Flash Enhanced Evo

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo is a pretty hot piece of gear. With a 4G63 2-litre turbo engine under the lid, the Evo can really get cracking with a standard output of around 206kW. But what if you want more grunt without any sacrifices? Well, you’re looking in the right place...

ChipTorque Flash Tuning

Gold Coast based ChipTorque now has the ability to remap the standard ECU in Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution models up to and including the latest Evo 9. Lachlan Riddel of ChipTorque says the standard tune in Evo 8/9 models leaves quite a bit of potential for power gains without relying on increasing boost pressure.

"The standard tune is very rich and the ignition timing is significantly retarded. The MIVEC cam timing [found only in the current Evo 9] is also pretty lazy," says Lachlan.

Each flash tune performed at ChipTorque is vehicle-specific but, typically, the full load air-fuel ratios are wound back to around 12:1. This helps improve power and fuel consumption while remaining within safe boundaries. A lot of effort is also invested optimising the relationship between ignition timing and knock correction. A few degrees of ignition advance can usually be added in the bottom-end to improve driveability in normal traffic conditions and help the turbo come onto boost. Bottom-end/mid-range performance is further improved by increasing the amount of cam advance in Evo 9 models with MIVEC. This is claimed to make a noticeable difference at around 3500 rpm. Interestingly – depending on power requirements, local fuel octane, intercooler modification and other factors – boost pressure is only marginally increased to achieve extra power.

As seen in this photo, the factory ECU is programmed via the vehicle’s OBDII port using dedicated software on a laptop. The flash process typically takes a couple of minutes (plus any necessary tuning time).

This graph shows the before and after boost pressure and power curves for a locally delivered Lancer Evo 8 five-speed which had already been equipped with an aftermarket 3 inch exhaust. As indicated by the upper blue and red plots, peak power with the standard tune is 161kW at all four wheels (up from around 130 – 135kW in factory guise) while the reflashed ECU increases output to 170kW at the wheels – approximately a six percent gain. This might seem pretty tame but further comparison of the power curves reveals there’s a substantial gain all the way through the rev range. Also evident is the modest increase in boost pressure – the existing boost curve peaks at 20 psi and tapers to 16 psi near the redline while the post-tune curve peaks at 22.5 psi and tapers to 18 psi. Notice that the boost and power curves are also smoothed.

So what’s the difference where it matters most – on the road?

We had the opportunity to drive this Evo 8 back-to-back with and without the ChipTorque flash tune. The custom tune gives noticeably improved throttle response in the low rpm range, is quicker onto boost and delivers more fluid acceleration through the top-end. Starting and idle quality remain unaltered and there was no detonation evident during our road test. Of course, all testing was done with the highest available fuel octane – 98 RON.

ChipTorque charges AUD$990 for the flash program plus AUD$280 per hour for dyno tuning. A typical fitted-and-tuned cost is AUD$1400. However, be aware that, at the time of writing, ChipTorque is in the final stages of developing a user-switchable map unit. No laptop will be needed and ECU flashing will be conducted via the OBDII port.

Interestingly, ChipTorque can also supply one of their in-house developed Xede interceptor units, either instead of a flash tune or as a supplement. At AUD$1190 (including a plug-in loom but excluding tuning), the Xede will typically achieve a similar power gain as the flash tune but doesn’t offer as much flexibility (for example, it can’t achieve the same level of driveability with upsized injectors). As a result, a flash tune is generally the preferred approach. This is particularly true in the case of Evo 9s where the Xede is unable to alter the MIVEC cam timing. On the other hand, using the Xede to supplement a flash tune has several advantages – it’s easier to make small alterations, there’s map switching and extra outputs (for a water spray, shift light, etc).

So there are a few options you can take but from a pure tuning perspective, you can’t go past re-flashing the factory ECU. And this approach will be even more attractive when the map switching module becomes available in the near future...

A Unique Opportunity... ChipTorque is currently keen to find owners of Evo 8/9 Lancers who are interested in participating in further flash tuning development. If you’re in the Brisbane/Gold Coast area, contact ChipTorque for further details – it’ll be worth your while!

Contact:

ChipTorque +61 7 5596 4204

www.chiptorque.com.au