Vanilla Fitment - '95 FTO

[bjk]

It's all happening. After a bit of back and forth, have my mate Rob booked in to fly down staying for a week, and we'll pull apart two cars and try to assemble them into working vehicles again. Bank balance has taken a hefty battering collecting more tools and parts. White FTO is in for a wheel bearing replacement, and silver one is booked for the week before Rob flies in to have the hole on the driver's side widened to accommodate the intercooler piping feeding through it, as I had done on the white.

Keen for it not to be sitting under the tree collecting leaves...

[bjk]

Crazy car things 24/7

Started here


Got here


Some new Mamba Turbo CHRAs and Kinugawa actuators






Necessities like relocating brake dist block again


Some new, and some swapped bits from the white car




Ended up here


Took the bumper to a local Paint&Panel to get the reinforcement bar fitted up as a couple of the fibreglassed on brackets didn't line up. Managed to squeeze it in the daily there and back, bolted on, fitment not perfect but decent enough.



Slapped the TE37s on and rolled it out to give it a bath.



And took a few happy snaps (silver is pretty forgiving in full sunlight but can't wait to get it out somewhere slightly more scenic)

[Miroteknik]

Love the gray one here...

The bumper does look great back on the car though too.

[bjk]

Love the gray one here...

The bumper does look great back on the car though too.

Yeah love that pic too, fortunate that bigass intercooler fits reasonably well behind everything there. New bumper has freed up airflow to almost all of the bottom rows that were previously covered as well.

Really keen to sort out all the fiddly things and actually drive it properly (not ideal with no alignment and broken indicator stalk lol). Until then it's short squirts around the block trying not to scrape the front bar and pics in the driveway.

[bjk]

Slowly slowly ticking things off the list again. Fixed the indicator by just swapping out the internals of the new one, instead of having to buy a whole late model switch assembly, so hopefully that holds up. Had the coilovers adjusted a bit and an alignment which should hopefully suit the 245/40 17s I'll try and squeeze on once I wear out the Potenzas.

Unfortunately in typical Mitsubishi fashion the heatercore pipe is cracked and leaking a bit. Have noticed coolant temps can rise a bit uphill, so hopefully that's just it. Will bypass that for the moment and throw a new thermostat in. Might look into getting some ally ducting made up to actually funnel air through the intercooler and radiator given that all of the factory stuff is long gone.

Nevertheless made it to All Japan Day 2020, only FTO again this year like last lol.



Was super cool to get props from Kristian at Iron Chef Imports for keeping one nice example alive. And the dude in the RZ RX-7 who passed me in traffic after the event and said the FTO was his favourite car of the show *wipes tear*

Also had it professionally polished and a few little cosmetic things cleaned up beforehand, so while it was still relatively clean I snapped some pics down at one of my usual spots.

[Miroteknik]

Was super cool to get props from Kristian at Iron Chef Imports for keeping one nice example alive. And the dude in the RZ RX-7 who passed me in traffic after the event and said the FTO was his favourite car of the show *wipes tear*

haha awesome feels. car is looking immaculate

[gotblkr]

Good to see another South Aussie here! Love this car man, you do not see too many clean FTO's like this these days, so it is always awesome to see one!

[DawsonLiri]

Was super cool to get props from Kristian at Iron Chef Imports for keeping one nice example alive. And the dude in the RZ RX-7 who passed me in traffic after the event and said the FTO was his favourite car of the show *wipes tear*

Best feeling! Great job man, great job.

[bjk]

haha awesome feels. car is looking immaculate

Cheers man! As always, from a distance more than up close

Good to see another South Aussie here! Love this car man, you do not see too many clean FTO's like this these days, so it is always awesome to see one!

Thanks dude A lot of credit goes to fellow members in my club for giving me good examples as inspiration haha

Best feeling! Great job man, great job.

I think my automotive experience has peaked lol

Few little updates, this thing is always keeping me on my toes. Had the cooling system issues attended to, and they found a few loose clamps as well (oops).



Also sorted out something I'd been wanting to do, especially since swapping the 6A13TT into the silver chassis, which was changing the gauge cluster. For one it had a reflective metal backing plate I wasn't really a fan of, and blue backlights, which I was even less a fan of lol. But importantly, the turbo engine has a much lower redline than the factory MIVEC lump by 1000RPM.

