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1995 Talon AMB Aero Hill Climb Special

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Smokin80

15+ Year Contributor
239
115
May 2, 2006
Hey everyone,

I have been on a hiatus from the forum for quite some time now but got back into my car very heavily this spring after it sitting in my garage gutted and with no engine for about 5 years. I decided i wanted to run the car at the Knox Mountain hill climb in Kelowna, BC, Canada in May of this year. As I said, the car was fully gutted...no engine...no interior...no wiring....nothing! You are likely wondering about the title. I will get to that. This winter is going to bring some big changes.

I started the build in January of this year and what follows is a bit of the progression from that to the race, the results and finally the future plans. Follow me on Instagram @mealing.racing for updates on all my racing escapades including co driving in the Canadian rally championship for my good friend @jgvnr.rally.team

Here is where I started in January
7E54418F-D80F-4BDF-8678-4113DF103C33.png

And the engine.
2.0l
Manley forged
Stock crank
Mildly ported head with stainless valves/BC springs/ti retainers
Bc280s
Fp3065
Dnp manifold
1250cc fic
340lph aeromotive pump
As a 3100lb car this setup went [email protected] at 32psi. Im sure the stock intake and throttle body are my main bottle necks at this point.
285E8D32-7FAE-4915-A07B-D3EFC24582CD.png

Nothing ground breaking here. I installed the engine with my shep stage 3 trans/act2900 sprung 6 puck and some Stiffer engine mounts
80F30709-001C-44BF-973A-8D0FA38BC0A4.png

Here is where the fun began...welding in mounting plates for the roll cage. The cage is based on FIA WRC spec. Although for this iteration due to time and less required for the hill climb I didn't add everything required for rally. I will add more in this winter. The cage is built entirely from 1.75x0.095 DOM tubing and built and welded by my brother and I.
6723FA04-B704-4D16-AF6D-439032505A1D.png
 
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Here we have the main hoop and front a pillar bar test fitted
CDE982AA-A0D4-4B7F-A62B-67F0AF9115F2.png
I went with a Corbeau forza sport(FIA certified) seat because I found the sparco sprint too tight for me. I am 6'1" and 230 lbs. I had to remove the stock mounts and I cut 1x2 square stock in half and sunk it into the floor to get the seat low enough to clear my head on the cage. I can't find pictures of that right now but I'll post some if I do. The seat is literally as low as I could possibly mount it. It is almost sitting on the bolt heads that mount the Corbeau mounts and let me tell you it was a real #%¥€% to install because of that. But the end result is I have clearance and the seat is rock solid. Pretty sure I could pick the car up by just the seat
2990D26C-9842-42F7-8298-486CFF1B053E.png

Here is the windshield bar complete
image.jpg

View from the back. The bar between the towers is just for added chassis stiffness. I can jack the car up from right behind the front wheel and the car lifts almost perfectly flat. Pulling the rear tire off the ground nearly at the same time as the front.
image.jpg

Almost complete. I am stopping just short of full WRC spec because it isn't required for the hill climb and I'm short on time. I will however be adding more in at a later time.
image.jpg

image.jpg

And there we have the cage! Seems so simple when I just post up pictures like this but it was quite the job for a first timer. I enjoyed it and learned a lot along the way.
image.jpg

I decided a dash in this car was totally not needed. So built a little hood for my tach/boost and wideband. I will be adding in some more gauges in the centre stack but for this go around i just data logged. No time to look at gauges during the climb anyway!!!
image.jpg

Car at my dads place in BC Getting prepped for the race. Had some last minute tuning on 114 octane race gas and getting the hankook dot slicks mounted on the wheels. They are 225/45r17 size and man oh man is there grip vs a street tire.
image.jpg

Here is how it looked just before we left for the race! Car weighs 2840 with 25 litres of fuel in it as it sits right there with no driver
LF:898 RF:868
LR:553 RR:552
Cross weight 50.0%
Left 51.1%
F62%R38%
image.jpg
 
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Off to the races!!

The hill is pretty short really. A good time is in the 2:00 to 2:10 range and the barrier is that 2 min mark. The track is 2.2 miles long with an 800 foot vertical. I believe this year was its 58th annual running. The hill record is by an open wheeled formula style car at 1:37.065 and the full bodied record was set this year by an FD RX7 20B making about 700whp at 1:48.344. This is obviously my end goal...and in the meantime my goal is the GT-M all time record of 1:54.661.

hillmap.jpg

Turn 1- The first switchback, comes in off a rise in the slope, often misjudged carrying in a bit much speed.

Turn 2- The steepest part of the hill, but narrow and dark shade of the trees.

Turn 3- Second switchback, again very steep especially if your line is too close to the traditional apex. Secret is to go wide.

