The latest Mitsubishi representative in the World Rally Championship is now a WRC Class car rather than a GroupA Class one. The move from one class of competition car to the other frees the manufacturer's hands from having to produce the 2500 required homologation cars that must carry the racing car's arsenal even if it is unused/disconnected. So how does that affect the commercial version? Well the influence of the change in homologation class can be both felt and measured in the Evolution VII. For the latter one might note that performance figures are worse than they were in the previous version. Half a second is lost in 0-100km/h times (now 5.6 seconds) and a whole 1.4 seconds in the 1000m from a standing start (now 25,8 seconds). The new figures bring the Evolution VII out of the super-car territory. What has affected performance? The answer is twofold:

• A significant rise in the car's weight, more than 50kg were added compared to the previous version

• The Mitsubishi engineers targeted more the adherence to stringent Emission Control figures and driveability than sheer performance when designing the latest engine version and its electronic management

When adding to the facts above that the car's overall dimensions and, consequently, its inertia and aerodynamic figures have been raised one can easily realize why the Evolution VII is not the absolute point to point car anymore. It still is a very fast and capable car but when compared, side by side, to the Evolution VI and its predecessors the changes, both dynamic and static are shocking. You can access the complete car's specification here.

The new Lancer is based on the Mitsubishi Cedia family sedan rather than on the Lancer series. This fact alone has taken away most of its aggressiveness. Some parts of its body (bonnet and front arches) are still made out of aluminum as are most of its suspension components, carried over from the previous version for their majority. This however does not manage to bring the overall weight down to more reasonable levels.

The engine is mainly the same save for the hollow camshafts and magnesium camshaft cover. The Lance Evos carry the same engine code since 1992 i.e. 4G63 whose cutout is pictured below.

The Mitsubishi 4G63 engine

These engines went through several mutations over the years but kept their architecture and extreme output unaltered. The 4G63 engine is a long stroke engine (i.e. bore is smaller than stroke) thus favoring torque over high-rev output. Mitsubishi chose to use a relatively high compression ratio, for a turbocharged engine, 8.8:1, and has therefore limited the maximum boost pressure allowed to a value lower than 1.5 bar in order to avoid detonation. The high compression ratio is an interesting and relatively innovative approach as these engines tend to be more responsive off boost than other turbocharged engines using the more classic 8:1 or lower compression ratio. In racing spec however the compression ratio used is lower than in commercial guise as in this situation off boost performance is not part of the blueprint. In competition guise the Lancer Evolution VII WRC reaches a maximum turbo pressure of 1.9 bar. Note that the turbo inlet (nozzle) area has had its diameter reduced from 105mm in previous versions to 98mm in order to favor low end response rather than high rev output. The turbo compressor wheel diameter is unchanged at 68mm.
Overall the engine's output remains unchanged at 280bhp (the Japanese legal limit) while torque gains 1kgm and now reaches 39kgm but a whole 900rpm higher than the previous version.

 (chassis and transmission...)
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