There aren't any FTOs with exactly 7K like the Galant/Legnum it comes from, but the non-MIVEC GR is 7500 which is basically rev-limit on the 6A13. Had my old mechanic mate in Japan buy and ship one over from the auctions (Covid-free), and slapped it in.







The car had been having a bit of trouble cranking over of late, which I figured was a combination of parasitic draw and an old battery. After buying and getting refunded a battery on eBay because they "couldn't" post it, I bought one locally, (before the unposted battery strangely arrived). Figured it would be pretty straightforward, old battery out, new battery in. Except I did that, went to start it, and it just clicked once. Cool, no worries, unplug the negative terminal and try again I guess. Starts up no worries, run it for a bit, turn it off. Figure I should double check everything is working as it should, go to disarm the immobiliser again, aaaand nothing.

No flashes, no interior lights, no headlights, nuffin. Same deal connecting to the old battery. Check all the fuses: intact. Take the battery back the next day to have it tested, it's all good. Scratch head and go hunting in the engine bay. Find one loose ground on the gearbox, but it had run before without it tightened down. At this stage figure I'll have to get an auto-electrician out. He's out of town on other calls, so I just leave it for a week to clear my head.

Had a mate coming around this afternoon to help with swapping over springs from old shocks onto new ones for the daily, and figure I'll have a look at the FTO again. Have a poke around the bay again, nothing unusual jumps out. One last look in the boot checking the cables there, tug lightly on the power wire from the 100amp fuse to the battery, and it pulls the wires clean out of the crimp of the ring terminal. Well that'd do it! Find a spare, bash that sucker on with a hammer and a screwdriver till she ain't going nowhere, connect it all up and lo and behold it starts again.

This thing'll be the death of me I swear.



And then I took it out for a midnight drive and fell in love all over again.

[Børk Volvo]

Man, these are one of my favorite Mitsubishi cars of all time. I'm excited that we can finally import them here in the states.

[bjk]

Man, these are one of my favorite Mitsubishi cars of all time. I'm excited that we can finally import them here in the states.

Curious to see what becomes of them when they end up there! Have a suspicion there will be quite a few 4G63T swaps, although you guys already have the AWD turbo Eclipse which most people down here wish this was more like, so maybe the V6 will get some love.

Major roadworks projects make for alright shooting locales (squeezing out the last of already flat camera batteries).

[gotblkr]

Looking good! Been wanting to shoot down at the Darlington Overpass now that it is close to finishing...

[Widebodyek]

This FTO is so cool. Looks great on the TEs and the RPF1s. Nice you get such a good spec/offset wheel on a stock body too.

Wish we had FTO's in the states. Still have yet to seen one in person.

[bjk]

Looking good! Been wanting to shoot down at the Darlington Overpass now that it is close to finishing...

I did a few laps around looking for places to stop, but even though it was almost 1am and there was bugger all traffic I still felt a bit self-conscious about just stopping in a lane lol. I grabbed a quick snap with the phone on the overpass across to Ayliffes.



Would like to get some in the corridor that runs from South Rd but I reckon I'd want to go even later in the night just to not be a nuisance. The tunnel pics above were convenient since the runoff is so wide.

This FTO is so cool. Looks great on the TEs and the RPF1s. Nice you get such a good spec/offset wheel on a stock body too.

Wish we had FTO's in the states. Still have yet to seen one in person.

Cheers man I like that it's a bit different. And yeah, fenders are pretty generous for just stock body with a roll! Not quiiite generous enough to get some wheel designs with the most concave/dish as some of the Nissans can fit easily, and it can't run higher Evo/STi offsets since the trailing arm interferes in the rear, but even still I probably have ~10mm of wiggle room if I did want to try squeezing the 18x9.5 I've wanted for ages. Would be nice if the RPF1 came with a +20 offset for that instead of +15, but then it probably wouldn't clear the Brembos.

[bjk]

Sold the Volks!







Hadn't anticipated in how much demand this sizing and style was. Put them up mostly on a whim due to aforementioned desire for upsizing, didn't think that I'd get the asking price straight off the bat. Now to decide on replacements while I run the backup Enkeis, and fix my split CV boot that threw up grease through the engine bay...