My 5G 1997 Mitsubishi Mirage to Evolution V Conversion Thread:

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Originally Posted by Thero

Ya I can drive mine because technically its a mirage and the motor swap has to be for a evo 8 or 9 made for California specifically. If I had the money a friend of mine has a totaled evo 8 Mr in his garage and I would just buy the whole car as I need the rear floor pan as well.

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Sorry for the off topic post but does your friend still have the motor and drivetrain from the totalled evo? And I did not know you could still technically register it once its complete. I guess in that sense it would be worth it to do the swap then but how often do you really plan to drive the thing anyway? Reason i ask is because if this builds intent was for track or show then driving it on the street would barely matter anyway. Regardless I am interested to see how this turns out. I have seen a couple builds like this and the jobs were all hacked up and sketch.

I'm here in Okinawa japan and will be here for 2 years. I see skylines r32s r33s gtrs everywhere.. I rarely see the 34s tho. all in mainland. my dilemma is, I have an evo there in cali which I can't use and deciding to sell or not because I can take the damn 32 home for free and can get it for half the price of my evo 8!! well shit.. the evo IV and Vs are everywhere and took the V for a test drive, the thing is still pretty impressive when I compared it to the 32..just my opinion.

He does have the engine and drivetrain but he is selling the car as a whole and not parting it out (Besides I need those so you can't have them lol j/p)I honestly plan on driving the car a lot and making it my daily driver after the build is complete. I want to make my Evo IX more of my weekend car/ track car and use the mirage to drive. You can register it because their is no law that says you can't change the drivetrain of your vehicle from FWD to AWD. You can change your transmission and its still legal, Hell I was just reading that if I wanted to it is fully street legal to convert the car to right hand drive as long as you keep the same vin numbers and replace the firewall with a California standard firewall (Its like a mm or something ridiculous more is all). For the Engine swap the law clearly states that you can swap your engine but must meet certain guidelines. 1 If its a Japan motor it must be bar'd (Which now CHP won't bar Japan motors because of the popularity of Honda Civic's switching to JDM motors), 2 it has to be of the same year or newer car, 3. Cannot be from a different class vehicle (You can't throw an 18 wheeler motor in your pick up truck lol), and 4. It must contain California emission components so that it may pass California smog requirements. I'm very fortunate because my car is an out of state car so it is Federally registered which means that my firewall isn't as thick as the California built cars but if I do a RHD change I'll have to change the firewall to thicker material (Which I guess isn't to bad. The hard part would be running all the USDM parts with extra wiring as they are wired for the length of a LHD car and not RHD), but since I am doing a Engine swap I can't do just any Evo VIII or newer motor in the United States. I mean I could but then I have to purchase the California emissions components and put them on the engine so that it pass's smog and is legal to register (Which would be easier by just buying a California built car as the motor will have these already). I know some people are thinking why not just take it to a smog shop and pay extra to get it to pass. I would but to be honest I already have to do that for my Evo IX and would rather not have to do it for both of my cars lol. Plus like I said it makes me feel better knowing that if I did get pulled over I can take it to a ref and make the cops eat crow as it passes smog lol.

I had no idea that cars were specifically built just for California due to all the emission and safety laws in our state. Makes me feel sorry for car manufactures having to put up with our POS states vehicle emission laws lol.

I know CA is very strict emissions wise and DOT/NHTSA regs as well. Which is why most imported cars are not legal here even some of the components arent legal either. If your entire car does not abide by DOT/NHTSA regs they can technically deem your car inelligeable which is why I wanted to verify with you the legality of such a build. Not that I am doubting your research I have just heard the fiascos with such things.

Honestly when it comes to safety I would not skimp on it. So I would personally go with a thicker firewall and have it installed properly. Especially being that this will be your dd. Honestly, I have seen some sketch builds like these and they were not safe imho. Main reason why is because most people go into these builds not realizing they need deeper pockets to do them correctly. And 9 times out of 10 it will cost you more to convert a car properly rather than buying a real one from japan and shipping it. However, seeing that you want a completely legalized one that you can drive buying one from japan is out of the question...

