Living under the shadow of its big brother flagship 3000GT, the Mitsubishi Galant VR4 produced between the year 1993 and 1996 is relatively unknown to the car enthusiasts over on this side of the Pacific.
Chassis code named E84A it is a line topper for the Galant line up (E54A in Asia, and E56A in North America). The E84A came equipped with a 6A12 V6 twin turbo motor that had its roots shared with the
FTO sports coupe. The turbocharged sedan was rated at 240PS while the Lancer Evolution of the same era was rated at 250PS. This was a blatant marketing spoof to make the EVO the more attractive option of the two. Many videos and tests show that the Galant VR4 mule is underrated and it is not any slower than a Lancer Evolution I of the same era.
Mitsubishi decided to trade off its legendary power house 4G63 and its parts availability for the smoothness and sophistication of the quadcam V6 appointed with two Mitsubishi made TD025 turbochargers. The dual turbo charger means that the turbos charge in air from left side of the car, through an intercooler and into the right side of the car where it enters the engine, making the installation of aftermarket intercooler almost a no-brainer. Factory intercooler was small, oil cooler you find on an EVO and the E39A Galant VR4 have been replaced with a water-to-oil heat exchange unit (similar setup can be found in Mazda 626 and MX6 turbo) and a watersprayer was not available, making the V6 mule at a disadvantage when driven hard for a long period of time.
Despite the fact that Galant was well engineered for the market segment, it came out at the wrong time. It was the first years of the oil crisis (the Japanese version) and the market collapsed for mid-size family sedans. High performance models suffered even more.
Galant's variant, the Emeraude was released because hard-top (i.e. big sedans missing their B-pillars) was a hot item back in the 92s but it simply missed the boat and the Emeraude name completely flopped and disappeared into the depths of Japanese automotive history. The Eterna had been lucky and Mitsubishi managed to sell its blueprint to Proton and it lived in other countries as Proton Perdana:
US car makers also used the Galant platform and produced the Chrysler Sebring among our favorite 2G DSM products.
Little was it known that the Galant VR4 is technically more advanced than the EVO using the (then) state of the art four wheel steering system (which implements a yaw sensor also used in Evolutions today, plus wheel speed sensors as well as wheel crank angle sensor) to make the car "feel" smaller than it actually was. At low speeds and large steering angle the steering system will steer the rear wheel out-of-phase with the front wheels and switch to in-phase at higher speeds and smaller steering angles. Wherever the Evo1 had an LSD the VR4 had an LSD as well. What comes standard on the VR4 are ABS and double wishbone-like multilink suspension setup all around for excellent ride control; for the "premium" feeling it has everything the Evolution had and some comfort items such as electric power seats, full leather interior, electronic damper controls and a fully automatic sunroof as one of its many options. Same as the situation of the 7G Galant in US of A, the Galant shared most of its suspension components with a North America only 2G 1995-1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse, but the Galant is equipped with a more low-end acceleration friendly final gear ratio of 3.909:1.
According to this nutter in the land of the transvestites, a Galant VR-4 is capable of some serious figures from very light mods:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwI-HR0dRGAand this other nutter in the land of the upside-down running his 12s on a light tuned one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPM4jVNe0Pw&feature=userDue to its rare presence in the tuner's world, there are very few parts for it, and because of its tricky V6 configuration, it was never a very popular platform amongst tuners (not to mention only a very very small number were produced, a Galant VR4 E84A is definitely more rare than a Lancer Evolution I) The other variant is (and this is truly a rare car, and I think should be a damned collectible) this:
now you have seen everything. Chassis code is different for the hatchback this is called the E74A....yet...
This car shares all drivetrain components of the regular 4 door galant VR4 while having a versatile 5 door hatchback body excellent for the ride to Whistler or Cypress, carrying large TV while still doing 13 sec quartermiles at ease. This is a cool car, and if anyone else appreciates this, he's a cool dude.
Anyway here is some fun with a VR-4. LSD in all differential cases FTFW.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2w3sLNHNEwI love my car. It just needs more work to be perfect.
