Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Tuning

"Thank you for reading this Mitsubishi Lancer EVO tuning tips."

The awesome EVO has had quite a few revisions and updates over the years and is still a bedroom wall poster car for many.

The supreme handling, high state of tune, and rally like driving experience has made the EVO a legend in the tuning world.

Mitsubishi have managed to get excellent power levels from the 2.0 inline 4 engine. Each progressive generation of EVO brings new innovation and refinements.

We'd love to hear about your upgrades and mods on yours, so we can add them to this article. Particularly mods that worked well or that you recommend.

We review Lancer EVO tuning and highlight the ultimate upgrades. Mitsubishi Lancer EVOs have loads of potential and with the best tuning enhancements you can maximize your driving fun.

The Lancer EVO is a great tuning project to fill your spare time. If you do your planning then you can create an awesome Lancer EVO but don't be fooled there are lots of modified parts out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums
  • Evolution I October 1992 – January 1994 CD9A platform
  • Evolution II January 1994 – February 1995 CE9A platform
  • Evolution III February 1995 – August 1996 CE9A platform
  • Evolution IV August 1996 – January 1998 CN9A platform
  • Evolution V  January 1998 - January 1999  CP9A platform
  • Evolution VI  January 1999 – February 2001  CP9A platform
  • Evolution VII  February 2001 – January 2003 CT9A platform
  • Evolution VIII January 2003 – March 2005 CT9A platform
  • Evolution IX  March 2005 – January 2007 CT9A/CT9W platform
  • Evolution X  October 2007– May 2016  CZ4A platform

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for most drivers, is rated as a top priority mod in your Lancer EVO tuning project.

The 4 wheel drive system is one of the best around and maintains almost unbelievable levels of grip in all conditions during spirited driving.

Later models have more gadgets and give the driver more of a choice on the effect of the traction control systems.

If you set the toe correctly (in for more straight line stability or out for better cornering), and add slight negative camber to the fronts, then cornering will usually be enhanced. Making sure the suspension geometry and setup is right on the Evo has a massive impact on handling and performance.

A strut brace and stiffer anti roll bars will keep things nice and tight, and help with fast cornering.

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 23mm - 33 mm. and fit uprated stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Turning our attention to the engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

Enjoy your Lancer EVO to the limit with our hot tuning articles - do the right mods in the right order.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Power mods.

The later models have so much spare capacity and potential that it is relatively simple to increase the power & handling.

Ralliart continue to show what can be done to this superb car and we see UK models topping 400 bhp. Combine this power with levels of grip and excellent chassis and you have a winning track day and daily runaround.

This list of the stages and sports upgrades are usually installed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you start.

Getting the best modified mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

Please watch our 4G63 Tuning video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your car. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best Engine Mods for your car

  1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
  2. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
  3. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
  4. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
  5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Suspension upgrade (drop 23mm - 33 mm.), Engine Tunes/Remapping, Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust,boost controller.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: Power/Sport clutch, high flow fuel injector, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, Fast road cam.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Sports gearbox, Competition cam, Engine balancing, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).

Your goal when modding your car should be a wide torque output. You want to avoid sending all the torque to be at the top end unless you are creating a competition car.

The whole point of our advice is to give a little insight into the world of customizing upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best sport modifications and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road camshaft proves to be one of the best NASP power mods you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

The exhaust and intake valve durations play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car impossible to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU for the best performance gains.

When pushing up the power you will need to pay attention to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Mitsubishi project after fitting other modified parts. To get sufficient fuel you may need to increase the injectors on your engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned Lancer EVO's uprated injectors.

For power levels over 400 bhp you should start to strengthen the internal components of the engine if you want to retain its reliability.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Contrary to popular belief there is often a small power gain obtained by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you raise the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for Lancer EVO engines you should just fit a performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow out of the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too large or you might just stuff your flow rate and make things worse. So generally speaking, keep to a size of 1.5 to around 2.5 inches to maximise flow rates, and this should take into account the amount of air your engine is moving.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional polishing and ported. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. A good multi plate fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never make false economies or expect a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods that we recommend for your Lancer EVO are a tune/remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Turbo engines are just begging to be Upgraded. You will see phenomenal power gains on most modern turbocharged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and phenomenal modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners experimenting with twincharging conversions and making some impressively high power gains.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are generally easier to add than turbos. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with rpm.

The nice proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are usually less heavy than steel ones. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tires) for your car, a good track legal slick tire can really enhance your cars handling.

It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the Lancer EVO big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

With this in mind we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 18 inches, although we know some of our members have installed larger rims with no problems.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Lancer EVO options in more detail with our Lancer EVO owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Mitsubishi tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love hearing about our website visitors projects, especially the mods done and which work best for you on your car. Which helps us keep our guides and tips up to date helping others with their modified car projects. Your feedback and comments are used to keep this page up to date, and help improve the accuracy of these articles which are kept updated and constantly revised.

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2 Responses to “Lancer EVO Tuning”

  1. John Fleming says:

    non internal upgrade to het 380 to 400 whp. advice and opinions greatly appreciated. John Flemong.

  2. TorqueCars says:

    I have just published a video on this engine that should answer all your questions.

    https://youtu.be/51d7bNKtzFM

    In short an aftermarket ECU/boost controller and turbo upgrade should see some pretty impressive power gains in the order of what you seek.

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