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Met THE man who built the IMSA Starion for Team Mitsubishi/Wolin

Komeuppance

By Komeuppance,
in Just plain ol' B.S.

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Komeuppance Newbie

Komeuppance

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My good friend/Mitsubishi addict found the Team Mitsubishi Mighty Max for sale locally here in Oregon... of course we had to go and check it out.

 

http://www.davewolin.com/images/truck1.jpg

So bad ace, he couldn't resist buying it.

 

It came with some spare parts, which were at a shop not far away. We then learned that the shop owner, Fred Lux, was THE guy who built the Coors Racetruck Challenge trucks for Team Mitsubishi/Dave Wolin, which they also took to Pike's Peak. He also built the IMSA Starion for the same team as well as quite a few other Mitsu's.

 

We ended up BS'n with him for hours, before even looking at the engines we were supposed to pick up haha. His shop workers might have liked the disruption we caused because they started taking smoke breaks to listen to the stories. I could tell he was also a Mitsubishi addict, he liked to use the term "cheap speed" in talking about the turbo vehicles. We had discussed about modifications for Starions vs what they did back then. He also told us stories of the glory days, how stingy Mitsubishi was, as well as adventures and exploits... Mitsubishi lovers must be cut from the same cloth lol.

 

One of his first "claims to fame" was a story about the one of the race trucks, crashing through a pile up at high speed at Pocono raceway. One of the big national papers printed a caption that read something like "Mitsubishi truck crashes and turns into ball of flames flying down the track", in the picture they printed, his name on the truck was just barely visible. A proud moment, he joked.

 

Here is one of the pictures he has, almost center stage, amidst the pictures of race Vipers and Vettes he's built over the years:

http://home.comcast.net/~Komeuppance/LuxStarion.jpg

The mythical Starion in IMSA class, among the pictures of Eclipses he'd built, right behind a giant trophy for a Viper race.

 

Here's a picture from Dave Wolin's site:

http://www.davewolin.com/images/imsastar1.jpg

Fred Lux, window side at Road Atlanta 1988.

 

His shop now builds Vipers and Porsches for a national race series, I forgot which, as well as robotics for police and government. He still campaigns a Mitsu in the ChumpCar series, a twin stick turbo Mirage.

 

He also showed us this "drift" big wheel they take to race events, which they like to park next to the line up of Ferrari's or Buggati's, and steal the show.

http://home.comcast.net/~Komeuppance/DriftWheel.jpg

And here he is demonstrating it for us, out in the front of the shop lol.

 

It was great to hear the stories, and see how laidback the man was. Just wanted to share with ya'll. Maybe my friend will post up more about his new racetruck and some more about the legend of Fred Lux and Team Mitsubishi.

 

In the meantime, here's a refresher about the Starion from current owner Chad (also a local Oregon member):

http://www.geocities.ws/chad86tsi/esir1.jpg

Lime Rock 1988

 

This IMSA RS 1988 Mitsubishi Starion ESI-R actualy started out it's life in 1984. That's right, it's an 84 chasis. It was a daily driver for Mitsubishi Vice president d*** Recchia in 1984. Later it was purchased by Dave Wolin for Team Mitsubishi to be converted to a race car.

 

Dave Wolin built all the race cars for Team Mitsubishi in the US and his cars were raced all over the world, including the Parisi-Dakar ralley. He has a breif list of his acomplishments on his own web site at www.davewolin.com.

 

This car was striped to a shell and every single part inclding the unibody chasis was acid dipped to remove all the undercoating and paint. It was then handed over to the race building team for a major build. It took Wolins small crew 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for 3 months to build this car. Parts that weren't painted white were all zink coated and lightend where ever possible. According to Dave, this car is 500 pounds lighter that a show room stock car.

 

It was the first and only Starion to be built in this fashion. It was entered in the 1988 IMSA "International Sedan Series". This class required the use of a stock motor and drive train, but thats the only sinlgle stock item on the car. Despite the stock motor internals there were a few liberties taken when building this car. They include a slightly modified fuel computer and a straight through side exit exhaust was used. It is rated at 177 HP in show room stock form, this motor is at about 220 HP according to Dave. It has had the balance shafts removed and the jet valves were eliminated and welded up, it is also balanced and blueprinted. The rest of the motor and drive train is all stock.

