa Raceway Park Tulsa, OK
Tuesday, May 4th – Gateway International Raceway Madison, IL
Wednesday, May 5th – Mid Ohio Sports Car Course Mansfield, OH
Thursday, May 6th – Lightning Raceway NJ Motorsports Park Milleville, NJ
Friday, May 7th – Nelson Ledges Garrettsville, OH
Saturday, May 8th – The Tire Rack in South Bend, IN

Is it easy to get into this type of racing?
Jumping into One Lap is big investment in both time and money. We did our best to budget last year but we really just jumped in with both feet and hoped for the best. This year the car is much closer to race ready so we can hone in on a budget and schedule.

For guys wanting to give this a try start by getting out on the track with your local sponsoring clubs to know how much you want to invest into an endurance track event. That being said, it is easily addictive. Somehow our “once in a lifetime” event last year has turned into a necessity.

Who has helped you the most along the way?
We would have never made the trip without the help of the GalantVR4.org community, which represents the fans and owners of this amazing platform. Not only did they raise funds to help us afford the trip, they provided us with better parts and provided us a support network across the country that kept this car running. They truly made us put more pride into putting that car together and representing the group than if we did not have them behind us.

Who do you look up to in the Mitsubishi community?
The largest influencers in the community are the innovators still investing into the platform. There are a lot of people selling parts, but there are only a few out there still striving for better equipment. Tom Dorris who owns and runs ECM Tuning makes the ECMlink systems for the Mitsubishi cars. When we consider what we had to go through to control the ECU of the car years ago, his innovation has revolutionized the industry.

There are also contributors who make better parts that aren’t considered name brand. It is amazing how the industry embraces a name brand part, while it is the small machinists and smaller names that make the quality parts. There is a lot of respect for specialty part makers like Harry Blanchard at Three-Speed.com. They take a safety part, like a scatter shield and engineer it to such a level that is nothing short of perfect.

How does your team encourage other enthusiasts to get involved in legitimate racing?
We encourage people to join us for the various track events throughout the year and advice people to start with basics like SCCA Solo2 racing to get involved with the sport.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the Mitsubishi community today?
There are a lot of sites, groups and people offering bad advice. While the Internet has defined the growth of the Mitsubishi racing to a grassroots level, it has also created a lot of mis-directed information. The largest challenge is getting through the muck to discover the sources of valuable information.

Do you spend time on any Mitsubishi sites? Which ones?
To say we spend time on any Mitsubishi sites would be an understatement. Here is just a sampling..

GalantVR4.org
rochesterdsm.org
teamNABR.com
dsmtuners.com
Mitsu-Media.com
dmslink.com
evolutionm.net

Mod list?
http://onelap.rochesterdsm.org/therides/the-vr4/

Turbo, Intake & Exhaust:
AGP L1R turbo
FP race exhaust manifold
Harper built intake manifold
Harper built O2 housing w/dump
Tial 38mm waste gate
Harper built 3” v-band exhaust (dual resonators and Thermal muffler)
Spearco 2-216 FMIC
Harper built 2.5” IC piping
Tial BOV
Harper built turbo intake pipe

Engine & Drivetrain:
JE 9.0:1 Pistons
Crower Rods
Polished Mitsu Crank (un-cut)
Balance Shafts removed
HKS 264/272 Cams
SI 1mm oversized valves
Crower Springs/Ti retainers
Lightly ported head
93 AWD tranny w/ double 1-2 syncro
4-spyder center diff
ACT 2600 clutch
ACT Street Flywheel
Custom short shifter

Fuel & Tuning:
ECMlink …like we would use anything else! (ECMTuning, Inc.)
660cc Injectors
6 AN fuel line from the tank
Harper built water/meth injection

Suspension & Brakes:
DSS coil overs 400F/350R
RRE castor/camber plates
Koni yellow shocks/struts
Urethane F/R bushings
Whiteline adjustable rear sway bar
F/R strut bars
Mustang Cobra 17×9.0 wheels
255/40-17 Dunlop Star Spec tires
Curtis built rear upper control arms
Baer track front brake kit (cobra rotors/caliper)
Hawk DTC60 front pads
Pagid semi-metallic rear pads

Interior & Exterior:
Curtis built upper and lower gauge panels
AEM UEGO wideband
Nordskog digital water temp
Nordskog digital oil pressure
Nordskog digital intake air temp
VDO boost gauge
1000W AC power inverter
EVO fully functioning hood vents (sponsored by TunersNation.com)
Works Rally paint scheme

Where can our readers go for more information on your team online?
http://onelap.rochesterdsm.org

What do you do for a living and where do you live?
Software Analyst in Chicago, IL

What Mitsubishi(s) do you drive?  How long have you had it/them?
I’ve previously owned a Ram 50 (Mighty Max) and a 1990 Galant GSR.  I’ve also recently retired from my possession 1991 Galant VR-4 #858/2000 after about 7 years of mostly daily driving.  My current daily driver is a 2007 Outlander LS.   In the last 6 months I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to purchase 1991 Galant VR-4 #77/2000 as a rolling shell.

