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Evo IX MR FQ360 HKS Diary

105K views 466 replies 107 participants last post by  robtuckey28 
#1 · (Edited)
Evo IX MR FQ360 HKS Diary - June 2009

Alright Boys and Girls. I have seen on the MLR a lot of build/makeover and progress threads all containing useful information and great pictures, so here I wanted to do one myself. Hope you enjoy my thread :)

I started out my career as a young 17 year old driving a Vauxhall Corsa. I loved this car so much, first car and all that, and freedom at last, to me it was quite nippy but at 17 and just passing your driving test you just wanted to go places, and fast.

Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 SXI



After couple of years of driving the Vauxhall i then moved onto a Black BMW Mini Cooper when i reached 21. It was actually a nice very nice car but it wasnt without its problems, constant electrical issues and it always had this funny rattle behind the dashboard which drove me crazy.

BMW Mini 1.6 Cooper with Chilli Pack



After 2 years of ownership i upped my game and jumped into a Honda Civic Type-R in black (EP3) Anniversary Edition :D





The Type-R was an amazing car, it looked the nuts with its simple lines, black paint and red Recaro interior, i loved it. I received a fare amount of attention when i had the car and always found excuses to go for a drive, but after only a single year of ownership i sold the car :eek:
The reason being the insurance was now up for renewal and when i was shopping around for quotes on the Type-R i quickly tried a quote for an Evo VIII MR FQ320 that i recently saw while perving on Xtreme's website. After filling in all the information and bracing myself for quotes i couldnt afford, it turned out to only be £100 more expensive per year :eek: I quickly became excited at thought of owning an Evo as the only thing i thought that would hold me back was the insurance. Now i knew i could get insurance at a reasonable price my mind was made up, time to look for my dream car.

So the search began, but i didnt have to wait long as the car i looked at on Xtreme's website was still for sale and not knowing too much about them tbh i gave them a quick call to find out whats what. I had limited knowledge of Evo's mechanically or which model to go for etc but after a chat with the boys down there i jumped straight into the deep end and bought my dream car, my first Evo. It was a 2005 Evo VIII MR FQ320 in Silver.

And here she is:







I couldnt believe, there stood on my parents driveway was an Evo, My Evo:)
Whenever i drove the car you couldn't help but feel excited, like i was better than everybody else, i dont mean that in an arrogant way, i mean because i was driving a faster car than majority of people on the roads. I always found excuses to drive to the shops, drive to the pub and drink water, i was really happy and just couldnt believe id finally own an Evo.

So life with the Evo was going great and i loved every minute of having the car, so quite similar to the situation with the Type-R i had it was coming up to around a year of ownership and the insurance renewal was looming. I remember when i picked the car up from Xtreme 12 months earlier there was a Grey IX that caught my eye which i was instantly drawn to. Obviously i was very excited about the prospect of owning my first Evo but that car always stayed in my mind. Anyway, the VIII was due for renewal but i really fancied a Grey IX and after looking on Autotrader i came across a private seller in South London. I dropped him an email and we spoke on the phone to talk about the car. I got the impression this guy needed to sell quickly, and without driving the car it was costing him a lot of money just sitting there. I used this to my advantage and although the price was relatively cheap and was keenly priced to sell i made an offer £1000 under what he was asking. At the time i think Xtreme had one for sale for around £26,000 and put it like this, i paid at the time under £18,500 so i knew i was getting a good deal. So i made the journey down to London, test drove the car and did the deal :)

And here she is:









I was a Happy Boy!!! it was like :googoo:
Strangely enough It was only now i had the IX i found out about the MLR and i wasn't aware of it when i had the VIII. I quickly became a member after hearing about it from a friend through work who was a member of the site at the time 'HIPPY'. I hadn't been a member of a car forum before so i didnt know what to expect, but soon enough i got into the swing of things and manged to pick up some useful information.

Not going to bore you with anymore for now:smthumbup

My first purchase was a set of mudflaps from FQ Performance. Me and a friend of mine fitted them ourselves which i was impressed with, because in normal circumstances i may have booked her in to have it done properly by somebody else. When i had the VIII i never tinkered with anything and it was kept standard so changing parts and upgrading to new parts was a bit new to me.



