2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X MR Touring - Cora Fountaine

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2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X MR Touring

Cora Fountaine

Instagram: @grimdutchess

Photographer: Josh Walsh (commuter digital), Tmiller (T Miller Media)

Instagram:  @commuterdigital @tmillermedia 

Performance Stats: 500awhp 380tq

My name is Cora Fountaine. I am 36 years old and currently reside in the small town of Mineral Wells, WV. My hometown, Parkersburg, is not far away! I work in the Veterinary Medicine world and in my "spare" time I obsess over my car. Autocross, car shows, races, you name it! I also spend a lot of time cheering on and supporting my daughter's dream of competitive dancing. 

It sounds a little cliché to say that the Fast and Furious movies sparked my interest in cars. I can remember sitting there in the theater with my middle school friends "ooohhhing" and "ahhhhing" over all the cars in the movie. But little did I know, that was only maybe the tipping point for my obsession.  I had grown up tinkering on the John Deere tractors with my papaw from the time I could walk. Handing him tools and learning the ways. Of course, when I was old enough for cars he would tell me "Cars are for boys." But I think he secretly encouraged my interest. I had always dreamed of having "one of those(Fast and Furious) cars".

Why this car you may ask, From since I can remember I had been obsessed with Mitsubishi. 6 out of the 9 cars I have owned in my lifetime were/are Mitsubishi. My first car was a Gen 1 Eclipse which happened to belong to my aunt first. She had bought it brand new off the showroom floor in 91'. When I was 16 it was handed down to me. I was on cloud nine. But the ultimate dream was to own an EVO.

In 2020 I decided to purchase a 2011 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder. My husband, growing bored of watching me tinker on that car to customize it some, decided to buy himself a 2014 Evo X MR. With his car having a turbo, I had grown interested in having a turbo kit made for my Spyder. That idea was curbed when my husband came across the listing for a Rally Red 2010 Evo X MR about 2 hours away from us. I was reminded by him to "keep an open mind" while looking through photos of it. 

We will just say the original owner drove her well!! Also, I couldn't pass up the hell of a deal I got on the car either! The local autocross group had caught my attention around this time and I had always wanted to participate. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to sweep up this car and start competing! The pandemic had just started literally the day I picked Phoenix up from her original owner. In fact, we had only made it 15 minutes down the road before a West Virginia State Trooper pulled us over. Right then and there me and Phoenix were partners in crime till the end! Who knew you had to have a special pass to drive a car without a license plate. (insert sarcastic, feeling dumb voice) I had the title in hand, I thought that should be good enough! 

After all, everything was literally SHUT DOWN. I had to leave Phoenix parked on the side of the road and ride with my husband down to the office to get said permit to drive the car the rest of the way home. Once home the thorough inspection of what needed to be done to the car began. In "keeping an open mind" that meant replacing the old rusted rear cross member that HAD TO GO, dealing with the 5 shades of sun-bleached red paint, and the atrociously dirty and underkept engine bay, did I mention there were no rear brakes? I mean they were there, but I don't think they had ever been changed since the car was originally bought.

Let's also not forget that the car had 185,000 miles on it! I was not the least bit worried as the original owner had kept extensive records of all the maintenance and everything that had been done to the car throughout its lifetime. Little by little we began to raise this project from its ashes. Hints where her name comes from "Phoenix".

The modifications started as just replacing and upgrading what was needed to compete in the local Autocross. But that sun faded 5 shades of red just was not setting well with me. This car was supposed to be one I could beat up and not care about but Phoenix quickly grew on me and I wanted her to look her best! My husband surprised me with the opportunity to repaint the car and I jumped on it! He had also decided to swap out the motor in his Evo with a 2.2 big bore and we would take the motor out of his car with only 30,000 miles on it and transplant it into Phoenix. 