What’s your build philosophy/goals for your Galant?  How do you use it?
It has been proven that the VR-4 is a very potent and capable platform: top speed class world record holder on salt flats, three time FIA World Rally Championship race winner, serious class contender in the 2009 One Lap of America (I predict in a few years when it qualifies as Vintage Import it will be dominant), quarter-mile drag race monster, Auto-X cone dodger…  but I feel like the VR-4 is most at home embracing it’s category-storming transformation from a run-of-mill 4-door Japanese sedan into an aggressive display of technology and careful adaptation to American sensibilities, circa 1990.   It is a black sheep in so many ways.  I feel it works best as a street car.

Photo: Cody Lind, CodyLindPhotography.com

You started a Mitsubishi community.  What’s it called?  When did you start it?
The community began as a mailing list run by Ron Vasquez on April 6, 1999 (the GVR4list on Yahoo Groups) as an offshoot of the typical DSM email lists.  Jon Roberts started a web-based forum with “insidetheweb” and linked to it from his personal page; originally hosted on whiterose.net/gvr4/ and later moved to jgronline.com in April of 2000.   The current incarnation was started February 21st, 2001 and eventually moved to GalantVR4.org in November 2002 as Jon separated the community from his personal website and he sold his VR-4.

I joined the community in July of 2002.  I originally started a personal page of my own to keep track of links of interest as I moved between computers and eventually to share with other enthusiasts.  That page still stands today with only minor updates at www.galantvr4.org/rhertz/.   Using my personal resources and abilities to help the community, I started to offer additional functionality to the forum by creating an image hosting service in late January of 2003.  The image hosting still runs today and contains over 104,000 uploads.

The site was transferred to me a few months later, around February 2003.

Although we’ve been through a few upgrades we hold true to Jon’s original mantra: “No ads, no crap, just the best Galant VR4 site on the web!”

Why did you decide to start a Mitsubishi community?
I’ve made a lot of friends through the site and it is a way to give back to the community.  I hope it remains as a lasting tribute to all those who came before me and continues to be a place where we can share our trials, tribulations and aspirations.

Who are your members?  How many are there?  Where do they come from?
Our membership consists of mostly U.S. residents and a lesser number of members from Australia, New Zealand and some in Russia.  A few members are scattered about in the most unlikely places, from Columbia to Hong Kong and the Middle East.

Most of the membership are current 6G Galant VR-4 owners, followed by former VR-4 owners (who won’t give up the fraternity despite the loss of interest in the car itself) and then a smaller number of DSM enthusiasts who use the site for research in the issues that our platforms share.

We periodically cull membership to those visiting within the last 12 months and the base fluctuates around 2,500-3,000 members.  What I would consider “active” members number about 1,000 (visiting within 30 days).  We’ve logged 124,000 unique visits in the last year and served 9.6 million pages.  Membership/registration is not a requirement to view most parts of the site.  In 24 hours we will have about 450 registered members and 550 unique guests visit.

How many GVR4s were sold worldwide?  In the United States?  How many likely remain?
No idea, I don’t think we have this data.

3,009 where imported into the United States.  Not all of them were sold directly.  9 of them never received numbered badges.  The badges we covet here are numbered “limited edition” plaques that were fitted onto the cars by Mitsubishi Motors North America at the port when the cars arrived to the United States (there is no correlation between VIN, build sequence and edition number).   The un-badged cars were likely for testing, media mules or company cars.  Some of these are owned by our members today.

Some more of the uniquely American features I think are worth mentioning are the USDM bumpers.  Our models, to meet NHTSA crash requirements, were fitted with rather protruding front and rear crash bars/bumpers.  As such, the foreign market’s larger intercooler was foregone for a much smaller, inefficient part.

One of my favorite features is the leather seating which is unique to the USDM VR-4.  The all black leather seats were manufactured by AMG (Aufrecht, Melcher and Großaspach) that most people would recognize historically as a Mercedes-Benz tuner, and now a wholly-owned division.   This unique feature likely stemmed from the MMC AMG collaboration Galant AMG which sported a tuned naturally-aspirated motor and many cosmetic upgrades, including two-tone leather seating.  The origin of the seating can be confirmed by examining the backside of the upper rear bench in which AMG is embossed into the foam.

We don’t know for certain how many remain, but here’s my best deduction:

We are currently tracking 717 badges in our membership (again, active in the last year) and our registry project, which attempts to document VIN and badge number, has the following: 366 ’91s and 193 ’92s for 559 total matches between VIN and badge.  Of those 559, 38 ’91s and 16 ’92s for 54 total documented scrapped (About 10%).  So let’s say that enthusiasts’ scrappage rate is about 10%.   If we factor that 10% of those members may be scrapped it brings us down to 645.

