It could have been the 2000GT from You Only Live Twice. Or maybe Vin Diesel's FD RX-7 from the original F&F flick. Or even the outlaw Supra from the YouTube hit Getaway in Stockholm II. Any kind of movie star car. But no, Archie Concon took his inspiration from Jackie Chan and a Mitsubishi Mirage.
The merry martial artist's 1998 movie Who Am I? featured a fifth-generation Mirage coupe . . . driving down a set of stone steps. "It honestly made me want a replica of that car," says Concon. "I already had a Mirage. I fell in love with that body style." Actually, he's had three Mirages over the years, all modified, and he decided to keep one to work on more extensively. He doesn't drive it down stone steps, though. He may be crazy, but he's not a fool.
Concon's Mirage is based on the Lancer platform. Now, we usually associate something more exciting with the word "Lancer". We think Evolution. Gen-five Mirages share underpinnings with the JDM Evolutions from IV through VI (why else would we ever learn Roman numerals except to differentiate between EVO models?). Flood gates open.
Like a lot of builds, this has been something of an ongoing project. At first, Concon, of Las Vegas, NV, got into modifying because his friends were that way inclined. A few fully built show rides later and, "I joined Team Hybrid in 2007, and picked up this Mirage to build as a race and show car," he tells.
The car's original 1.8-liter 4G83 motor had been replaced years before, first with the Lancer's 2.0-liter 4G94. After that it was a turbocharged 4G63 from an EVO IV, still only driving the front wheels. The next step was going to be the biggie, but it had to be done. Those rear axles were coming to the party.
"The AWD conversion had been done when I picked up the car from its previous owner," says Concon, "But I saw some room for improvement. We started by cutting a three-foot square piece out of the Mirage's floor and welding an EVO V floor onto the chassis, giving us all the mounting points for an EVO VII rear sub assembly and gas tank. It actually looks like the whole all-wheel-drive system was meant to be on this car, like it came from the Mitsubishi factory this way."
Not that the situation up front was by any means resolved. Goodbye EVO IV engine, hello EVO VIII 4G63. Then goodbye EVO VIII 4G63, we hardly knew you. "That's when it went Frankenstein," says Concon (as if welding in another car's floor is perfectly normal). Vegas tuners TrevTec Motorsports took a 2.4-liter 4G64 (as found in the 2000 to 2005 Eclipse), de-stroked it to 2.1 liters, and took the compression ratio from 8.8:1 to 10:1. Once TrevTec was done, there wasn't much left of the original engine. Starting from the bottom up, the oil pan and crankshaft come from an EVO VIII 4G63, probably the one that had just been ousted. Manley Performance I-Beam Turbo Tuff rods connect to Wiseco pistons and rings, while Buschur BF 272 camshafts activate a Manley valve/spring/retainer combo within a ported and polished Slowboy Racing stage-five head. TrevTec then fashioned a polished breather (-8AN), added a set of AEM Tru-Time adjustable cam gears, and topped it off with an EVO VIII valve cover.
The turbo system is centered around a Precision 6262 blower, kept in line by a Forge manual boost controller. Concon consulted the Extreme Turbo Systems (ETS) catalog and got involved with a four-inch race intercooler, O2 sensor housing, and stainless steel downpipe. TrevTec created a fuel supply network that includes a custom fuel rail, an Aeromotive Eliminator pump, a Paxton pressure regulator, and PTE (Precision Turbo & Engine) 1,600cc/min injectors.