SOME SAY "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT." For most car aficionados, the 2006 Mitsubishi Evolution IX was regarded as one of the best-handling vehicles in the world. The ultra-quick steering rack, well-balanced chassis and potent powerplant places the EVO IX as one of the best sports sedans regardless of price. Unfortunately, when Mitsubishi released the current-generation EVO X, many felt the car lost some of its cutting-edge driving appeal. Mitsubishi refined the suspension of the EVO X to better suit the everyday commuter, but this came at the cost of sacrificing the lightning-quick handling previously found in the EVO IX. In this month's D'Garage, we make the necessary suspension modifications to bring the spirit of EVO IX handling to the body of our Project Evo X.

Bringing Back Some Mojo

Although our D'Garage EVO X is going to spend 95-percent of its time on public roads, it doesn't mean that we are satisfied with the soft, comfortable suspension set up that Mitsubishi decided to incorporate into the X. Our EVO X is going to be taken to occasional track events, so the suspension tuning needs to be up to par. To ensure the EVO X is capable of handling track duty, we took the necessary steps to regain some of the raw driving appeal that has been lost.

We first looked into increasing cornering agility by replacing the factory shocks and springs with a set of KW Suspension Variant 3 coilovers. The new KW coilovers will allow us to fine-tune the suspension depending on the track layout. The two-way adjustable coilovers feature 14-level compression adjustment and infinitely adjustable rebound damping. Along with the coilover suspension we also added a Whiteline roll center adjustment kit to the front suspension. The Whiteline kit is designed to raise the front roll-center geometry through the addition of taller ball joints. The roll center of a vehicle is an imaginary axis that the body of the car pivots on during cornering. As a vehicle is lowered, the roll center is also lowered, causing the vehicle to roll more during cornering. If the roll center of a vehicle is too low due to the lowered height, the handling capability of the vehicle is adversely affected. The addition of the taller ball joints in the Whiteline kit move the roll center up (closer to its ideal position). The corrected roll center helps to maintain better camber angle, improves front grip and reduces understeer through reduced front wheel compression.

In addition to the taller ball joints, the Whiteline roll center kit comes with redesigned tie-rod ends. As a vehicle is lowered, the angle of the steering tie rod becomes affected and causes bumpsteer when the front wheels go over a bump. The Whiteline tie rod ends correct the steering rack angle and help to reduce the amount of bump steer a vehicle exhibits. The tie-rod ends also improve steering feel, increase steering precision and enhance overall stability.

To limit undersirable body roll, we installed the Hotchkis Sport Suspension EVO X sway bars. The Hotchkis Sport sway bars increase front and rear roll stiffness, giving the EVO better turn-in response while helping to eliminate the slight understeer condition designed into most factory vehicles. The Hotchkis bars feature a 32mm front and rear powder-coated bar with new heavy-duty mounting hardware and greasable polyurethane bushings. The front bar features two-way adjustability (50- to 70-percent stiffer than stock) while the rear bar features three-way adjustability (155-, 195- and 245-percent stiffer than stock). The additional stiffness in the rear bar versus the front is what helps to correct the factory understeer to a more neutral condition.

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