717 badges out of 2,638 current members is 27% so I believe at least 27% of our users currently have or had a VR-4.   Our current membership vs. historic membership (10,501 members) roughly gives us 25% representation of the general public.   So I would say our community’s slice of the total USDM VR-4 population is likely between 25-27% of the total.

Take the maximum examples of 3,009 at 25% and we have 752.  That puts us within 5% of our 717, and since not all members list their badge numbers, I think we’re close.

Nationwide, scrappage rates have been 70% to 85% and rising between 1990 and 2010.  So let’s take the membership out of the population (3,009-25% = 2,256 cars) and assume that these are not held by enthusiasts and were scrapped at 75% (2,256-75% = 1,692) outside of the community.

That leaves us with 564 in the wild, 717 registered and 35 unregistered for a total of 1,316 USDM VR-4s hopefully still in existence.

Tell us about something really exciting your members have done or regularly do.
Salt flats, One Lap, international visits, donating to worthy causes…

What’s the best part about running a Mitsubishi community?  The most challenging?
The fraternity, the knowledge, the humor.

Although we all have a common thread in our love for this platform we are still a wide cross-section of demographics.  Our problems may not be unique to an online community, they are just more apparent and on display for all to see.  We have to deal with troublemakers and scammers just as you do in “the real world.”  Our philosophy is mostly that of a self-policing group and we encourage everyone to watch out for each other.  It can be a challenge to balance freedom and moderation.  Whenever there is question on how to resolve a situation there is one guiding principal: knowledge and information above all.  If it doesn’t support the community, whatever it is, it doesn’t belong.

All of our staff:
2 administrators, 9 moderators are volunteers donating countless, thankless hours to the group.  We survive solely on donations, there are no membership dues, no advertisements, no paying vendor sponsors.

What excites you about the coming year?  (Your Galant and your community)
I’m really looking forward to the 2010 One Lap of America as a way our community can again be represented in a highly visible, national venue with a long history.

For my personal goals, I hope to again have a running VR-4 by mid-Summer.

Do you organize any contests or face-to-face meets for your members?
We don’t do contests too often, but I do organize regional meets (Midwest).   There have been talks of a national meet in years past, but because of the size of our membership, their schedules and the breadth of the United States it is unlikely to have the draw we’d like to see.   We did have a Midwest meets Colorado meet a few years ago where we logged about 6,000 miles collectively.  The Mitsubishi Owner’s Day (MOD) events are a good draw, as is the DSM Shootout.

How do you want your community to benefit Mitsubishi owners?  What steps are you taking to make sure that happens?
We have recently increased our available information to the public and have steadily increased our archives and accessibility to search engines.  As hosting costs have plummeted, we’re able to retain more in general for the public to find via their search engines.

What do you think could be done to improve the value of the Galant VR-4 and how could this benefit your community?
My strongest conviction is that available information is one of the biggest drivers of the perceived value.  Lack of information on repairs and maintenance drives the value down as issues that affect non-enthusiast owners turn out to be expensive problems that result in selling at a depressed public market rate or crushing of the car.   The best example of this is ECU failure due to ruptured capacitors.  A factory replacement will cost you $900.   A high-school electronics student could replace just the capacitors for free with $2 in parts.

There is also some spillover from the DSM crowd who don’t have the same consideration of the VR-4′s rarity and are interested in “fast, cheap and easy”.  Or new owners who get frustrated or are unable to get the knowledge they need from the community and often damage something or hack something and end up selling for cheap just to dump their problems.   These vehicles are often picked up again by like-minded individuals who repeat the process, giving the perception of falling or low value.

After seeing a low in the last 2-3 years, market value of a VR-4 has started to climb up.  It used to be that a Kelley Blue Book search would show the car’s value only marginally higher than any other trim 6th generation Galant.  The spread is now about 3x.  In general I believe that the United States is now more receptive to all wheel drive and turbocharged automobiles than in years past.

Sometimes these cars are removed from the market by those who know how to extract more value from the car, sometimes in a manner that is not very popular.

Your thoughts on those who part out otherwise salvageable cars?
Yup, we’ve got a few members who do not hesitate to scoop these cars up and sell off the parts individually.   I personally like to see every bit of value extracted from these cars; but it does thin the heard.  With all respect, this may be a necessary “evil”.   On the plus side it often returns quality used parts back into deserving cars and improves their condition.  Losing 10% at the hands of enthusiasts for parts and profit stings a lot less than 75% lost to scrap steel and the new-car-every-4-years general public.

How do you feel building a Mitsubishi compares to building a Mitsubishi community?
You shouldn’t do either of them alone.

