Hi from the UK

New to HPA and have been watching webinars and courses almost non-stop since stumbling across a presentation on YouTube.

I'm from just South of London in the UK and have a Mitsubishi Evo IX. It's fairly modified, 2.2 Cosworth stroker, GT30 turbo and a few other fun bits :-) My aim is to have enough understanding of the Link G4+ ECU and the process of mapping to either fully map myself, or at the very least, understand that whoever does map it is doing it right!

The last power run on the HKS FCON V was 525BHP at the flywheel, looking forward to getting it onto the dyno in a couple of weeks to finish the tune and see what the power of Link can do.....

Ads

Hey Ads, great to have you along. I'm a huge EVO fan and I must say your one looks pretty sharp! What brand of intake manifold are you running?

I think you will find the swap from the HKS FCON to the Link G4+ will completely change the way the car drives, if not the outright power. I was an HKS Pro Dealer for a few years and tuned my share of FCONs. Compared to the G4+ (or most modern standalone ecus), they are a little lacking. I also found support severely limited.

Hi Ads,

That is a very clean Evo, who done the engine work?

You should get in touch with TDI or Abbey and get on their hub dynos, it's a whole other experience to tuning on a set of rollers, both places have some great technical support too.

Hi Andre,

It's my 2nd Evo, they're hard to beat for power, practicality and performance- plus they're not that common here and it's always nice to have something different! It's a Jenvey inlet manifold, google 'Evo Jenvey' a tech article will come up by TDi from when they did the engine work. It pulls all the way to 8k RPM, so I guess it must flow well! The biggest downside to mine is the lack of ISCV, which the newer ones do cater for. Considering it is missing, it starts and idles well, if anything better on the Link I'm happy to report.

That said, the ONE BIG THING that's proving to be a headache on the Link (Vs. Fcon) is the AC. When I rev the engine and the AC Clutch is engaged, it will completely miss the target and sometimes stall. If it does recover, it's about 50-100 RPM below target of 880. I think the FCON used to increase the idle target RPM to help maintain engine speed? Any advise, part from fitting an ISCV/ Sol, would be greatly appreciated :-)

It's a shame HKS went the way of only having 'authorised' (Paid up) tuners, it's 100% biggest downside to the FCON, as a customer you're massively limited to where can officially tune it- and boy, do they charge..... Luckily there's a website that has a ton of great info, I know I was helped massively by it. Already the Link feels like an improvement, just waiting to get some dyno time to really dial it in.

TDi in Thurrock did the engine work, I didn't know that they hired out their hub dyno, although I expect it'll cost a bit more if they do!?

Luckily I have a good relationship with another garage that has a rolling road, I'll be heading in the next week or so hopefully.

We don't tend to see much of the Jenvey product over this side of the world although I found your manifold a couple of nights back when i was looking at options for the 350Z.

I personally used the Hypertune plenums on all our big power 4G63 engines and was very impressed. One engine picked up a peak of 45 kW atw moving from the stock manifold to the Hypertune.

You're going to struggle to get really good control of the idle when the AC switches without an ISCV. I'd personally try retro fitting one to your Jenvey setup - You won't regret it if the car is used on the road. If you aren't already using it, set up the idle ignition control. It won't fix the problem but it will certainly help. We had a webinar on it in the archive.

I've spoke with HKS Europe about becoming an official tuner but the costs involved vs the amount of custom it would generate makes it not really worth my while up here in Scotland. Especially since HKS haven't released the software for the newer FCON's to the western world, or at least that was the case 12 months ago.

I don't think TDI's dyno is cheap to hire initially as they need to train you up on how to use it so you are paying a member of staff to run it but I'm sure the price drops after that, I could be wrong as my only real experience with them is when I've been on their training courses

The feedback from others seems to say Jenvey is a good bet, but as it comes in loose a kit and has to be machined and assembled- which obviously adds to the cost! I've not heard of hypertune, will have a look out of interest. Your side of the world always seem to have the newest and best tuning bits!

Idle ignition control was on and tuned (good webinar on that BTW), but didn't really help the idle or recovery when compared to the FCON with AC on. As I said the Link is better than the FCON in pretty much every way- when the AC is off!

I keep thinking about fitting an ISCV, but I've had the car for 2 years on the road without one and it starts and generally idles well, so I've not worried before.

I'm not sure how many options I've got, to retrofit a standard ISCV is going to cost me in the region of £500GBP (the ISCV alone is over £200). Are there any generic solenoids or steppers you'd suggest as I've already got a spare 6mm barb on the plenum?

There may, or may not, be a couple of cracked copies of the HKS software floating around the net..... I'll keep it in mind for future, although I'd probably want an operator to run the car and listen for knock while I concentrate on the laptop- I'm still a novice! :) I didn't know that they did training too?

Good news- I think I've got the car booked in for Monday afternoon- watch this space!

Have you considered going for an electronic throttle body?