See when we did a compression test on the original motor in Phoenix, it was even across all cylinders but it was not at ideal measurement and she could use some work. So with all that, Phoenix spent the winter of 2020 at House of Pearls in Utica, Ohio for a fresh paint job and then went to Slowmotion Motorsports in Sunbury, Ohio for an engine swap!  Phoenix and I registered for our first Autocross season in Spring 2021. And it was a bit of a rough start. Competing in a car with street tread tires, I like to think gives you the advantage for when you actually get autocross-rated tires. Tires were hard to get ahold of because of the pandemic. 

I wasn't able to obtain a set until later in the season. But boy let me tell you, those Falken Azenis 615 tires really made a difference once we put them on! I only had 3 events left to compete in the 2021 season with those Falken tires on and people would literally ask me what I did to my car. "You shaved like 3 seconds off your time, how did you do that!?"

My reply was simple "I finally got tires!" Phoenix and I finished our first autocross season in second place in our XSA class! Not bad for our first season ever. The 2021 season was full of shows we attended as well. ImportFaceOff really sparked my interest as we had attended some of their events local to us and one of the companies that has believed in my dream of building my car booths at their events. AutocityImports has been huge in cheering me on with my dream of this build. We attended local shows as well. 

The greatest feeling in the world is having kids come up to you and ask you about your car. I'll never forget the little girl who was amazed that a girl drove that "racecar". My response to her was " Hey!! Girls can have cool, fast cars too!!!"  Her eyes just lit up! I also enjoyed the older classic crowd who would come and talk to me. "I don't know anything about your platform but I can appreciate how clean you have your car and your passion." I think this was the greatest compliment of all. The more shows I attended, the more I felt I needed to up my game! 

Every show I would attend I would compare my car to the one who may have beat me. Then I would apply that to my car for the next show. I ultimately decided I would need to widebody my car in order to stay competitive. I shit you not. When I even mentioned the word "widebody", my friends gave me so much crap! 

Especially my good friend Connor Gallagher. See he had been working so hard with me on instructing me with autocross. I owe all I know to him! He pretty much got me to not be such a weenie when driving my car on the course. It showed in the 2022 Autocross season. Phoenix and I took first place in our class. And we had some stiff competition! I still thank Chris Terry for not showing up to some of the events! He was a hard driver to beat! So winter of 2022 was supposed to be when I would send off my transmission to Kozmic but instead, I decided to buy a Varis Widebody Version 2 kit from Bulletproof Automotive in California. 

It was a huge YOLO moment for sure. I ordered the kit in August 2021 and it didn't deliver to my home until January 2022. The 2022 car season was spent auto-crossing and attending shows. It was a fun season for sure! Lots of wins for my Phoenix!

In the summer of 2022, I reached out to Grade-A-Garage in hopes that they would take my project on for the installation of my widebody. Originally I had wanted to install the kit myself. My husband and I do a lot of work on our cars ourselves. But we know our limits and work with the BEST professionals ever! Grade-A-Garage agreed and Phoenix was booked for drop off in October to begin her transformation. Along with the widebody, they would install the Airlift Suspension 3P kit as well. They were also tasked with taking my vision of an airlift setup and bringing it to life. 

they did not disappoint! I picked the car back up in January 2023 and was BLOWN away! They killed that install. I can't recommend them enough. Upon getting Phoenix home from the widebody install we discovered what I believed to be an exhaust leak to actually be a failure in cylinder 1. We are talking about when we compression tested it, zero, zilch, no compression at all. 

My heart sank. But remember when Slowmotion swapped the motor from my husband's Evo into mine? They still had Phoenix's original motor on standby! So we called them up and told them what was going on and that we only had like 2 months to get the original head from Phoenix refreshed and installed before show season started! No pressure right? We got the head back from them two weeks before my first scheduled show. Needless to say my husband and I are pros at putting the Evo in time. I think we have it down to like 1-2 hours tops. We successfully installed the original head. 

