Trailer Maintenance - Seals and Bearings!

I took care of the trailer this weekend. Repacked the wheel bearings, rotated the tires and gave it a quick scrubdown. All-in-all not a bad job at all. Thx to my Dad for helping me get things started.

Everything was in excellent shape and probably could have gone another year easily. But with ~11,000 miles on the trailer and another potential 8,000 miles planned this year, I wanted to take the time to inspect everything. All clear! 

Thanks to Midwest Evos!

If you own an Evo in the Midwest, you owe it to yourself to check out http://www.midwestevos.com/  Scott runs the forums and actually posted a mission statment a few years back that's worth reading:

My mission for this site is also simple: To offer a fun and laid back environment for all Mitsubishi owners and enthusiasts in the Midwestern United states or wherever you may live. When it all comes down to it THAT IS THE REASON this site exists, and for no other

While I've been a member since 2007, earlier this year Scott asked me to become a bigger part of the forums and share more information about the events I do with the online community.  Our new subforum went live last week on MidwestEvos.com, click HERE to check it out.

It'll be a 1-stop shop for details both past and present on my event seasons including races, trips, car mods, car updates, tuning, maintenance, history, and future goals- as well as whatever is asked.  So log in, read up, ask a question and help mold the direction it goes!

2011 Hoosiers!

New stock of Hoosiers!  This allotment of 7 brand new Hoosiers was the remainder of my freebie contingency tires from 2010 that I had to order. 

All-in-all I have a total of 22 Hoosier tires in my possession at this time.  Of course, 8 of those are trash/used and the rest aren't all new...

Thank you to Hoosier for their generous NASA contingency program.  The 'purple crack' rocks.

AMS Tuning!

Took the car up to AMS Performance in Chicago last Friday.  I had AMS replace some leaking seals, and a wideband A/R gauge for safety and retune the car. 

AMS last tuned the car in mid 2008, and there's been some parts switching so an updated tune was in order.  I also wanted to verify the boost leaks were the only reason my traqmate logs showed me down on power and not something more severe.

Results = Yummy!  (Vid below.)
Nearly 360whp / 380wtq on their Mustang Dyno in cold 20 degree Chicago weather. That's nearly 470hp if measured at the crank. I think that'll pull nicely.
Huge thanks to the team at AMS for taking care of me including Dan & Eric up front and Chris for the tune.

Boost Leak Testing!

Here's some pics from the boost leak test I setup. I did everything with the car still loaded on the trailer in my garage! Not ideal, but not impossible.

Here is a pic of the turbo 'cap' I built. (On the left is the air hose.) It's a way to enter metered air into the turbo. I use an compressor initially set to a stockish 20psi and let the system build up and started listening for major leaks. After tightening up a few intercooler hoses, I could hear major air leaking from around the injector seals.
Ideally I'd pump the system to just above what I'd run on the track - about 30psi - and it'd hold solid with no noticeable leaks. 

So thanks to this test, I'm planning on replacing the injector seals and then getting the car re-tuned to verify the horsepower!  The car goes to AMS Performance in Chicago at the end of the month.