How has your Galant build benefited from your involvement in the community?
I have spent 7 years of my life and probably 4,000 hours in developing, growing and giving to this community.  But, it is something that comes naturally to me, that I’m good at and I typically enjoy.   There have been dozens of members who have the same gift when it comes to their knowledge and skills with a wrench.   These people have given back to the community by working on my cars or documenting the work on their own.

What’s next for your Galant?
A heart.

What’s next for GalantVR4.org?
It may be time to upgrade the software, but we always want to focus on the community and that is rarely augmented by more bells and whistles.  Twitter would be the greatest example of all time on how a social network requires not much more than a line of text and a message that people want to share.

Who has helped you the most along the way with the car?  With the community?
Chris Beran/Headdynamics, Bob Heitsch, Doug Lila, Terry Posten, Aaron Rausch, Rob Neubauer, Charles Prell…
Steve Riedmueller, Jeff Oberholtzer, Jeremy Clark, Dave Bliese, Harry Blanchard, Nate Pharr, Gabor Meyer, Curtis Thomas, Andrew Staley, Mark Minjin, Rich Humphrey, all of our moderators.

Were you inspired by any other Mitsubishi community organizer?  Who?  Why?
Jon Roberts (galantvr4.org), of course.  Todd Day (dsm.org): the frontrunner for Mitsubishi and DSM enthusiasts on the internet.  Tom Stangl (vfaq.org): the original archivist for automotive how-to.

Who do you look up to in the Mitsubishi community?
I honestly don’t think we play second fiddle to anyone in terms of our mission and how we’ve stayed true.

Is there a particular shop you’d like to recommend?  Want to thank any sponsors?
I’d like to thank everyone who has donated to the site, hosted a meet, answered a question or turned a wrench for a fellow member.

Other than your own, do you spend time on any Mitsubishi sites?  Which ones?
Not a one.

Trivia:

“Anything Goes” was originally called “Yo Momma”

Original site logo, circa 2002.  Refreshed in late 2005.  Current version, 2009.

March is officially Galant VR4 Month here at Mitsubishi Gearbox Magazine.  We remain dedicated to sharing the stories of owners of ALL Mitsubishi models from around the world.  DISCLAIMER: Both Ricky Vigil and Brian Driggs are Galant VR4 owners.  Ricky owns 1991 464/2000 and Brian owns 1992 464/1000.  We are members of GalantVR4.org.

Thank you to Ryan for taking the time to share so much with us and thank you to all our readers.  Go fast with class.

What do you do for a living and where do you live?
I’m an engineering student in Durango, CO.

What Mitsubishi(s) do you drive?  How long have you had it/them?
My first Mitsu was a 90 AWD DSM. I had it from the summer of ’02 until January ’09 when I traded it for my parts car to build the Galant. The Galant any my 2g parts car are the only Mitsus I own now.

What’s your build philosophy/goals for your Mitsubishi?  How do you use it?
My build philosophy is all about a balance of fun, functionality and detail. The Galant is my daily driver, family hauler and weekend toy so the design goals had to reflect it’s multiple uses. That meant keeping it quiet and comfortable for long hauls (my wife hated riding in my noisy, bouncy 1g) but still having a suspension and engine that could tear up the windy mountain passes I love to play on. I am working to keep everything as clean and as stock looking as possible while still bringing as much performance out of the car as I can.

What originally attracted you to the Mitsubishi?  What keeps you going today?
When I decided to build the car my wife and I were talking about having our first child. I wanted a DD that would be easy to haul kids around in but would still have the fun factor of my AWD turbo 1g. Since an Evo was out of my price range and I wanted to stick with Mitsubishi it left me finding a 4 door I could convert to AWD with readily available parts. I was originally looking at doing a Mirage conversion but I found this Galant in the junk yard for $600 and saw the suspension looked exactly like a 2g DSM. The interior and exterior were in good shape and it was a lot roomier than my 1g. It also had a 4G64 I could use for a future engine build. In short, it looked perfect for my plans. I did a little digging around on the internet and found out the conversion was theoretically possible but, as far as the net-guru’s knew, no one had pulled it off yet.  So I got to work finding my parts car, traded my 1g for it, bought the Galant and got to work.

What keeps me going today is how much fun I have driving the car. It is really comfortable for commuting in but still eats up corners in the summer and snowy roads in the winter. So far the car is just what I wanted, quiet, comfortable and a total beast when I decide to push it.

Got a favorite story about your Mitsubishi?
This last summer my wife and I took the car down to Albuquerque on its first road trip. We went to meet up with an Albq. DSM club for an afternoon gathering and drive. It was really funny watching everyone walk past the car without a second look until they found out it was AWD and turbo. Then the double takes started and a little crowd of guys came over to check it out. The hill climb we did later that day was the first time I really got to push the car. It wasn’t really tuned yet due to my wideband being on the fritz. I was still running rich and only on 10 psi of boost so I wasn’t expecting much on the power end of things. I was really looking forward to hitting the corners hard though. I had just installed a set of Koni/GC coilovers I scored from a DSMTuners member and was looking forward to trying them out. I was amazed at how well the car cornered with those and the 245/40/17 summer tires I kept from my 1g. After a few minutes I was gnashing my teeth because the Evo X at the front of the line was going too slow! I had to slow down and wait for the crowd to get ahead so I could really dig into the corners. The car just kept encouraging me to go faster and turn in tighter. It made every minute of work building the car worth while. I don’t think I stopped grinning for hours after that.