Now what is mostly left is to install a Mivec delete and switch my flex fuel system. We have been working with ChagTuned on the tune and so far so good. The 2023 Car Season will be focused on attending car shows. Competing in autocross this year is being put on the back burner as I support my daughter's dream of dancing. She won an opportunity to dance on an Elite Disney Dance team in October of this year. Next year I will need to acquire a second set of wheels to compete on as I have found that my decision on the 18X11 -30 is perfect for daily driving and show but not so perfect for quick, sharp turns. I will need to get a set of 18X10 or 18X10.5, not exactly sure yet. But that is the beauty of car life, you are never done! 

It's surreal to know that I have Phoenix. Never in a million years would I have ever thought that what was once just a dream would come to life. Phoenix is my proof that with hard work and dedication and the right people on your team to work with you, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. It is really hard to find people in the profession that you need that will listen to your vision and bring it to life. Everyone I have worked with has been PHENOMENAL in listening to what I want, and dealing with my ever-changing mind too! Autocrossing is a RUSH! Car Shows are a feeling of carmmunity and just driving the car down a back road is freedom and therapy no money can buy. 

I like to tease all the other widebody evos that I follow that they are just "trailer queens" or "garage queens".  Of course, they know I mean that lovingly and it's not malicious. I bought a car to drive! In 2021 when I got the car back from House of Pearls in December it had literally snowed 3 days after. I was out there driving Phoenix! I got messages "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? ARE YOU CRAZY?!!"  I mean the car has "snow mode" for a reason right?! I do know that I am probably one of the only dumbasses out there to spend so much on rebuilding a car and just drive it everywhere and in the snow and even autocross in it! 

What do you think of the Story?, leave your comments below Thank You.

Build List: 

Engine

• AMS 3.5” intercooler
• AMS wide mouth down pipe
• ETS upper and lower intercooler piping
• COBB SF1 intake with box
• COBB 3 port boost controller
• Borla S-type cat back exhaust
• Mishimoto race thermostat
• Mishimoto X-line performance radiator
• Mishimoto silicone radiator hose kit
• Mishimoto silicone BOV return hose
• AMS Fuel rail
• Injector Dynamics 1300X injectors
• Tial QRJ Recirculating Valve
• Delicious Flex Fuel kit
• Radium engineering double fuel hanger
• Radium engineering inlet filter
• Radium engineering fuel pump re-wire kit
• Walbro 450 high pressure fuel pump
• MAP tubular exhaust manifold
• MAP catted test pipe
• MAP firewall heat shield
• OEM aluminum valve cover custom powder coated by IONX Coatings
• CFM performance billet Valve cover breather 
• Custom powder-coated intake manifold in Orange Sherbert Sparkle by Jake Tracewell
• AEM Fuel pressure regulator
• MAP inline fuel filter
• TRU3576 with turbo smart 22psi wastegate
• GSC valve train
• GSC beehive springs and retainers
  

Dress Up

• Clubspec Chicago power steering fluid reservoir cover with cap
• Clubspec Chicago wire tuck kit
• Clubspec Chicago coil pack covers
• Clubspec Chicago brake fluid reservoir cap
• Superstik precision dipstick
• Oneuplighting underglow and engine bay lights

Exterior

• Carbon fiber fq400 vent
• Vland tail and bumper lights by Corey
• Carbon fiber hood by Carbon Creations
• Ganador carbon fiber side mirrors
• Custom built vland headlights by Akretrofits
• Custom OEM respray  Rally red metallic with Black Titanium Pearl accents by House of Pearls
• Varis Widebody Version 2 full kit FRP and Carbon Fiber installed by Grade-A-Garage
• Varis carbon fiber wing 1600mm
• Titanium Widebody hardware combo 2 in Gold by Dressupbolts

Interior

• Custom carbon fiber steering wheel by Carbonful
• Custom carbon fiber trunk display and brackets for airlift display
• Braum racing harness bar and harnesses sponsored by Braum Racing
• Ortiz triple pillar pod
• AEM boost, AFR and Oil pressure gauges

