This was probably the biggest surprise at the Super Lap Battle last week, the Koyama Racing Labo Evo X built in collaboration with Team Orange. Anyone familiar with the world of JDM tuning will have no doubt have heard the name Koyama, he is of course the man behind most of the projects that JUN has built over the last two decades. Earlier this year however he decided it was time to move on, time for a change and joined the guys at Team Orange up in Nihonmatsu, the home of Ebisu circuit.
Koyama-san is no stranger to the Evo X, he built Kumabubo's RWD CZ4A sporting that crazy longitudinally mounted 4B11 mated to a Hollinger sequential, not to mention Kuma's previous rides, the GDB and the Evo 9.
So creating a Time Attack oriented Evo X was a sort of logical choice for his first project as an independent tuner. The Koyama Racing Labo team showed up at Tsukuba with this new car ready to put it through its paces in what was more like a shake down test rather than a proper super lap attempt. Despite this the car, competing in the Open-4WD class managed to be the second fastest Evo X of the day, with a 58"368 lap, just behind the Varis car, which managed a slightly faster 57"963. The reason this car is so fast is down to some pretty serious engine mods…
…which have made the engine bay almost unrecognizable. The most noticeable piece has to be the billet intake manifold, armed with a bigger diameter throttle to supply more air to the stroked engine. Details are still scarce but the 4B11 runs an externally gated Blitz turbocharger which dumps gasses into a custom exhaust system.
The radiator has been tilted backwards to allow the custom intercooler to be positioned higher and in the engine bay to keep piping short.
The interior is pure race car. The shell is stiffened thanks to a custom built and braced roll-cage while everything else, save for the steering column, has been ditched. A paper-light carbon dashboard covers all the nasty wiring and bracing around the firewall…
…while the instrumentation has been replaced by a Racepack IQ3 data logger supplied in Japan via Tomei Powered.
Now that is a race seat!! You can see just how stripped the rest of the car is from this angle, and like any great project car the chassis was sprayed even inside before the build began. And yes, those are air jacks you see welded in place there…
…then all you need is a little air. Beats a manual jack any day!
Koyama-san has always been a great admirer of Endless products so behind the Enkei RC-T4 wheels…
…you can see the top of the line 6-pot monobloc Endless calipers (4-pots at the rear) mated to floating E-slotted discs. Suspension is based around Zeal dampers.
Car looked great out on track with Mitsuhiro Kinoshita doing a great job of getting a 58-second lap time.
It's great to see tuners getting such great results out of these new CZ4As, I'm sure we will see them get much faster in the course of 2010 with cars from HKS, Varis and Koyama Racing Labo pushing the envelope further.
-Dino Dalle Carbonare
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Interesting that Koyama left JUN. Hopefully this will allow him to tune to his hearts desire. Can't wait to see EVO X's challenge that 53 second record!
OMFG, time attack cars are best bro!
WTF is up with cars that have a whole roll cage but don't have any cross/harness bars in the main hoop? It looks goofy. Like the inside of a cargo van. I guess they'll do anything for weight savings?
i think with this being Koyama car, this will no doubt be one of the to 3 fastest evoXs' out there an with just the shake down lap being under 59, once suspension and overall feel for this monster an dialed in, this car will be #1!
Where is the rest of the wheel studs? looks like the lug nuts get maybe 2 turns if you're lucky. Probly just the angle. Or it has the special sleved nuts that center the rotor and wheel but it doesn't really look like there is room for them.
Maybe I'm just used to really long wheel studs, lol
Its good to see that even in this climate people are seetting up companys.Although it helps that koyama worked for jun.And like you say dino its good to see tuners start creating demo cars out of the evo X and working on the 4B11.
Neil: No, you're right. Look at the other pic of the wheel mounted. You can see how far back the studs are in the open-ended lug nuts. Strange.
why the kink in the blue breather line coming off the valve cover? pict
Exactly my point Neil when eyeing the pics... shorty studs.
Not a big fan of Evo X's... liking the IX more.
But this has some serious work put into it!
I guess they don't need cross bracing... being a Time Attack car. Or rules / regulations allowing it.
Curious what it will run when fully prepped for a full-on time attack lap.
God I love the EvoX...wish I was able to pick up the one I test drove. I want to see a X beat the Tsukuba record.
I was kinda confused when I see this car at first because I thought "Eh? Isn't this Kuma's drift car? Now it turned into time attack machine, quite interesting," but thanks to this post now I understand it's another seperate Evo, and I'm liking it eventhough the rims is not to my taste but its okay.
Im curious to know what that CF hump on the right side of the engine bay is?
Good for Koyama. He's got a great rep and now this EVO is just another addition to it. Sucks he's still with some of the jerks on Team Orange. (See D1GP USA Chicago 2009) Not all of them are bad, just Tanaka and Kumakubo.
thank you so much.... been looking over the Internet for a clean shot of this evo X.
Duncan - That is the airbox. You can see the orange silicon hose running to the intake of the Turbo.
awesome evo, and looks nice in orange!!!!!!!
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