What are your goals for your Mitsubishi and how close are you to achieving them?
While I’d love to have a race car, in the end it will just be a fast daily driver and family hauler that I will eventually try to get onto a road course for some weekend hot lapping. Right now the donor engine is a bit too leaky to get onto a track with. I’ll need to get my new engine built before track days are an option. I’ll also need to work on improving engine cooling and braking before I can really say it is ready for some serious play time. The DD part is working out great though.

What was your favorite modification and why?
I would say the drive train swap but I never drove the car without it so to me the car has always been like it is now. So really, I think the engine management system has to be my favorite mod. I’m running a 91 turbo ECU in the car with Jackal speed-density tuning and a JAW 1.041 wideband controller. It was a nightmare rewiring everything but I really think it was worth it. I stripped out all the automatic transmission wiring, rewired the harness for the 1g ECU, added in the wiring for the wideband and other sensors I needed and wrapped it all up to look completely stock. The JAW setup also allowed me to run my custom gauges in the center where they are now. I’ve got digital boost, EGT and AFR displays right in the center of the dash where they look as clean and stock as possible. I still need to get an EGT probe in and wired up for the middle display.

Tell us about something really exciting you’ve done with other Mitsubishi owners.
The Albuquerque meet is really the only big gathering I’ve gone to. They were a great bunch of guys/girls and also helped me find my 2g parts donor. Unfortunately there aren’t very many Mitsubishi tuners in my area and aren’t very many knowledgeable sport-compact tuners here at all. My buddy Rick (pagosa dsm on DSMTuners) is the only other tuner I meet with on a regular basis. That has made the websites I frequent all the more important in helping me with my project.

What’s the best part about being a Mitsubishi owner?  The most challenging?
Besides driving one? The web forums with their huge knowledge base and member support have to be the best part of owning a Mitsu. I cannot offer enough thanks to Chris Raymond for building DSMTuners.com and to the founders of theGalantCenter.net and other DSM sites, including this one, for helping bring us all together. Our community wouldn’t be anything near what it is today without all their hard work and dedication.

The most challenging part has to be overcoming all the abuse our cars get over the years and getting them back into shape. Both my 1g and my 2g parts cars came to me in terrible condition and needed lots of work just to get them back to stock reliability. I still have a bit of maintenance work to put into mine before I’ll feel it is up to snuff mostly related to the poor abused engine that is in it now.

What excites you about the coming year?  (Your Mitsu and your community)
I am really looking forward to getting more body work done on my car. I’ve got a RRE hood vent waiting to go on and will be putting some more work into my front grille area and hopefully getting the car painted. I’d love to say I’ll be getting my engine built but I don’t think I’ll have the funds on hand to make that possible.

How often do you get together with other Mitsubishi owners in person?
I get together with my buddy Rick a few times a month.

Your thoughts on those who part out otherwise salvageable cars?
Every time I go to the junk yard and see a vehicle that looks great and just needed a little work I wonder why on earth anyone threw them away instead of fixing them or selling them cheap to someone who would. I do not like to see anything going to waste. Americans throw away way too much stuff. It is a very bad habit we can’t afford to keep for all sorts of reasons financially, environmentally and ethically. I believe reduce, reuse recycle applies to cars too. My wife’s ’96 Corolla came out of the same junk yard as my Galant and our ’89 4Runner was about ready for one too before we bought it. A little elbow grease and some know how got all three on the road and doing great. That means not wasting energy and raw materials producing a new car and not having to spend energy crushing and recycling the old ones. It was also a great cost savings for us. Our whole fleet has cost us less than a third of one new economy car. On the other hand, if someone hadn’t dumped those cars we wouldn’t have gotten such good deals. I strongly considered putting my 2g donor back together into some sort of drivable machine but it was past the point of no return. I had to use too many critical parts off of it and there was too much strut-tower rust, cigarette damage and body damage to make it worth buying and installing a FWD drive train into it. I’ve parted out as much of it as I think I can at this point. I’d part out more but the big stuff isn’t cost-effective for buyers to ship. I’ll be leaving the rest for junk yards to work with.

How do you feel building a Mitsubishi compares to building a Mitsubishi community?
From being a member of several Mitsubishi communities I’d say they both take a lot of patience, hard work and dedication.

