From now on, any and all email inquiries we receive regarding the requirements for a car to be featured in Import Tuner-from freelance photographers, perspective car owners, curious outsiders, and the like-will be replied with the one-line URL of the page on importtuner.com where Najeeb Faridi's EVO IX MR is featured. Unless you've been in solitary confinement, banished to some northeastern corner of Siberia, or tooling away on the International Space Station for the past three years, you'll know we've made a practice of featuring the cleanest, performance-prepped street cars known to man. And the daily driver seen here just might epitomize those qualities better than any so-called examples before it.
Unlike other car owners who can technically claim street legality with current registration, plates, etc., Najeeb's EVO is his only car. No bone-stock SUV or enclosed trailer sitting curiously in his driveway; just this show-quality, 11-second, 450whp beast of a commuter. On the official spec sheet we had Najeeb fill out prior to assembling this feature, he expressed two goals he'd had for this car since buying it new: He eventually wanted to see it featured in a magazine, and he wanted to make sure that each part he added would flow with the rest, and serve only to enhance its performance and drivability. Hence, why you won't find a crazy-flush wheel fitment, ultra-low stance, roll cage, or a sea of fiberglass audio enclosures. What you will find is a 50-trim AMS turbo and manifold, a Sean Ivey-tuned factory ECU, a full Buddyclub/Cusco/Carbing suspension, ultra-rare Volks, an eclectic collection of rare/JDM exterior components (you know, the kind that are expensive as hell but actually fit), a pair of reclineable Brides, and just enough audio to make the drive more enjoyable-all with the dings, dents, rock chips, scratches, wear marks, and oxidation that comes with driving rough northern East Coast city streets all year long . . . oh, and a room full of First- and Second-place trophies in Najeeb's house, from shows to which he drove his EVO to win.
Don't think all this JDM-infused, high-hp goodness fell off the back of the UPS truck one part at a time, paid for by mom and dad's credit card. This particular EVO is three years in the making. The number of years building cars before one finally landed a feature: eight. Najeeb's first car was a V-6 Accord he used to putt to and from high school at the age of 17. He invested every salvageable dime from his minimum-wage gigs transforming it into the cherry-red, kitted-out show car it eventually came to be-one that earned a reputation for being the fastest in the tri-state area, too. In its final stage, Najeeb spent an hour every night for two months hand-polishing its pièce de résistance, a Comptech supercharger, only to have the car totaled by a careless driver the week before it was to be installed. Car number two was a new TSX, paid for with insurance money and proceeds from parting out the Accord, but after a few months of getting spanked on the street by Altimas, Camrys, and even V-6 Mustangs, the decision was made to trade up to a base-model EVO VIII. With only bolt-ons and tuning, it eventually became known as the "Ferrari Killer", due to a Youtube video of it taking out a 360 Modena which quickly garnered a few thousand views. But once it too was involved in a crash (admittedly, the result of bald tires and the choice to go too fast around a nasty bend), the decision was made to trade up, again, to the EVO IX before you.