 

One special thing about this car is that it is the ONLY US Team Mitsubishi Starion in existance, all the prior year cars were striped when they reached the end of thier useful life and the parts were used on the next years cars. There is evidence of some of the previous cars body parts being used in this car like red paint showing through in a few places. All Show Room Stock cars in 1986 and 1987 were red. This represents the last Starion built so it is the only one left. Dave told me he estimated it to have cost about $100,000 to buiild, if you look at all the small details you can easily see he under estimated that figure. It is an extreme example of the best you could do to a Starion.

 

This car was only raced in 4 events so it is still in pristene condition, it even won most of those races. I am currently working on a complete restoration, it will look the same as it does now but be in pre-race condition. I'll most likely race it at Portland International Raceway and occasionaly in some of the tracks in California when I finnish the restoration. After this car was raced in 1988, it was retired and has been on jack stands ever since. The Starion program was droped at the end of 1988 for the new Mitsubihi Eclipse program. Soon after the Eclipse program began, Mitsubishi cut it's race programs due to funding issues.

 

Mitsubishi completely dominated the "Show Room Stock" series of racing, taking home more first place finnishes than all other teams in 1986-87. This series consisted of taking a bone stock car straight from the dealer and putting a few safety items on, then taking it straight to the track. Dave told me the primary reason for it's success was the large fuel tank, excelent cooling system, and rock solid engines. Especialy in the 24 hour races, large fuel tanks means fewer pit-stops, nad efficent cooling extends the reliability. Some cars were equaly fast and good in handeling, some had similar fuel capacities, but this car had it all. In all the races the team ran they never lost a single motor, This includes the 24 hour races. When they first enterd the show room stock class in 1984, the won every single race that year!

 

-Robert

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That's awesome....you discovered that cheapness runs across the Mitsubishi chain from owners all the way up to the head honchos at Mitsubishi!! lol

 

Now we know why two injectors! Did you show pics of your black one?

Edited by louswheel01
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Shelby Newbie

Shelby

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reminds me of a day Matt Penick000 was seting at the Don Garlis museum and these old guys ( about my age :) ) came over and sat down on the bench with us,,we all started shooting the breeze turns out they were Don's old pit crew , one of them's daughter was in the same school Matt was and they even remembered my old C-Gas Hemmi from back in the day running at Shelby Race Way in Ohio , it's a small world
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Shelby Newbie

Shelby

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nice man, Dave Wolin is selling two demo cars on Craigslist right now down in Yosemite. I miss my mighty max haha

 

to be very honest I miss mine also but some times you have to do what you have to do , I do regret that it's having some performance problems , wish I could help straighten it out for the new owner

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TurboDoorHandles Newbie

TurboDoorHandles

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Good poat robert. That was a fun day. I'm the one who bought the race truck. I believe it is number 88 after researching some of the log book entries.

 

Fred lux had a lot of interesting stuff to say. The 12 or so hks engines that they got were only raced in sone stadium trucks. I've yet to see a picture of those trucks either. So no starions were dohc minus the hks rally one.

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I'll try amd post up some more pictures. The teuck was bought by charlie h3xom back in 89. It continued to race for a few yeara ay portland and a few otjer race tracks. Hexom and fred lux turbo swapped it partially. They took a old firehawk starion engine they had laying around.

 

Unfortunately it sat for some time and hexom passed away. Keith picked up where he left off. They installed a 30g race cel, air to water intercooler, old tep modded mpi intake, a tec 2 among some other things. It went to one track day where he lost oil pressure, then it sat ever since in a garage.

 

After dexiding i had the number 88 truck, i wanted to confirm so i contacted dave wolin. Luckily he replied back, and we are workingnto see if this is the 88, or what truck it would have been. Dave said they had a ton of the trucks and some were show trucks, some were backups, sone were rally. Since i have a log book with a full history of 87 and 88 it should be a raced one.

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TurboDoorHandles Newbie

TurboDoorHandles

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here are some pictures of the truck. I just finished installing the new turbo engine. Leaving the 12a on for now, and will tune it later for a 14b, and will soon be upgrading to a starion trans with hydraulic pedal due to the lack of strenth a stock truck km132 can handle.

 

Great video of a coors truck race. and a close up of the 87 mitsubishi

 

575658_10202164639098875_148407010_n.jpg

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http://www.davewolin.com/images/truck4.jpg

 

Pikes peak, mitsubishi finished 1, 2 and 3 in their class

http://www.davewolin.com/images/pptruck.jpg

 

 

hks flywheel, I actually got 2 of these along with an hks downpipe

1380137_10202165969372131_653996238_n.jpg

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1380591_10202165969012122_1497487392_n.jpg

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