How has your Mitsubishi build benefited from your involvement in the community?
Simply put, I couldn’t have built it without all the help I got from the members of theGalantCenter.net, DSMTuners.com, and Abq-DSM.com and all the knowledge they have put together on those sites. I hope I’ve been able to give back as much as I’ve gotten.

What’s next for your Mitsubishi?
I recently scored a deal on some Wiseco pistons for my 2.4 block. I’m looking forward to building that engine up when I can afford to. More immediately I’ll be finishing up the front end by adding wire mesh in the upper opening, installing my hood vent and taking care of a few dings and dents to prep the car for paint. My wife and I just had our first baby show up Jan. 28th and I’ll be staying home watching her over the summer so a lot will depend on how much time and money I can throw at the car.

Who has helped you the most along the way with the car? Did you have a mentor?
Aside from the knowledge base online my buddy Rick Cotton has been an enormous help along with several of his friends who pitched in pipe, hangers and welding skills to make my custom exhaust. My dad designed and built the center bracket for the drive shaft and helped tear down the Talon I used for a donor.

Who do you look up to in the Mitsubishi community?
I respect everyone who has the guts and skills to pull off something new and innovative.

Have you ever thought about being a mentor to a newbie?  What sort of projects interest you?
I try to help a lot of newbies on the websites. I have to admit to avoiding questions which can easily be answered by a repair manual or a quick search though. Off the web I always try to help other car guys in any way I can. I’ve gotten a lot of help and really like to pass it on whenever possible. I am always interested in projects that are unique or innovative in some way. Bolt-on projects are only exciting when it is getting bolted to your own car. I like to see what people make for themselves or adapt from another use in a way others haven’t thought of.
Is there a particular shop you’d like to recommend?
A1 Auto Salvage in Farmington, NM. They really got excited about my project and gave me some great deals to help me get it together. Lots of nice guys down there.

Do you spend time on any Mitsubishi sites?  Which ones?
I visit DSMTuners, and theGalantCenter.net daily and check out Mitsu-Media and Abq-DSM every once in a while.

Are you on Twitter?  Facebook?  How can people find you online?
I am on Facebook but I usually only friend people I know from off the web. If someone wants to find me online their best bet is a PM on DSMTuners or theGalantCenter.

Could you refer us to any other Mitsubishi owners you feel we should interview?  Please let us know here.  We’d love to tell someone they were recommended!
Ray Peters has an awesome turbo/supercharged 1g DSM with a 2.4l engine that he rally-crosses. I’d suggest contacting him. He’s made some other interesting parts for it and helped with DS-MAP.

Thank you for allowing us the privilege of sharing your story with the world!

Thanks for letting me share it .

[In English] What’s your real name? (What’s your screen name?)
[Auf Deutsch] Was ist Ihr richtiger Name? (Was ist Ihr online, Twitter oder Facebook Name?)
Bodo Engemann (big&bad)

Where do you live?
Wo wohnen Sie?
Hamburg, Germany

What do you do for a living?
Was ist Ihr Beruf?
Docent for traffic and logistic
Dozent für Verkehr und Logistik

What Mitsubishi(s) do you drive?
Welches Mitsubishi Auto fahren Sie?
1987 Galant E16, 1988 Sapporo E16, 1990 Galant E33, 1996 Galant E54

How long have you had your Mitsubishi(s)?
Wie lange haben Sie schon Ihr Mitsubishi Auto?
April 2006, my first I bought in 1988.
April 2006, den ersten fuhr ich 1988.

What got you into Mitsubishi?
Warum waren Sie interessiert in Mitsubishi Autos zu Anfang?
Technical features
Technik und Ausstattung

Got a favorite story to tell about your Mitsubishi?
Haben Sie eine sehr interessante Geschichte über Ihre Mitsubishi zu erzåhlen?
In 2008 a rally for cars above an age of 20 years started from Hamburg to Berlin. I was interested and drove to the meeting point to watch the old cars. A staff of TV journalists saw me coming and surrounded me. Every team asked if I would allow them to be my co-pilot. They where very disappointed as I told them “I´m no participant of the rally.” They´ve never seen before an old Sapporo…
2008 startete von Hamburg nach Berlin die „Creme 21“, eine Old- und Youngtimerralley. Ich wollte mir die Autos ansehen und fuhr zum Startort. Mehrere Fernsehteams wollten unbedingt bei mir mitfahren und waren enttäuscht, als ich ihnen erklärte, daß ich nicht teilnehme. Sie kannten den Sapporo nicht….

What are your goals for the car & how close are you to achieving them?
Was haben Sie in Aussicht, Ihr Mitsubishi Auto zu besitzen and wie schnell denken Sie,
es zu besitzen?
Sapporo/GalantE16/Galant E33
I want to keep [them] in original shape, full functionable, without rust… [So that they] will last for years.
Galant E54
I want it to become an “eye-catcher”, but not in the 2f2f-style… Decent, that the people have to look twice to notice it.
Sapporo/Galant E16/Galant E33
Ich möchte es im Originalzustand erhalten, ohne Rost, voll funktionsfähig.

