One hundred and ten degrees: it's an over-whelming amount of dry and very intense heat that no soul should ever have to endure-but hey, that's Willow Springs for you. There's virtually no shade to escape under and even after the sun drops, temps still read well into the 90s. The Evasive Evo looks more at home in this type of environment, though, on a race track, far from the city where it belongs. The heat is but a mere afterthought.
As a contender in the Limited class, Evasive (headed by Mike Chang and Tony Kwan) is doing something quite remarkable; they're a smaller operation that's doing big things: going fast without a budget dedicated strictly towards power. What's their secret? Maintaining a well-balanced chassis. As Mike explains, "What makes this car a little bit more special is that we're still running a stock motor and it's proven to be pretty competitive to the other cars in our class that are running 500-600hp engines. We concentrate on the overall balance of the car; aerodynamics and suspension without having to produce high horsepower out of our engine."
To do this, Evasive went a minimal route, sticking to premium grade Japanese bolt-ons and internals to produce a mild 429 horses. "We're an online retailer, not a tuning shop," says Mike, adding, "We can't say that we're tuners of a high caliber, but we do want to show that Japanese parts work great for a Time Attack car. All the cars here are built with American made parts, but since we cater to the JDM market, we want to stay true to the JDM theme. American companies tend to look down on the JDM parts by saying, 'Oh, it's overpriced and they don't work.' Our parts are specialized bolt-ons that you can build a fast car with." Although the bottom end retains its stock form, the cylinder has some work done to it with a set of Cosworth camshafts and a fortified valvetrain consisting of JUN titanium retainers and valve springs to accommodate the lift of the beefier camshafts. The factory turbo was upgraded to HKS status with a GT3037 ball-bearing unit with other turbo goods from HKS, such as a Type-R blow-off valve, wastegate and GT intercooler. A much needed Voltex oil cooler is here as well, keeping oil temps low as the Evo sees a heavy amount of track time. SP Engineering handled the responsibility of tuning the HKS V-Pro and did a good job of maximizing its power output with such few parts.
So why shift the focus to suspension and aero over power? Evasive credits Garage HRS, a Japanese tuning shop that suggested Mike and Tony step out of the boundaries of normality. "We get most of our inspiration from Hirayama-san [of Garage HRS]," says Mike, "Last year, we visited his shop while we were there for a Time Attack event and learned a lot about how he tunes cars, although their cars are much more balls out. We learned to look at things that maybe most American tuners don't notice, like aero for example; that's a really big thing. There's a bigger picture to look at than just big horsepower. Having the right aerodynamics makes a huge difference. Just by changing the angle on the wing a couple degrees or adding splitters/canards affects the way the car performs; you can tune these things just like you would an engine and can see results."