There's a major flaw in the tuning scene. The main focus is always horsepower; how to get the most of it for the least amount of coin. And while being power-hungry is not a character flaw, you need to be smart. When building a car, you need to focus on every area, because with 500hp, stock, worn-out suspension, mushy brakes and standard all-season tires aren't going to cut it.

Mitsu's Evo IX came from the Okayama factory packing the sufficiently capable 4g63 mill, but sufficiently capable is way beyond our standard of awesome. With a few quick mods, that motor can be tuned to cause rictus smiles in living.

After four years of being rode hard and put away damp, this Mitsu’s OEM suspension components were tuckered. Symptoms included an extreme case of body roll and a tendency to push headfirst through corners. The tapped-out Bilstein shocks, lamer than a Yanni concert, were incapable of lifting the inner wheel mid-turn—a characteristic Evos are notorious for. To find a solution, we called on Robi Spec Race Suspensions of Hesperia, California. Owner Robert Fuller is a wizard in the dark art of suspension tuning; he’s prepped countless winning time-attack machines. With his work cut out for him, Robi took my Evo under the knife. The result? Maximum-adhesion cornering!

Quality parts are useless without a good tune. There is simply no way to take advantage of the Evos additions or any way to safely increase boost pressure without running on the more dangerous side of things. So, off to Ivey Technologies of Linden, NJ.

Now that I had the car breathing well, both intake and exhaust, I was ready to turn up the boost and have my ECU remapped. Although the stock Evo IX fuel pump is just about at it's limit with the completed upgrades, I like being safe.

As my daily driver, I didn't want this thing to be making the constant whistling/whooshing noise as I accelerated or the occasionally-awesome surge of air each time the diverter valve released it's compression, however, the power gain of removing the stock airbox and inlet tube on the Evo is enormous.

When I first picked my Evo up, I didn't have very big plans for it. Having done the whole big-turbo, high horsepower, unreliable route before, I was ready for something I could drive hard and not worry about -- the Evo definitely fits that category. Addicted to modifying anything with a motor, I knew I'd have to upgrade a few things over time, so I set out a plan of attack.