team oranges debuts new RWD EVO @ebisu

[Driving Sports]

I know Kuma has cash to burn but whats the benefit of switching the motor's position like that?

Why not just use one of the RWD kits?

Can anyone provide any insight?

Just like the Team Orange WRXs Jun Auto has built and funded the build of this EVO. Plenty of logic has gone into the decision even aside from the engineering aspect. With the plethora of very good tuning shops here in Japan you have to keep innovating or you'll disappear from the radar.

I've seen it happen enough times. You'll have a shop that has built an amazing car and for a while they get plenty of attention. While they are basking in that lime-light a number of other shops are going to be showing off their skills with amazing builds. If you don't continue to innovate you will be forgotten. From a marketing standpoint Jun has built a car everyone here in Japan and now overseas is talking about before it's even finished.

In regards to the engineering aspect. What they've done is taken what would have been a potentially unreliable setup (AWD locked out to RWD) and made it reliable. It's now much simpler with less parts that can fail. They've also made it much easier to quickly change missions if it happens to fail during competition.

I may be completely off base but I recall watching some of the Drift Zone podcasts and seeing a Formula D driver that competes in an EVO continually having to retire from competition because of mechanical problems related to the mission/diff. Jun has essentially made all those potential problems go away.

[Tiso]

I would like to see what they did with the transaxle. Def. had to do some custom fabby in the driveline area.

[Toycoma]

having the car set up the way it is most likely improves the weight distribution and makes for a stronger driveline than converting the original setup. that and a big part of drifting is flexing your engineering skills to build a killer setup that still turns heads.

plus they might have used the freed up room to move the strut towers in some to make room in the wheel wells for more steering angle with out having to push the wheels really far out. I would think, no matter what the reason, JUN knows what they are doing and that is why they moved the motor.

I like the WRXs more though.