My second purchase was a set of US Spec Rear Lights off a fellow member on here. I think they look so much better without the orange lenses, and again fitted them myslef :)



Growing up iv always loved my music and had quite a collection so i wanted to swap the current headunit for a DVD player. I purchased this from Bassjunkies in wolverhampton, and since my Corsa i kind of taught myself about installs and ICE so i quickly fitted this without much trouble.



Next step was to fit this HKS Mushroom filter which was off the VIII MR, my mates a mechanic so this was a job for him to do.



While doing this i bought a few dressey uppy bits for the engine bay and fitted those:)





What i wanted to do next was De-Tango the front headlights to compliment the new US Spec rear lights. Id read through a few posts on here on how to do this process but i didnt feel confident enough to do this on my own so after speaking to a member on here, he offered to do them for me one Sunday afternoon.
He wasnt far from me so after a couple of hours and hanging around the local village the job was complete and very much worth doing, he did excellent job:smthumbup

 
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18
#5 · (Edited)
Update - May 2010

I was getting the car serviced at Xtreme Uk, and at the same time i had them install me my HKS turbo timer. While i was there they were working on a mint Nissan GTR, sounded amazing.







Next i wanted to change my wheels. I do like the Speedline Turini's but like most on here i felt 17" was too small on this car, especially how high the standard suspension sits. I was searching and searching for the right wheel and i set my sights on a set of Rota GTR's as they were the closest wheel to the Ralliart R-01's which i really liked at the time. I eventially bought a set from PTON, 18" x 9.5J Deep Dish.



When the wheels turned up i was eager to get them on the car so me and my mate set about putting them on the car. After a lot of messing about and time wasted i just couldnt get these wheels to fit. They were too wide for the arches, but having done my research a lot of owners on here never reported any fitment issues so i had to get them replaced with a 8.5J which were flat and not dished.









Now i had the new wheel fitted, me and my friend had a trip to Nurgburg on the horizon. We hadnt been before so we were really excited about going for the first time. Before we went i wanted Xtreme to check the car over so i didnt have any issues while i was out there but to co-inside with this i wanted to increase the power. Xtreme told me the breaks were getting low and if i was going to Germany maybe to consider upgrading them. I had a chat with Simon and he recommended a set of PF discs and pads and more importantly swap the break fluid for a better fluid that could take the abuse on track.







As i explained, i wanted more power and with Germany fast approaching i wanted to take full advanctage while we were out there so i went up to a stage 1 which would see me hit in and around the 400bhp mark. For this i uprated my conrod bolts, installed boost controller and had an ECUTek Remap. With the uprated air filter this saw me hit 420bhp.











A few days before Germany i added a few more additions

* Ralliart 6-Speed Gear Knob from Eight Speed
* Ralliart Sun Strip from SJS Design



 
#11 ·
Lovely looking evo you have there and great thread!

What camera have you got?

Awesome pictures , awesome spec!

You would not happen to live between Cannock and Bloxwich would you? Sure i have seen this car going through Great Wirly.Edit: Just seen your location Wolverhampton.
Just a normal camera mate. I downloaded a free photo editing program to enhance the photos:smthumbup, didnt fancy shedding hundreds on an SLR camera!!
 
#14 · (Edited)
Update - March 2011

Next on the list was to drop the suspension so i went for a set of Tein Lowering Springs.















I then purchased a Ralliart Rear Strutt Brace from Ant @ Indigo GT





Next was some new seats. I wanted to shed some pounds and reading on here one way was to get rid of the those heavy standard seats. Spoke to Ant @ Indigo and he sorted me out a deal for some Corbeau Pro Series and adjustable seat rails. Again this was all new to me, so one saturday morning at work i set about fitting the new seats, and i really didnt have a clue but got there in the end :D

