What was your favorite modification? Why?
Was ist Ihre “favorite” Abänderung daran? Und warum?
Sapporo
There will be no modification – just keep it it original.
Sapporo
Es wird keine Änderungen geben.
Galant E54
Noch keine Änderungen gemacht.

What’s next for your Mitsubishi? Why?
Was haben Sie vor als nächten Plan fur Ihr Mitsubishi? Und warum?
Sapporo
I try to find a pair of unused rear shock-absorbers. Because they are pneumatic the rubber vanish, and I have to replace them. But they are no longer available.
Galant E54
Sport-Suspension made by K-Sport, bushings from energy-suspension, adjustable chambers by Eibach, saloon changes to leather and comfort, if available swap to a New Zealand 2,0 V6 MIVEC…. and an airbrush-design, but that´s secret….
Sapporo
Ich suche ein Paar neue hintere Stoßdämpfer. Die ECS-Dämpfer verlieren Luft und ich muß sie ersetzen. Leider  sind sie nicht mehr erhältlich..
Galant E54
Umbau Fahrwerk auf K-Sport, Buchsen von Energy-Suspension, eventuell Motor aus einem neuseländischen MIVEC verbauen, Airbrush, Umbau Innenausstattung auf Leder und Komfort.

Who has helped you the most along the way?
Wer hat Ihnen am meisten dazu geholfen?
A good friend of mine, a former Mitsubishi-dealer.
Ein guter Freund von mir,der früher Mitsubishi-Händler war.

Who do you look up to in the Mitsubishi community?
Wer hat Ihren größten Respekt in der Mitsubishi Gemeinschaft?
Kay Wandersee, the organisation-manager of the „Elbetreffen“, Germanys biggest Mitsubishi-meeting.
Kay Wandersee, der Organisator des Elbetreffens.

Is there a particular shop you’d like to recommend?
Ist da ein besonderes Geschäft, daß Sie empfehlen?
Because that the prices for parts in Germany are unbelievable high I order a lot of parts at mitsubishiparts.com, they are very uncomplicate and helped me a lot – thanks to Greg.
Ersatzteile sind in Deutschland oft unverhältnismäßig teuer-daher bestelle ich viel in den USA. Mitsubisiparts.com hat mir da schon ein paar mal sehr geholfen – Danke, Greg.

How often do you get together with other Mitsubishi owners in person?
Wie oft sind Sie in persönlichem Kontakt mit Mitsubishi Besitzern?
Some of my friends are Mitsubishi-owners, too.  We talk daily.
Einige gute Freunde gehören zu der Szene, wir telefonieren täglich.

What challenges do you see the global Mitsubishi community facing in coming years?
Welche neuen Probleme werden die Mitsubishi Gemeinschäfte voraussehen?
Mitsubishi offers at this time nothing really special, except the MIEV. I think a lot of people will look for other manufacturers, because the cars Mitsubishi offers are a little bit boring.
Mitsubishi bietet zur Zeit außer dem MIEV nichts wirklich spezielles an. Viele werden Mitsubishi den Rücken kehren, da viele der aktuellen Fahrzeuge schlichtweg langweilig sind.

Do you spend time on any Mitsubishi sites? Which ones?
Verwenden Sie Zeit mit Mitsubishi web-sites? Welche?
www.north-diamonds.de
www.mitsu-talk.de

Are you on Twitter? Facebook? Have your own website?
Sind Sie an Twitter? Facebook? Haben Sie Ihr eigenes web-site?
www.bodoengemann.de
Pictures/fotos:  http://bodo-engemann.magix.net/

What’s your real name?  (What’s your screen name?)
My name is “Vahid Ghaffari” and my Galant VR4 board id is “Veypor”.

Where do you live?
I live in Tehran, Iran (Persia).

What do you do for a living?
Currently I am working in largest Automotive parts supplier in Iran named SAPCO as a business development consultant.

What Mitsubishi(s) do you drive?
I drive a 1992 Black Mitsubishi Galant VR4 and I love it.

How long have you had your Mitsubishi?
I bought the car back in 2006 when I was 25 years old. More than 3 years now.

What got you into Mitsubishi?
Motorsport was one of my greatest hobbies and, to be honest, I was looking for the fastest car with most potential that I could afford so that I could drag race it.

A bold choice was Mitsu VR4! I tracked a few VR4s and finally found a clean black one (you know black is always the fastest!) and I bought it for nearly 16k USD stock. I know this sounds pricy for you guys in US but here you cannot find a clean one [for a lower price].

