2008 Mitsubishi Evo X - Tech Knowledge

After more than a year of planning, months of careful selection and vehicle prep, a few flying-pizza debates about judging criteria, and more late-night tuning sessions than we'd care to remember, it all came down to this: Judgment Day of Castrol Syntec's Top Car Challenge. Which, by the way was actually three days, but considering how perfectly (sleeplessly) they blended together, who's counting?

As a quick recap, the Top Car Challenge is the spawn of the synthetic oil mogul's Top Shop Challenge, outlined in our Jan '09 issue, which allowed 2NR and City of Industry, CA's G-Dimension to build a quaint little 867+hp, 100-octane-sipping monster SR20DET, soon to be re-tuned on race gas for four-digit power and import drag racing domination. This time around, the quest was to have it done on a larger scale . . . by our readership.

Our Aug '09 issue introduced you to Ryan Gates: 22-year-old Import Tuner reader, resident of a small town on the outskirts of Nowhere, Minnesota, and die-hard automotive enthusiast-just like most of us. Where he differs from most, however, is that he builds and races badass EVOs, like his 510+whp '08 EVO X (profiled in the Sept '09 issue) that's been schooling time-attack and time-trial competition in various classes since its debut, while still offering the civility of a car that can be driven to class on a daily basis.

The Top Car Challenge invited every major automotive enthusiast publication (Super Street, Modified, eurotuner, Honda Tuning, 5.0 Mustang, and Lowrider . . . don't ask) to compete their idea of the perfect car in the areas of lap times, quarter-mile performance, 0-60 acceleration, 80-0 braking, horsepower, weight, emissions, vehicle cost, and endurance driving. All said and done, that meant we were left battling a K20-swapped Civic, a 500whp Super Lap Battle 350Z, a bagged '68 Caprice ( . . . don't ask), an Audi S4 that does 0-60 in under three seconds, and the owner of AMS's personal EVO VII, among others. In order to win, we'd need to bring the hammers. And here's how we did:

Yes, Castrol Syntec's Top Car Challenge is over, but you'll have to wait until next month for the official results. Depending on when you read this, you might still have a chance to log onto the official site at www.syntectopcarchallenge.com and register for your crack at the $10K cash prize Castrol Syntec is giving away to one lucky entrant. Just remember who let you in on the secret!

Stock VSNot
Our EVO x, pre- and post-modification