091: Bigger ISN’T always better.

More engine capacity, bigger turbos, wider rubber. As enthusiasts, we’re almost hard-wired to want more of everything. In the motorsport world, however, bigger often isn’t better and it sometimes takes experience — often gained through painful lessons — to properly understand that and to build a car right. No one knows this better than this week’s guest, Jimmy Assaad of Evolution Racing Spares.

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Jimmy started off his automotive life like many Sydney kids of the era — with a love for Mazda rotaries. That all changed the day he lined up for a friendly race with a mate that owned a Mitsubishi Evo. After seeing what that platform could do against the RX-7 he owned at the time, Jimmy pivoted away from rotary life and dove headfirst into the world of fast Mitsubishis.

From that point on, he’s built a string of rapid Evos, running quick times at the dragstrip before deciding to try his hand at circuit racing by building a monster Evo VI RS, set up to take on the fiercely-contested Clubsprint class at World Time Attack Challenge. In this episode, Jimmy breaks down his championship-winning Evo, discussing the lessons learnt in the car’s development, as well as his decision to change up the build with a less-is-more ethos as the main driving force.

Besides building rapid Mitsubishis, Jimmy also decided to leave his profession as a plumber nearly a decade ago in order to turn his passion into a living, starting Evolution Racing Spares. What started as a side hustle finding and dismantling Evos for resale to like-minded people has become a thriving business that employs numerous staff wrecking a range of different performance vehicles, as well as full workshop services and aftermarket parts sales. Jimmy is able to provide a really interesting look into the high-performance vehicle dismantling business — something that we’ve never really discussed on this podcast before.

There are plenty of great chats in this episode about all things Evo, covering all generations as well as all the great Mitsubishi acronyms — MIVEC, ACD, S-AYC — and much, much more.

Take a better look at Jimmy’s Evo VI RS here: https://youtu.be/QEjaA1fwncg

Follow Evolution Race Spares here:
IG: @evolutionracingspares
FB: ERS Evolution Racing Spares
YT: Evolution Racing Spares Official
WWW: evolutionracingspares.com.au
PH: 0430 805 359

Don’t forget, Use “ERS100” to get $100 OFF our HPA Track Day Package here: hpcdmy.co/trackdayb