Turn 4- For many the scariest turn, with a steep dropoff on the right. Be bold.

Turn 5- Frequently mis-judged as drivers turn away from open slopes to the inside part of the course. Be cautious of drifting too wide.

Turn 6- High speed turn, flat out for many, unless your car is very quick.

Turn 7- Another high speed turn, leads into hard left switchback.

Turn 8- Hard braking into left hand switchback, drop a couple of gears and prepare for another short but steep climb.

Turn 9- Lift off a bit and quickly back on for a blast to the finish. Don't drift too wide, another big dropoff.

Finish- Heart pounding? Adrenalin shakes? Good, get ready for another run.

The car was running pretty well but I do need to work on the tune and overall engine setup as I need a little more spool. It was bogging out of the hairpins in second and first was a little short so I would be shifting to second as I was still unwinding the wheel so that didn't work so good. My fastest time was by just letting it bog in second.
Here is a picture from turn 8 thanks to Tyler Adair.
image.jpg

Here is a little compilation pulled from a video that canada motorsports did of the whole event. The car HATES going into 1st and in the last hair pin in this little video you can here me bouncing it off the shift limiter because It didnt go into first as I was trying to rev match the car. I really need a road race spec trans instead of the shep stage 3 drag spec.

Here is a full in car video of my fastest run. It was cool on this day and rained in the morning so the track was a little more slippery than the previous day and i spun hard on the launch and shifted too soon to second and bogged but still managed my Class winning run of 1:59.878!!! I BROKE THE 2:00 barrier in my rookie year in a car i literally got to drive once before the race. It was my last run of the weekend that i broke the 2 minute mark on and i was PUMPED!!! I won my class(GT-M Open class 2.5-4.0Litre...turbo multiplies displacement by 1.7) and was the fastest rookie and 9th overall!!! we got 4 runs on day 1 and 3 runs on day 2...one of which was in the wet. My slowest run was about a 2:26 in the rain. The rest of my runs were all sub 2:05 and once got the first one under my belt i was around 2:01-2:02 almost every run. I really sucked it up for the last run and made the 2:00 barrier. The 8 cars above me in the 61 car field were the only others to go sub 2:00 minutes.

The best part was that my best buddies in car #4(Kyle Mcmillan) and #83(Roger Sieber...also who i codrive for in the canadian rally championship. He uses the same car just minus the rally 34mm restrictor) Were very close with me all weekend and we passed our 3 way battle for 1st back and forth all weekend with me finally coming out on top. Kyle has done the race twice and improved 9 seconds over his last best and roger Has done it 4-5 time now i believe and also improved a little but still hasnt managed that infamous sub 2:00 time. He is however the fasted subaru ever up the hill so that is pretty cool. That being said I am also the fastest talon as far as i can tell.

I know im forgetting a pile of info here but ill start with this and if anyone has any questions i will add more.



Final results

http://www.knoxmtnhillclimb.ca/results/2015results_overall.pdf

Rolling back down the hill. The car behind me is the rally car of my buddies that I co drive for.
image.jpg
 
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Now for the future....

I have very, very big ambitions for the 2016 season. I am going to address the problems I discovered this year and then some.

First Issue:
Stock rad isnt up to the task. (obviously) Luckily it is only a 2 minute run and it only got into the 220's by the end of the run. That isnt good but not bad. I will get an aluminum rad(Suggestions?). I am thinking KOYO or the new x-line Mishimoto. Once i figure out which rad i will duct it all in to make sure the air goes where it should.

Second Issue:
The power steering was overheating reallllly bad. It took 3 runs of boiling it over before it found a level and didnt coat the front drivers side of engine bay in fluid. I am going to put a cooler on it this winter with an end goal of doing an Electric over hydraulic pump from a clio or MR2 or something. Right now my money is just getting pumped into other parts of the car so ill try the cooler and see how it does.

Third Issue:
Turbo Spool. I am thinking about doing the billet wheel upgrade on the fp3065 for starters(maybe not this year mind you) And, I need to degree the cams and I'm thinking closing up the Lobe separation a bit should help as well. End game is a 2.3L...reason being, if I go to 2.4L it pushes me into the GT-0 full open over 4.0L class. As I mentioned earlier boosted engines get multiplied by 1.7. The car was running 25psi and flowing 47lb's of air during the hill climb. I need to get rid of the stock intake and throttle body as well. Once i get this all sorted out I will turn up the boost!

I also only have a crushed gus modded 1g bov which i think is not working all that well so a TIAL QRJ is in order.