Wheels/Brakes/Suspension

• Airlift 3p suspension kit
• BcForged USA LE72 Modular Wheels in Gloss black 18x11 -30
• Toyo Proxes Sport Tires 295/35
• Brembo caliper powder coat by Ryan Jarvis with Injector Logic
• Stoptech Rotors
• GyroDisc Magic Pads
• Torque solutions drive shaft carrier bearing support bushings
• Whiteline 27mm adjustable rear sway bar
• Whiteline adjustable heavy-duty rear sway bar end links
• Spiegler stainless steel front and rear brake lines

The Work

My husband has worked side by side with me since day one! He is my biggest fan and supporter. He supports every crazy idea I have and every vision I want to see come to life. He also puts up with me stealing parts of his Evo. I mean, when your car is a lift queen may as well put the parts to use when Phoenix needs them, right?! He loves me! I know he does! HA! We work together and do as much work on the car as possible by ourselves. But we know our limits and when a professional is needed. 

House Of Pearls is the only place that will ever paint my car! They refreshed the paint in the Winter of 2020 and then in the Winter of 2022 painted the body kit of the car without even having the car in their possession! THAT IS TALENT!

Slowmotion Motorsports has been phenomenal in the motor work so far that has been needed. Especially when I burnt the valve in Phoenix with Krakens head installed they pulled the original head off Phoenix and refreshed and prepared it for my husband and me to install at our house. 

Grade-A-Garage did a SPECTACULAR TOP-NOTCH job on fitting and installation of the widebody kit along with the installation of my Airlift 3P system. They also knocked it out of the park by bringing the Airlift Trunk display to life for me! 

Future Plans:

For sure we will be sending the transmission to Kozmic eventually. Phoenix still has a long way to go! I have an obsession with carbon fiber, so anything else I can replace with carbon fiber is on the wish list! I plan to customize the interior more, probably with carbon fiber. The engine bay can still use more work, I mean, carbon fiber. CARBON FIBER EVERYTHING. I have a vision of custom airbrushing I would love to see come to life on the car. The ultimate goal would be to be on the Top 30 Fastest SST list. We have a long way to go for that! 

Advice/Tips

My advice to anyone out there is to build what you want! Don't let anyone get you down or tell you it's not possible! Someone out there is watching you and wishing they were you! Make them proud! 

Shout Outs:

Huge shout out to everyone who has played any sort of hand in helping me bring my vision to life. You all know who you are and you are appreciated more than you will know! 

I make sure to message them and let them know when I get any compliments related to their work. Huge shoutouts for sure to Slowmotion Motorsports (@slowmotionmotorsports), House of Pearl (@house_of_pearls_) and Grade-A-Garage (@grade_a_garage_)! Thanks for putting up with me in my most difficult, unsure moments where I keep changing my mind or didn't really know how to put my vision into words. You listened and you brought everything to life! 

I recently became an official member of Team Elevate Ohio (@team.elevate_) and I am excited to help grow the group and experience all the fun with them!

Looking for a new club? Check these out HERE

The Scene

Carmmunity is a word that comes to mind. The car world is a huge community full of people with different ideas and dreams with their cars. Being able to share ideas and collaborate on projects is fun. Being able to give back to the local community is also a good thing. A few of my local friends have come together with me to support a local charity named Jillian's Legacy to help them raise money for their cause. We will host car shows or small events from time to time to collect donations. 

Jillian's Legacy is a local charity that raises money to send care packages to children in the hospital with terminal illness and their siblings at home. I couldn't think of a more deserving charity to partner with. We get to show off our cars and help them raise money! It's the best of both worlds. I started a small movement #idriveforjillianslegacy to help raise money for them. Jillian was 4 years old when she passed away from a heart condition she was born with. 

Her family hosted a car show in 2021 to help raise funds to continue to send care packages to the children in the hospital and their siblings. A group of my friends attended this car show and immediately knew this was the cause we wanted to support and since then we have done what we can to help raise money for them. 

Dream Car

I literally DRIVE IT

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