Got a favorite story to tell about your Mitsubishi?
Well, here is an interesting one. Back in 2006 when I found my Mitsu, it was not so wise for a “normal” guy with my financial conditions to spend more than 16k for a nearly stock old car. I knew I loved to do so, but I liked my girlfriend (my wife now) also accept it so that I could feel a little more confident before spending that much money.

I called her and start the story with: “Honey, I guess I found my favorite car. You know it is dreamy, I could imagine sitting behind its wheel.” She said, “Fantastic, what is it? How much? How old?” I told myself she may not know it so let me start with a more popular name like “It is a Mitsubishi, 1992, and about 16k in price.”

She said, “Mmmm, Vahid, are you really [sure you] want to spend that much money for a 1992 Mitsu?” I said, “You know I always loved Galant VR4s.” She gasped and said “Is it a Galant? Great lets buy it! I always loved Galants since my childhood and if it is black that would be awesome!”

That was really fun knowing your girlfriend loves your car out of nowhere!

What are your goals for the car and how close are you to achieving them?
My goal is to be fastest import car in Iran. Last year I was in second place in an unofficial event, so I should say I was pretty close. I came for a championship this year in an official event but unfortunately with a clutch failure we came back home empty handed.

What was your favorite modification?  Why?
My favorite modification was adjustable ECUs. First I bought a DSMLink Chip and now I have AEM EMS on my car. It feels really good when you have control over everything in your engine. I do the ECU modifications myself and I should say it is fun.

What’s next for your Mitsubishi?  Why?
My next step will be a twin disk clutch, definitely.

Who has helped you the most along the way?
My friend and my mechanic, Mr. Abolfazl Moradi. He has helped me all the way, with all the modifications and he was also the first one in Iran who imported a [Mitsubishi Lancer] Evolution 3 and convert it into a left side steering wheel car to be able to drive it legally in Iran.

Who do you look up to in the Mitsubishi community?
I look up to know more about these fantastic cars, to be able to find problems and diagnose them and of course to know people in all of the world with something in common in the cars.

Maybe it would be good to let you know that the US government does not like us to do so. The Galant board is blocked to our geographical IP addresses and I use VPN services to access the Mitsu community.

Like you mentioned: “If car guys ruled the world, there might be more peace.”

Is there a particular shop you’d like to recommend?
You asked a good question. It is really not easy for us to buy performance parts.  Only a few performance parts are available locally and we should buy nearly all of our aftermarket parts from other countries, most of the times, US. Now here is another problem, most of the performance shops in US do not ship to Iran and if you find a good one that would ship to Iran, how do you want to pay for it? Our credit cards are not valid in the US. The only way is to wire transfer the funds and that is also risky, because the US government does not like wire transfers from Iran and may block it. Let me go to the last part, when you passed all of these steps you should cross your fingers and hope that your package come safe and sound from overseas by mighty USPS without any insurance!

That’s why motorsport (especially for Japanese import cars) is not grown up here.

Let me here thank great a company Road Race Engineering (RRE) for being so helpful with our condition and I would highly recommend them. My friend Jesse from Revolution Motorsport also helped us a lot last year.

Do you spend time on any Mitsubishi sites?  Which ones?
Yes, I spend time on greatest Galant board GalantVR4.org, also I learned a lot from DSMLink forums. I am also a moderator in greatest Persian automotive forum, tuningtalk.com.

Are you on Twitter?  Facebook?  Have your own website?
Yes, I am on Face book. (It is also good to know that our government blocked it. Good world yeh?) You can find me there by name “Vahid Ghaffari.”

Recently we have started a tuning/performance shop in Tehran – Compact Motorsport – with my friend and the website address is compactms.com.

Thank you for supporting Mitsubishi Gearbox Magazine, Vahid.  We only matter because YOU matter!
I also thank you for your efforts.

Mods
Engine:
Ported & Polished stage 3 Head
O-ringed Head
FP2 Cams 272 In. and Ex.
3rd Generation Lifters
Eagle H-Beam Rods
Wiseco 9:1 Pistons/Rings
ARP head studs

Drivetrain:
Built trans with E3 Gears
Fidanza Aluminum Flywheel
ClutchNet Clutch kit
4 bolt LSD Rear Differential
Short Shift Kit

Intake:
JMF Race Intake Manifold
ETS FMIC and Pipes
Aluminum Radiator
SnowPerformance Boost cooler kit

Fuel:
Bosch 1600cc Injectors
Walbro Fuel Pump
Aeromotive Fuel Regulator

Suspension:
Evo8 modified Coils and shock absorbers
Double rear swaybar
Frond and Rear Roll bars

Exhaust:
SC6169E Turbo
Fullrace style Headers
50 mm HKS Waste Gate
3inch downpipe and free to air WG pipe

Electronic:
AEM EMS
COP Setup

Appearance:
Metallic Blackest Black
JDM customized Gvr4 Front End
Carbon Fiber custom Hood

Safety:
OMP 5-Point Harness
OMP Racing Seats