Fourth Issue:
Weight. I want to get the weight down as much as I can. The obvious spots are the door glass, sunroof and hatch glass. The battery is still in the stock location and nothing special so there is some weight loss and redistribution to be had there. At 2840lbs with the cage I think im not doing too bad but i really want it at least 100-200 lbs lighter. Any thoughts on this???

Fifth Issue:
DOWNFORCE! The car is 100% stock bodied right now minus an eclipse rear spoiler instead of the talon one.
Lots of ideas and things on the go for this one but I will get into this later... the sneak preview i will give is that an APR GT-1000 wing is involved.

EDIT!! I got approval from the one and only Andrew Brilliant to let the cat out of the bag...he is doing a new version of the AMB Aero wide body kit and is currently in the process of having a kit manufactured for me! I'm super pumped for this and look forward to working with some of the people that already have the previous version. It is going to be one heck of an undertaking to pull it off before May of 2016 but I'm going to do my best!!

Thanks for reading...I will update this slowly as this winter's work progresses. I dont suspect to do too much to the car for at least another month or so here. Get my finances sorted out. Would be nice if the canadian dollar and oil would come up a little bit as well in the mean time.
 
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Awesome job on the first time out! Some fellow race club members attack Knox Mtn every year.

Josh V (club member) previously ran in the same class as you.



EDIT: Don't let a VW Rabbit beat you! Go for the record! :)
 
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Thanks very much for sharing. It's awesome to see people pushing the DSM platform to the limit in all types of motorsports!

I know you said you were pressed for time, but I really surprised you didn't spec out the cage completely. The cage is built so well, but then just welded straight to the body of the car. It just seems like a ton of work to go back and modify something that is already so well done. What plans do you have for the cage in the future?

Watching the video, it seemed like the turbo was painfully laggy. I saw you mention it in the things you wanted to address for 16', so I'm assuming you took notice as well. The 3065 seems like a pretty big turbo for quick spool. Maybe a 3052 would be better suited, so that way you keep the transient response of the BB turbo while gaining some spool down low? A cam that's bit smaller may help as well.

Do you notice the car trying to oversteer coming out of tight turns with the welded diff?

Lastly, that gauge cluster look bad ass!

Sorry, not trying to be negative, just curious about the build. Thanks again for sharing, and looking forward to future updates!
 
The cage only needs straight bars from the top front corner of the side windows down to the bottom front mount plate(easy to do after the fact) and the full "x" put into the main hoop. I do not need the full "x" for just a driver but if I ever run an event that needs a condriver then I will need that. Then the car is full wrc spec.

As for the turbo... Andrew brilliant runs a bigger turbo than me and spools over 1000 rpm sooner so I am going to work on this one because eventually I want to make the 550+ whp that this turbo is capable of. I think a billet wheel/cam gears/more tuning can get me at least 500 rpm. Plus, it is only the hairpins which I was having lag issues on so a few changes plus some 315 wide slicks vs the 225's I was running there should put me a little higher in the rpm leaving those corners and get rid of the lag issue.

The welded diff I didn't notice at all. Car seemed to be very neutral. However it was a different story in the wet. I had a strange oversteer moment in the wet that I think was due to the welded diff.
 
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Oh. And as for the rabbit...I forget what was in that thing but I believe it was tube framed and made a pile of horsepower. It was a very legit car. That record is my goal this may if the aero kit gets completed by then.

I would rather run the race the way the car is then not get finished and not run the race at all. So we will see how the time frame is for the kit.
 
Regarding the cage, I was referring to how yours is welded directly to the body of the car. Ideally you want to weld steel plates to the body of the car, and then weld the main cage structure to the plates. Without these reinforcements, the cage bars can simply push through the thin sheet metal of the body in the event of a rollover or serious crash.

Here's a couple examples:
cage5-jpg.281176.jpg

cage8-jpg.281179.jpg


I'm no expert in cage design, and don't know what specs you're required to meet for you racing body and event tech. I'm just pointing out what I've seen mentioned in various cage building threads I've seen done over time.

I thought these were the modifications you were referring to when you brought up making additions to the cage later on. As you can imagine, these additions would be hard to add later on, which had me confused. It sounds like these aren't the additions you had in mind, though.

Never the less, excellent craftsmanship on the cage. The entire build is great, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do with the car next season.
 
Oh, ok. It looks like it's welded directly to the body in the photos you posted above. My mistake.
 
No problem man, hard to see in those pics. Here are some close ups. The FIA specs for mounting feet are at least 120cm^2 in area and at least 3mm thick. I have them 3mm thick and they are all larger than 120cm^2.

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Ahhhh, now I see. Looks great!

I was a bit dumbfounded looking at the craftsmanship of the cage overall, and not seeing it mounted to plates. I couldn't make sense of it. Thanks for the extra pics.

