Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

I'm not looking at trying to turn our van into something it's not meant to be, power-wise; however...

...the Delica we just sold had plenty of get up and go to pull it's way up the many steep hills in Kamloops. Like I said, I'm not trying to turn our current van into a souped up monster, but it would be nice to work on getting it running more in line with our previous Deli.

I have been reading on some of the ways others have massage a little more power out of their engines, so, I'm trying to prioritize what to start with. Overall, the engine seems to run very well with no black smoke issues, and it has been "Delica Tuned". Here are some of the things to try that I know about, I'm looking for advice on what order to start doing them, or if some (like boosting pressure) that I might want to avoid:

-Blank the EGR
-Install 2.5" Exhaust
-Physically remove and clean out air intake parts (I believe it was Delicat's pictures during his alcohol injector installation?)
-Increase Turbo boost pressure
-Other???

Currently, any more than 2 adults in the van is very noticeable on any hills, however on the flats the top speed is plenty fast. And again, I re-iterate- Iam NOT trying to turn our happy little Deli into a North American PowerBeast, I just want it to run more like its '90 predecessor. Anyhow- any advice is appreciated.

I was just visiting some of my friends in Taiwan who owns a specialized Delica shop, I was amazed to see how their delicas were performing. I was on a Delica that reached speed of 150 km and yet the RPM was under 3000. All their delicas are modded to run like that. Mods include, bigger turbo, change exhaust to 2.5 inch, add inter cooler, tweak fuel pump, add snorkel (it sucks more air and you will need it) and i think that was all. Most of the guy over there don't like AT at all, they even convert AT to MT.
Here is a photo of Spacegear was converted LHD with a 2 inch lift.

Even with all those mods, the fuel economy must be pretty bad at 150km/h though!

Seems like the 2.5" exhaust makes a big difference though?

mdrive wrote:I was just visiting some of my friends in Taiwan who owns a specialized Delica shop, I was amazed to see how their delicas were performing. I was on a Delica that reached speed of 150 km and yet the RPM was under 3000. All their delicas are modded to run like that. Mods include, bigger turbo, change exhaust to 2.5 inch, add inter cooler, tweak fuel pump, add snorkel (it sucks more air and you will need it) and i think that was all. Most of the guy over there don't like AT at all, they even convert AT to MT.
Here is a photo of Spacegear was converted LHD with a 2 inch lift.

photo.jpg

Do you know where to buy a schnorkle for my Deli Max?
Andy Wilson

The turbo boost is easy and takes only 5 minutes. Only works however if your boost is low.

Larry

How was the speed increased with keeping the RPM low?

Todd64 wrote:How was the speed increased with keeping the RPM low?

swapping out the 4.875's to something higher


I've tried a few things over the past few years. What I would go for myself in this order :

1. $100-300 : Delica tune (new nozzles/washers and clean injectors) adjust timing

2. $free or a good tire gauge : Check the tires and psi. too low or too high psi can slow down your Delica

3. $300-500 : 2 1/4 " exhaust, preferably direct from the flange right out to the pipe. I tried 2/2.5 and found 2 1/4" to be the sweet spot.

4. $80-200 : Install a boost & a pyro gauge

5. $free : up the boost and fuel ... check the gauges you installed and play around with it.

Doing steps 1-5 in the order will safely net you the fastest Delica while keeping your wallet intact and without making any major modifications.

Thanks Jesse-

Steps 1&2 definitely done.

Next step, exhaust...

Has anyone kept track of fuel efficiency numbers while going through some of the modifications being talked about. I know this thread
is mostly talking about staying close to stock engineered specs so should only enhance MPG but people are also doing some fairly involved re engineering to these vans. It would be nice to have access to the numbers on the efficiency side of things as well as power
gains. Bigger turbo's, increased boost, intercoolers and alcohol injection are all going to increase volumetric efficiency which should
drive fuel consumption up? If there is a thread that I have missed on this topic perhaps someone could point me in the right direction.
Power corrupts but maybe not Absolutely!
Andy Wilson

Fuel efficiency's biggest determinator (is that a word? I just had a vision of California's governor...) is still your right boot. I took my stock turbo Subaru and did numerous silly things to it including massif turbo, front mounted intercooler, aftermarket ecu and all that fun stuff, but it still returned 10 - 11l/100km.

Of course the aftermarket ecu probably had a hand in that, but it illustrates that when you have more power, you need less right boot to get places in general so that probably helps with the trade off in fuel economy.

Just some fuel for thought :)

Jaz wrote:Fuel efficiency's biggest determinator (is that a word? I just had a vision of California's governor...) is still your right boot. I took my stock turbo Subaru and did numerous silly things to it including massif turbo, front mounted intercooler, aftermarket ecu and all that fun stuff, but it still returned 10 - 11l/100km.

Of course the aftermarket ecu probably had a hand in that, but it illustrates that when you have more power, you need less right boot to get places in general so that probably helps with the trade off in fuel economy.

Just some fuel for thought :)

Good point! I wonder if anyone has crunched the same numbers with the delica mods being discussed. Guten Nacht.
Andy Wilson

I have done some mods.2.5' side exit exhaust,alcohol injection,14.5 psi boost,advanced injection pump.Normal driving 11.2 l/100km.Long trip through Alta,Montana,Idaho & Wash. 10.1l/100km.average speed 100-120 kph.30" tires.

shaun wrote:I have done some mods.2.5' side exit exhaust,alcohol injection,14.5 psi boost,advanced injection pump.Normal driving 11.2 l/100km.Long trip through Alta,Montana,Idaho & Wash. 10.1l/100km.average speed 100-120 kph.30" tires.

So thats about 23 mpg at that speed with the work you have done so far. Did you ever get a chance to check milage under similar
conditions before you did the mods as a baseline measurement to see if the extra power cost you any money at the pump? Sounds like you gained a bit of efficiency if you can get that far on a L of fuel at those speeds. Thanks for the info Shaun I am going to start logging
what I get back and see if I can come up with some kind of measurement of how all these things affect us in the pocket
Andy Wilson

When I first got my deli,I would get around 12.5-13.0 l/100km.That sucked.