Curt's Cordia
I bought my first Mitsubishi Cordia in June of 1993. It was an 88 Cordia L model (non-turbo) I owned this Cordia for two years and sold it to my older brother. He owned it for a few more years. Between the two of us, we put over 100,000 miles on it. It was very reliable. Here are a couple of pics:
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In January of 2000, I was browsing around on autotrader.com for Cordias. Usually there are 5-10 of them for sale around the United States at any given time. And a few of these will be turbo models. I came across an 88 turbo model that was only 10 miles from my house. It was red and looked exactly the same as my old one. Between the nostalga and college memories, I had to buy it.
Some of my friends questioned why I bought this car. I already had two other cars. (95 Dodge Stealth R/T TT, 96 Mitsu Eclipse GSX) But I wanted a car to tinker with and learn more about cars on. Well I got my chance with this new Cordia. It needed a rebuild on the engine. The number 3 cylinder had only 50psi of compression. Normal is around 125psi.
I did manage to do a few mods before the rebuild. I put a breather filter on the catch can so it didn't filter oil into the aircan. I put in a K&N filter and cut open the aircan. I also took 6 inches off the shifter. Also replaced the shifter boot with a nice black leather one and put on a new shifter knob. I also installed an Autometer boost gauge. Before the rebuild I aslo put new plugs and wires on the Cordia and a MSD ignition coil.
A good friend, John Basol, and I proceed to rebuild the engine in April of 2000. After six months and a lot of stress and hard work the rebuild was complete. Here are some pics of the rebuild:
 This is right before we started. The first thing was to take off that hood. |
 Valve cover is off. |
 Intake manifold is off. Notice that ugly looking EGR pipe. Guess what didn't go back on the car. ;) |
 Curt playing Superman with the intake manifold |
 Both intake and exhaust manifolds off |
 Head is off |
 You can't tell in these pics, but the #3 piston has a chunk missing between the rings |
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 The head |
 Notice the tiny jet valves. Can you say, "BAD MITSUBISHI DESIGN" |
 The turbo with with pre-cat attached |
 This is a TC05-12A turbo. The 12A has fins that are spaced wide apart |
In October of 2000 the rebuild was complete. I'd like to thank John and Russ for all there hard work. There is no way I could of tackled this rebuild without them. Here is a partial list of things replaced or refurbished on the Cordia: new pistons, rings, rod bolts and nuts, valves, valve guides, cleaned head, block bored .5mm over, all new belts, water pump, oil pump, fuel filter, and re-cored radiator.
I took this pic of my Cordia with my other cars in the end of October:
After the break-in period of 500 miles, I proceeded to get some performance numbers using my G-tech pro meter. The temps were around 15 degrees Farenheit. But the G-tech came up with 131hp at the crank and 0-60mph times of 8.39 to 8.74 seconds. The only mods are the K&N air filter and a gutted pre-cat. The boost is stock. It would spike to 8psi and then come down to 7psi. The 0-60 times were tricky because with all the sand on the roads in a Minnesota winter, getting traction was tough. Here is some pics of the new engine bay:
A fuzzy pic of the engine and my catch can with a breather filter on it