Any sneak peaks of the Aero kit you've got coming?
 
Ahhhh, now I see. Looks great!

I was a bit dumbfounded looking at the craftsmanship of the cage overall, and not seeing it mounted to plates. I couldn't make sense of it. Thanks for the extra pics.

Any sneak peaks of the Aero kit you've got coming?

Thanks man. My brother is a journeyman welder so that helps a lot. And, I really took my time doing all the bends and made sure i had them symmetrical and what not.

As for the aero kit....Andrew Brilliant has asked me not to post anything up yet. Once the kit is completed and shipped to me i think it is all fair game! Ill get confirmation from him on what I am allowed to post and be sure to update the thread asap!!!! Its going to be interesting because I think at best i will have 2 months or so to install it. The car will likely be rocking the Primer livery for this year. I may even just run spacers on the stock size tires and wheels if i don't get the time/money to deal with a 17 or 18 x 10.5 inch wheel and tire setup.

Here is the wing I am going to be running however...
47753389d1387379848-gt-1000-dual-element-carbon-fiber-wing-new_gt-1000_1.jpg


Appreciate the kind words as well as any constructive criticism or thoughts!

Have a great night!
 
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Very nice thread! I will definitely be following the progress on this. I am very interested in the wide body conversion. For weight savings, would a tubular rear sub-frame change your current class?
 
Very nice thread! I will definitely be following the progress on this. I am very interested in the wide body conversion. For weight savings, would a tubular rear sub-frame change your current class?

No...the class I am in is open. I would love the magnus rear sub-frame but money is getting spent on the wing/body kit/wheels/tires this year. I am going to be hard pressed to change much else.
 
Awesome. I used to crew chief for Janusz Komorowski back in the day. We went all over Canada with the Canadian Rally Championship, best outcome was third for the Bighorn Rally in 2001 ish.

I miss those days...

GREAT BUILD, by the way. I just got my hands on another 95 awd dsm. Not sure what I'm doing with it yet. I live seeing g stuff like this!
 
This is awesome and can't wait to see what you can do in 2016! Like mentioned before, I would look in to the tubular rear sub-frame as it drops a good amount of weight. Love the car though, keep us informed about that Aero kit!
 
Look forward to watch your build. Are you going to be doing a wide body kit similar to ours? Give us the basics. Carbon, fiberglass, rear diffuser, who doing the layup ect...?

It is very similar to the kit you have yes. This is simply a new version that Andrew is designing. I may have some questions for you along the way.

Recent update from Andrew Brilliant is that the manufacturer has a chassis and is ironing out any issues before they produce the kit. Not sure if it will be done in time for May to make the hill climb but I will do my best.

I also acquired some 5zigen 18x10 +15 wheels that I will be using. I would love to run something wider but to get custom wheels just wasn't in the budget. I got these for 1000cdn which is less than one wheel if I went with a custom 18x11 or 12 and 0 offset. I will be able to fit a 285-295 wide tire on no problem which is still a huge improvement over what I was running.

Cheers!
 
Since you are looking to do weight reduction, you should consider getting rid of the steering column and you already have an underdash bar, it would not take much, the new shaft could be mounted there with a heim joint or a pillow block, dont know if you still need to have everything that is on the stock column.
There is close to 35# in the whole assembly.
You could also get rid of the double metal that is below the quarter windows, again it depends on how radical you want to get.
 
It is very similar to the kit you have yes. This is simply a new version that Andrew is designing. I may have some questions for you along the way.

Recent update from Andrew Brilliant is that the manufacturer has a chassis and is ironing out any issues before they produce the kit. Not sure if it will be done in time for May to make the hill climb but I will do my best.

I also acquired some 5zigen 18x10 +15 wheels that I will be using. I would love to run something wider but to get custom wheels just wasn't in the budget. I got these for 1000cdn which is less than one wheel if I went with a custom 18x11 or 12 and 0 offset. I will be able to fit a 285-295 wide tire on no problem which is still a huge improvement over what I was running.

Cheers!
If you have any questions just ask. I always help as best I can. :)
 
If you have any questions just ask. I always help as best I can. :)

As for your other questions. It is fiberglass and will have a diffuser. He has moved the louvres over the fenders a bit and a few other tweaks that I couldn't begin to explain. And, as mentioned above I will be using the APR GT-1000 wing which you may or may not be aware was also designed by Andrew. On a whole the kit looks fairly similar to the "old" one. I will only be running a small front splitter to start as I DOUBT the crazy 300mm one he runs would clear on the switchbacks in the hill climb. But could easily be added later and the wing will only be about half way on the AOA so there will be room to grow so to speak with regards to rear down force to make up for any increase in front down force.

What spring rates are you running?

Cheers
 
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