With most of the suspension upgrades complete on Project Evo, the time has come to start upgrading under the hood. One of the biggest roadblocks to performance in turbocharged vehicles is the intake system. Imagine if you had to breathe through a straw while running a marathon. That obviously isn’t conducive to maximum efficiency and performance.

Turbocharged vehicles are oftentimes hindered from the factory by a closed intake box with a paper based filter that isn’t exactly high in the flow rate department. More air produces more power, bottom line. Of course, you don’t want to run lean but considering the Evo runs incredibly pig rich straight off the showroom floor (huge amount of safety built in by the Mitsubishi folks), the danger of detonation isn’t much of a concern. And the ECU has enough latitude to compensate for the extra intake charge. Lastly, we’ll be taking Project Evo to WORKS for a flash tune on the ECU in the near future so we won’t lose sleep over this.

Our choice to clear up Project Evo’s sinuses is the HKS Racing Suction Reloaded kit. Redesigned and packaged with a new two stage wet filter element, the RS kit was easy to install relatively speaking. The difficult part was removing the restrictive stock airbox and the accordion tube between the box and the turbo. Considering this author has gorilla hands, a few cuts and scrapes were in order.

Regardless, everything bolted up precisely the way it should. It’s always nice working with quality made parts because it’s engineered to fit right the first time. No need to push and pull at it to make it fit. It’s always worth the extra money to buy a quality engineered part to begin with rather than buying a cheaper alternative that doesn’t work and causes headaches.

What’s the verdict? We won’t get Project Evo on the dyno until we hit up WORKS for that flash tune, but it definitely feels more responsive. Throttle response is EXCELLENT and it definitely pulls harder under boost. Theoretically, we should get better mileage out of the car, but with that sweet turbo spool delighting our ears… No, we won’t be getting better gas mileage.

Next: We install the HKS Carbon-Ti exhaust on Project Evo and let ‘er rip!

Sourcebox

HKS USA
13401 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90061
(310) 491 3300
www.hksusa.com