Go fast and look good doing it.
That’s not the official motto of Workpack Racing – the team behind this Mitsubishi Lancer GSR Evolution III from Malacca City, Malaysia – but it damn well should be.
The Evo’s owner, Hadri Hamzah – who I met at Retro Havoc this year – has two goals for his car. Firstly, to crack an 8-second quarter-mile pass at a Thai drag event later this year. There’s a very high chance that will happen too, given the Lancer’s best ET on slicks to date is a 9.07-second pass.
And secondly, Hadri wants the Evo to maintain a show-car-like aesthetic.
That second point becomes clear when you take a peek inside. This thing is immaculate. It’s still a drag car – the full Undersix roll cage and Kirkey seat speak to that – but everything is super-clean and well put together.
This is no surprise when you consider Workpack’s main bread and butter is car detailing.
The body is clean, with just a custom wing from Tuan Carbon Fiber added to the original Evo III kit – sans factory boot spoiler. Even the acrylic windows are free from scratches and swirls, which is surprising for a race car.
The Evo is not trying to be a show car – as it sits at a show, ironically. It’s trying to elevate its drag car bones as best it can.
Under the hood, the Lancer is still powered by a 4G63, but now in a specification far removed from how it left the Mitsubishi factory. Highlights include Wiseco forged pistons, R&R forged connecting rods, HKS cams, and a beautiful JM Fabrications intake manifold.
The party piece is a huge Precision turbo mounted on a custom tubular exhaust manifold that positions it right behind the grille for direct airflow. The turbo system also features a Precision wastegate, a large front-mounted intercooler with custom Undersix piping, and a TiAL blow-off valve.
I’m not sure if the Workpack team is into BBQs, but if they are, the flame-spitting, bonnet-exit exhaust – also by Undersix – would surely come in handy at the strip.
How much power? Running on leaded VP Racing Q16 drag racing fuel, the Evo produces over 1,100hp. It gets the power down to Hoosier slick-shod 15-inch RAYS Volk Racing TE37s through a PPG dog box, a Quarter Master twin-plate clutch, and an upgraded driveshaft from The Driveshaft Shop. A Simpson parachute slows Hadri down.
While the Malaysian drag racing scene may still be young, cars like the Workpack Racing Evo prove this country has something to bring to the international table. With more power to wind into the engine setup – hello, nitrous – and weight to cut out of the current 1,204kg (2,654lb) chassis if Hadri so desires, there’s still plenty more to come.
Toby Thyer
Instagram _tobinsta_
tobythyer.co.uk
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Beautiful car, I have only seen a few of these cars in person
saw this car build during i visit undersix workshop, it really give me goosebump in seeing it person
This is badass.
its the car from gran turismo
Wow. 8-second ET's in a short wheelbase stock-ish body car like this is scary- but in a good way!
Even the engine bay is spotless...
Bonnet exhaust, just like the Subaru WRX Project Midnight
Thanks alot to speed hunter and toby for the great photo and story..
The car is so clean!
I love all your photos!
Thanks for the great article, Toby.
I see you Hadri. Free Palestine indeed.
Come on, this is a car website or anything related to speed, motoring, automotive. No politics!
So sick of hearing from the brain dead imbeciles about Palestine on social media. What they don’t understand is both sides are funded by the same
group. Israel created Hamas with Arafat and they were allowed to attack Israel. Albert Pike wrote a letter to Mazzini in which he detailed in the late 1800s how in order to create a world government there would need to be 3 world wars. It’s pretty wild this has all been planned and people are being manipulated into killing each other. Amazing how easy it is to mind control people.
"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other.
Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion... We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil.
Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view.
This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time.”
Excellent article! Very informative and well-explained. Solar