1984 Mitsubishi Mirage - Back Yard Bruiser

Mitsubishi Mirage
800 WHP
If you've ever built a car with a buddy, you know he's never the one asking if it's wise to drop the equivalent of a house payment on a set of racing slicks. No, those questions-if they even get asked-are reserved for significant others. Forget the devil on your shoulder. The guy passing you the 12mm at 2 a.m. is the one who pushes you past your threshold of what's sane and what's logical. For better or worse, he's the one who makes you do things like build an 800hp monster to tear down the quarter-mile in 8 seconds.

In 2003, Frank Villeneuve and Serge Turcotte found themselves frustrated by their Eagle Talons' performance. While Frank's '95 2G and Serge's '90 1GA had plenty of power and potential, the far from lightweight construction held both guys back from quarter-mile domination.

The solution came in the form of a '94 Dodge Colt. At the time, the guys reasoned that it would be easier and cheaper to have a single, dedicated project car to wrench on, rather than two daily drivers. What started out as a $650 (Canadian) beater would eventually become a $60,000 example of DSM brute force.

Translated from the language of Mounties, the car goes by Mitsubishi Mirage. However you say it, at a stock 92 hp the little coupe was far from quick. Once they got the car home, the duo tackled that problem full force over the next five years, beginning by gutting the engine bay and selling the stock mill.

The guys continued with a complete tear down, going all the way to a bare shell and lacing the interior with a 10-point rollcage. After pulling all of the go-fast goodies off of their street rides, Frank and Serge sold the pair of Talons and recycled what they could for their new toy. A ported head, turbo, cams, and a slew of other pieces made their way onto the Mirage's new beating heart-a 2.0L 4G63, the motor that makes Mitsubishi legends.

About $5,000 later, the guys had a decent head mated to the untouched block pushing both front wheels via a welded differential. That combo managed to rocket the car into the high 10s-at least it did until an axle broke at the end of the quarter-mile, launching Serge sideways and into Napierville Dragway's guardrail at 130 mph. The team's decision to run tubes inside of the car's racing slicks helped keep things shiny side up. The straight-line coupe did its best impression of a drifter for about 100 feet down the track and by the time it came to a stop, the guys had to decide whether to scrap the car or take it to the next level.

For these guys, that decision was easy, and two months later the car was back in the game with a custom full-tube front end wrapped in a fiberglass nose. After swapping out the busted radiator, intercooler, and axles, the team planted a Quaife limited-slip differential in the transmission. "After [the wreck], we pretty much decided the welded transmission was a bad idea," Frank says. While getting friendly with the crash barriers at Napierville was probably the last thing Serge wanted to do, the car's resurrection set the guys down a path for true speed.

Over the next two years, the Mirage evolved into an epic player. The guys pulled the original mill and dragged it through Serge's laboratory, swapping the stock rods for aluminum pieces coupled to forged Ross pistons from their sponsor Magnus Motorsports. The original block was honed .020 over the stock 85mm and topped off with Moroso block fill in preparation for serious boost on top of the new 10:1 compression ratio.

The original turbo system was ditched in favor of a massive Garrett 4202 coupled to custom 3.5-inch piping. The new setup utilizes dual TiAL 38mm wastegates and a Turbonetics Godzilla blow-off valve to keep a handle on the mammoth turbo's boost. That's a good thing, since the guys have experimented with everything from 30 to 55 psi. With a 74mm inducer and a 1.15 A/R ratio, the guys have to make sure small children don't get sucked down the intake side of things.