The Story

This car has been through a lot in the short time I've owned her.  And its history before that is just as involving.

October 2007

It started off in October of 2007 when I was looking for another car.  I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan at the time, but was deployed to South Korea for training.  In my free time I was searching around for my next ride as I knew that May of '08 would be my return to the States.  I had scoured the internet searching for a good deal, I had seen 240's, a turbo S2k, a nicely done up Lancer, and many other rides.  I had actually emailed the owner of the turbo S2000, but he had already sold the vehicle, so I moved on. 

I came across a 2000 Mitsubishi Mirage for sale on MPF (Mirage Performance Forums), a site I have been a member of for years, with countless parts and a ton of work done to it for an amazing deal.  The big stipulation was that the car wasn't running at the time, but that wasn't a problem for me, as I had several months before I would be back stateside.  Thinking this wouldn't be a problem, since a mechanic would have plenty of time to get the car running, I decided to look into the car.  I emailed back and forth with the owner ("Ben") several times, who also put me in touch with the shop owner ("Chris") where the car had been sitting. 

I asked both parties numerous questions before I was satisfied that the car was worth buying.  However, having never physically seen the car, I decided to have a visual inspection done by two of the most scrutinizing people on the planet; my parents.  Strangely enough, they returned with absolutely nothing bad to say about the car or the mechanic who had done the majority of the work on the vehicle.  This pleased me very much, as they could find something bad to say about any vehicle I could have decided on (Ferrari - too expensive, Beater - unreliable, Truck - bad gas mileage, Hybrid - hippy vehicle, etc), but this somehow left them speechless.

November 2007

I finally purchased the car after my parents inspected the vehicle and proceeded to discuss the terms of completing the car with Chris.  He started off by being very helpful, replying to emails rather quickly, though I had noticed if I asked multiple questions in a message, he would only seem to answer one at a time.  I had asked him how he felt on time to complete and he had said it was not a problem; he only had one other project on his hands and mine was next after that.  He assured me that I would be driving it by the second day I was home from Japan, which I was pretty thrilled with that answer.

Winter 2007

Communication had seemed to wear off between myself and Chris.  I was unable to contact him by email, and my parents couldn't get in touch with him by phone (his line had been disconnected).  I had started to worry, as I had just paid a fairly large fee up front for work to be done on the car.  Finally, around February, Ben had responded saying he had heard from Chris.  Chris's projects over the winter had basically put him in the red due to non-paying customers which is why his phone was no longer in service.  He hadn't started working on my car yet due to the headaches of his other projects.  One project had apparently turned into multiple projects which all ended up being failing endeavors. 

Spring 2008

Communication began to dwindle again, though it was more of an on-and-off deal, so it was a crapshoot whether or not he would respond to an email, and how long was an even bigger crapshoot.  It was nice though, because I assumed it was mostly due to him being busy more than anything seeing how he would be responding with things like 'I got X installed today, you'll need X to go with it, what kind do you want?', so I knew progress was being made.  He would keep assuring me that the car would be ready soon and I would be driving it when I got back.  Occasionally, he would include pictures.

May 2008

The day finally comes, I flew out a few days early, but spent a couple extra in Seattle visiting some fellow Miragers and enjoying the scene.  The day I got home, we drove during a tornado to go see the car.  Chris was waiting for us at his shop and let us in.  The car, on the other hand, was sitting in pretty much the same condition it had been for months.  I had discussed paint with him back in February when he finally responded, yet it was still mostly black and sanded down.  The front bumper, wing, and lights were all off the car, and the interior was completely disassembled.  This had me rather disheartened, as I planned on having a vehicle to get around in while I was home, as well as to drive to North Carolina (from my home state of Minnesota).  Obviously, this wasn't going to happen in the short time I was home.  I drove up there several times to check on the progress of the car and to drop off a few items for it. 

June 2008

About a week before I left, he had it sanded down and taken to the paint booth for the primer.  I went up to see it, and it was gorgeous.  I ended up having to buy a plane ticket down to Jacksonville since I didn't have a car to drive down there.  I ended up having to get rides from friends just to get around.  This made my next task difficult...

July-September 2008

I started house-hunting, which was hard with no transportation.  I had to borrow friends' cars, get my realtor to pick me up, and had to forego some viewings since I was unable to make it.  I had put in an offer on a house through my realtor, which had been verbally accepted, but I had not put any earnest money down on the place, as I had been unable to get to the bank to get a check for it.  By the time I had dropped it off, they had accepted another offer from another couple who offered full price and had been able to write a check on the spot.  The entire time I had been searching, I was calling and texting Chris asking about his progress.  Since I kept receiving the same answer over and over, I told him it was imperative that he complete the car soon, since I was having trouble getting around.  Finally, he texted me saying we needed to talk, so I called him.  He said he was going out of business working on my car, since he wasn't getting anywhere, and we had already agreed on a set price.  So I said that's it and had the car towed to a trusted mechanic of the family to finish up.  Jon specialized in wiring, and that was apparently all that was left to finish up on the car.  Though I soon found out there were several other things that I needed to get for the car that had never been disclosed (passenger airbag, windshield wiper system, etc) by Chris or Ben.  Jon kept in good contact and would call me on a regular basis updating me and occasionally asking questions about certain things like headlight wiring and the like.

October 2008

I had finally found the right house mid-late September and moved in around the 20th or so.  I had a friend's car that he let me borrow, so I was able to get to and from work with little worry.  It had had a flat tire which we changed out for the spare, which had an even worse hole.  We ended up putting the original back on and used tire sealant to fill the hole.  This knowledge came into play a little later.

I had been informed by Jon that he was pretty much done with the car, and so I had arranged for it to be shipped down, as I had a business conference to attend in South Carolina two weeks later.  Jon had then told me the next day he had a few more things to take care of and I let him know about the transport deal.  This had him a little apprehensive at first, but we sorted everything out and got it all taken care of.  They finally came to pick up the car on a Tuesday, and had issues with the car being too low, so Jon raised it up so it would fit on the trailer.  It was supposed to be delivered on Saturday, and that Friday while I was driving on base, I blew a tire.  Got out and examined it, and the belts were showing.  Probably should've kept my eye on the tires a little better.  Luckily, a couple of the guys I worked with were right behind me, and stopped to help me out.  We drove to the gas station and filled the spare with air (still with the hole in it), and threw it on the car.  We drove back to the barracks, and grabbed some super glue to fill the hole temporarily, so I could limp the car back to my friend's house, which held up surprisingly well.  He dropped me off and shortly after I got a phone call I did not want to hear: the trailer had some integrity issues and the driver stopped to get it fixed and it was going to delay him from making it to my house on time.  So I called up my friend, and we drove the 3 hours or so to where he was parked at and I picked up the car myself and drove home.  It was the first time I had ever driven the car, and it was great, even though it had taken almost a year for me to do so.  Though it turns out all was still not well...

November 2008

The car's MAF/MAS setup was all wrong.  It was set up like a GM/blow-through MAF, but it was a stock MAF that wasn't made to read boost.  This was causing me to run lean and so I needed to fix it.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to weld, nor did I have access to the tools to do so, so I brought it to a shop to fix.  After another bill, the car runs great, except one thing; the blow-off valve vents to the atmosphere, and whenever it does, the ECU doesn't compensate for that lost air and floods the injectors.  This is something I'm still waiting on to fix...