 
#16 · (Edited)
Update - April 2011

In one of the last photos you may have noticed a set of new wheels while i was installing the new seats. During all that i managed to get hold of a set of 18" x 8.5J Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.3 in Gloss Black from a mate in the trade which i picked up earlier that day.
One of my Favorite model's is the VIII MR FQ400 Ltd Edition in Gunmetal Grey. This was the look i wanted to go for and not being able to get my hands on a set of standard VIII MR wheels i got my hands on these. I also prefer the VIII MR rear spoiler where it was a dark gray, different colour to the paint work and after owning the VIII MR thats what i did. Originally when i was sourcing the paint for my mate to spray the spoiler the colour for the VIII MR spoiler was different to the colour of the gunmetal grey, but i thought it was too close and it wouldnt really stand out. So my mate went back to work to try and find a colour that would match the finish of the bodywork with the pearlescent in the paint and this time i was going for black so it stood out from the gunmetal grey. I eventually went for Ford Panther black.
Getting the wheels and paint sorted i booked her into my mates place for an afternoon of work, spoiler resprayed, fit new wheels, fit new wing mirrors bought from Eddie12 on here:smthumbup, and i relocated the boost controller.





















 
#34 · (Edited)
Update - September 2011

I completed the following a few months ago so just updating from the last post. I bought a new set of locking nuts from Ant @ Indigo GT, they came recommended by Ant so...say no more. I bought a set Rays Lightweight Duralumin Wheel nuts in Red.

Not long after coming back from Germany i spent the afternoon doing a few little jobs, nothing major but little touches to compliment the car. I fitted a new rear Ralliart registration plate surround which i had sitting around for months.I also debadged the back boot lid as i felt it is cluttered with badges and lettering but left the 'MR' and 'HKS' badges to keep its identity. Along with that i also removed the heat shield under the grill on the bonnet, applied my 'Spirit of competition' decal and nurburgring decal.











One thing that kept bugging me was while driving around on these crappy english roads, there was a very irritating noise coming from the boost controller which i originally mounted ontop of the dash. Going over the bumps etc the boost controller was jumping up and down and making such a a rattle, i had to do something, drivin me mad :goingmad: So one night after work and a spare half hour, i pulled the stereo out and dash inserts along with the mits gauges, got to all the wires and then began to think where i could position the boost controller:confused: after mucking about trying to think where to put everything so it looks nice and tidy and hiding the wires i moved the turbo timer from just under the stereo and stuck that on the underside of the the heater controlls and positioned the boost controller where the turbo time once was :)





While driving around i started to notice she was handling like a shopping trolly and sometimes i would hear a knocking noise come from the from, obviously the suspension was going. I wanted to address this and after weeks of reading thread and thread and speaking to Ant @ Indigo i needed to decide what to do about the suspension. All the threads id read and everybody id spoken to all said not to cut corners on suspension and do it right first time. I couldnt justify spending thousands on coilovers for just road use and the odd track day but everybody said the same 'Ohlins'. I am in a postion where i want to start doing more trackdays and thought seriously hard about what to do. After speaking to Ant i made my decision, was going to bite the bullet and go with the ohlins. After waiting a few weeks and wondering when they would turn up as i was waiting to get her serviced and wanted to get it serviced and suspension set up at same time i had a msg off Ant, good news they were here:D. Booked her in @ Xtreme UK for a service and to fit the coilovers....Happy days!!!















Here you can see kinda how she's sitting. I will get better pics up of how she sits. At first i wanted her to sit quite low as it does look alot better but after couple weeks she still wasnt handling that great and i couldnt really notice the difference in handling. Phoned Xtreme UK and told Simon i wasnt happy, also over the last couple of months on here you may have seen me complain about the drivers side wheels were sat more inside the arch compared to the passenger side wheels, this was something that was really starting to bug me:wallbang::goingmad: and nobody really knew what it was on here that would cause this to happen so i booked her in @ Xtreme UK to have it sorted once and for all. Simon/Ian at first didnt know what it was and said they will get her up on the ramps and sort it out. When talking about the handling they did say she is sitting too low on the front and handling will suffer, Ian recommended highing the front, lowering the back and tweeking the hardness. So i left her in there capable hands, 5 hours later i got the phone call to pick her up :D they sorted out the handling, the wheels and everything was perfect. Drove her back home and she drives like a completely different car now, i was very happy. I do think the front is abit to high interms of how she looks but the car handles awsome now!! I will get some pics up of how she is sitting now soon!!!
 
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