No worries I to have heard those same stories as well. It is true and I have seen them do it not with Mirage to Evo Converisons per say but I know for sure someone was converting a car over to be a Skyline R33 clone and chopped and hacked away at the frame so much that the State declared it an unsafe vehicle and wouldn't allow him to register the vehicle.

Well no updates from me as of right now. I'm working on the wiring for the power folding mirrors while I wait for my wedding to come and go. BUT my buddy in Hawaii finished his conversion pretty much other than paint and a few little things here and there.

Heres a walkaround Vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn8HEsL3S-g

Wow over a year since I updated my thread lol sorry about the lack of updates. I'll post a huge one today after I get off work. Let's just say plans have changed for the more unique for the car for anyone that doesn't have me on fb.

Ok so here is the big update I promised for today.

So its been a year. People that don't follow me on FB or Instagram probably figured I gave up on this project or its just sitting........Well it was sitting lol but it isn't lately. Let me summarize what has change since the last update of the mirrors real quick.


First Off I was able to buy the head lights fog lights and Turn Signals for the car. I also got the hood a month down the road as well and got it all put on.

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...47&oe=57EF770B

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...6d&oe=57F7E50E

Then after waiting 9 months on the Front bumper a flawless one came in finally.

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...db&oe=57FD6FE3

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...52&oe=5835E0FA

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...5e&oe=5830DFB9

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...af&oe=57F9B1A5

After I put the front bumper on it kind of kicked start my love into the project again lol.

Then while Searching on Facebook I found a guy in Lake Elsinore with a totaled out Evo 8 GSR in black......And well. I took the Rear Floor pan, rear suspension cups, and Gas Tank off his hands so that I can make the car AWD like a true Evo:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...1a&oe=582DE1F2

and so began the tear down of just what I needed:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...88874767_o.jpg

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...17497363_o.jpg

And finally with that done I kind of got excited and hit a guy up on eBay about a Evo 4 RS front clip that was in an accident for cheap. Well needless to say it was to good of a deal to pass up so now I am going RHD as well with my project:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...2a&oe=57FEBBE4

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...4e&oe=57FA72B2

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...3d&oe=57EFE662


Came across a turbo timer hidden behind the dash too.

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...de&oe=57F6E36B


So yea I'll update the main/first post with the progress of the project car. As you can see now it has a long way to go with this RHD conversion but it has gotten a lot done already. The Evo 8 floor pan is already ready to go into the car but I need to make space in my garage just so I can get the car in the garage to work on lol. Since their isn't space I'm working on the RHD Clip right now. From the clip I need to take a plate off of both fenders for the RHD conversion, the Firewall, and the hardest part of all the Dash bar that runs across the front, along with the windshield wiper area's as well.

Other than the front bumper the car itself hasn't seen much changes. I bought a 4G63 Block off of a buddy of mine that is just the bare block and also the rear seats of an Evo 9 SE. I may put them in this car and try to find some SE Evo 9 front seats or I may just put all of the SE seats in my Evo 9 and put my 9 MR seats into the Project car. Still deciding.

Sorry for the delay updates. Computers been down and hard to upload pics to here.

Great! Looking forward to watching this continue!

Wow keep up the good work....I'm subscribing to this thread :)

Time for a little update.

Wife got into a car accident in January. We have been waiting for the insurance company to settle so we can get her total scion tc out of the garage so I could work on the project. (I had just finished the tear down of the Front RHD clip before she got into the accident) which just got resolved about two weeks ago. I had a coworker who bought the total car from us now to free up the garage space and I am happy to report she is in the garage now. I just need to roll it out again to wash all the cob webs and dirt off her from sitting for 6 months (Yea that long) and then line her up better so its easier to work on. Hoping to start tearing down the rear end of the car so I can start removing the Mirage floor pan and if I can find someone that does Welding put in the Evo 8 floor pan that I have.

Heres a pic of her in her new home for a while:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...fa&oe=57FD704C

Glad to hear that you are still going on this! Sorry to hear about that accident but it sounds like everyone is OK and you've got things sorted, so that's good.