Worlds Fastest

The worlds fastest, when you say that names like Usain Bolt, Brittany Force, Carl Lewis and Gertrude come to mind…wait Gertrude? Oh you don’t know Gertrude the worlds fastest Mitsubishi Galant VR4, well you’re about to get schooled in an unusual wild and very rare Japanese legend built by Mike Gombos in a single car garage that ran 8.74 @163mph in the 1/4 mile. The car has been a passion project for Mike over years that has included 2 different shells and countless parts dug up by a friend to create a build you won’t see every night at your local drag strip!

The DSM love affair started in Mike with his first car a non turbo 2nd gen Mitsubishi Eclipse. DSM stands for Diamond Start Motors (some say Domestically Sold Mitsubishi) was an automobile-manufacturing joint venture between the Chrysler Corporation and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation and generally refers to the original first- and second-generation Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, Laser, and the 4 door option Galant which all shared the same vehicle platform. As Mike put it, his first car was “painfully slow,” so he decided he needed to find a turbo 1st gen Talon TSi. He luckily found one on a DSM forum (rip forums) and after blowing the motor ***cough*** street racing, he was a broke high schooler with no ride. So he did what most of us broke kids had to do and decided to take the motor out and rebuild it himself.

Mike put the bottom end together and while attending a vocational school decided it needed a cage as well. Then the car sat…for 15 years until a buddy of his put it back together and started it for the first time last year. Needless to say Mike has never had the chance to take that down the strip. Fast forward a few years, many DSMs and a Cavalier later Mike was pushed by his long time friend, and partner in crime, to get a Galant! Dan has been one of Mike’s mentors and gives a lot of credit to him for helping him along. Dan is an old school Galant guy who has owned 5 of them, previously held the worlds fastest title and is the go to resource if you want to make one of these fly down the track.

The 6th gen Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 (Viscous realtime 4wd) was the range-topping version of Mitsubishi Motors' Galant model packed with the coveted 1st gen turbo 4G63 producing up to 195 horsepower, giving the 4 door sedan a top speed of over 130 mph (210 km/h) and allowing it to accelerate from 0–60 in 7.3 seconds, with a quarter mile elapsed time of 15.3 seconds. To get real nerdy Mitsubishi developed this one of a kind high performance four-wheel drive, and equipped the Galant VR-4 with "Dynamic Four" (Mitsubishi AWC), which featured a center differential-type full-time four-wheel drive system (this system incorporated a viscous coupling unit), a four wheel steering system, four-wheel independent suspension, and a four-wheel ABS. Transmissions came in either a 4 speed auto or 5 speed manual with only 2,000 examples shipped to the US in 1991 and 1,000 examples in 1992 making this one rare vehicle.

Mike found his first Galant in Syracuse, NY and drove it home in pretty much stock form with the 5 speed manual and daily drove the car for a while. He fully built the motor with all of the upgraded bolt ons. After a few different setups Mike broke into the 9s with a 9.82 @143mph with the original shell in 2015 with the help of some of Dan’s parts. After breaking the transmission Mike put it to the side for a while and street drove it while he was saving up for a new upgraded transmission. In 2017 Mike decided the northern winters had taken rusted the shell enough that he needed to swap it out if he wanted to continue to race the car. Luckily Dan had an extra shell behind his garage that he gave him, this Dan theme will be constant throughout…

The stock 4G63 6 bolt motor Mike started with was high mileage, had some compression issues and wanting to put down reliable horsepower he rebuilt it with quality parts. Mike started with Manly Turbo Tough steel rods (stock length), Wiesco HP Evo pistons with larger wrist pins that upgrades the compression to 10:1 and Kelford Cams. The motor was taken to Ray at Station Auto in Coriopolis, PA to get all of the machine work done. Mike ported his own head and the machine work and valve job was done by Luke at PNR Engine Rebuilders.The turbo is a Forced Performance 4299, EGS 4” FMIC and JM Fab race intake round up the cold side of the induction system. The setup is managed by gear and on his record setting pass Mike was pushing 46lbs of boost at its peak. A Fuel Tech FT600 engine management system makes sure everything plays nice and is tunable. Mike reports that if you’re going to go fast running a stand alone ECU the only way to go. Cheating the stock ECU gives you nothing but fits and chasing down gremlins. The system also has an integrated dash setup that ensures Mike can see everything going on with the car.

All of this amounts to around 850-900 at the wheels and over 1000hp at the crank. Let me also remind you this is on the stock crank without any additional support from a girdle! Mike says that for the most part, I know this is going to shock some Eclipse guys, the motor has been reliable and only the transmission has given him fits. Mike estimates all in you can build a similar setup it would run you about $5-7K.

The transmission is a stock case with a PPG dog box gear set and upgraded clutch set. Thats right, Mike manually rows through the gears with a clutch pedal like man…eat your heart our automatic guys! A custom lock out shifter helps Mike get through the gears without worrying about a missed shift. The front differential has been upgraded with a new bell housing, stuffed with a Quiafe LSD and the rear subframe has been cut out to fit a 3000GT rear end to beef it up and handle all of the extra power. The wheels and tires are Rota Slipstreams 15x7 all around on M&H race master 24” slicks. The suspension is JIC magic coilovers that gives him full adjustability to dial in the weight transfer just right. Breaks are in the form of Brakeman front drag brakes and Willowood rear drag brakes to keep the unsprung weight low.

Weight savings is the name of the game when it comes to racing and Mike has not overlooked this part of the build. On the outside he has swapped the steel hood for carbon fiber and the trunk for a fiber glass piece, both coming from Dan. The front bumper is JDM spec with some clearance for the intercooler. Interior is gutted to save weight and only the skeletons of the factory doors have been cut out. A Lexan windshield from guess who, Dan shaves quite a bit of weight from the front of the car. The rear bumper has the hole cutout treatment to save any additional weight that might not be needed. Curtis Kain from Boosted fabrication built the motor mounts but is also working on a subframe that would save 30-45 lbs. Mike estimates all of the gets him in the 2300lb range with him in the car. To put it into perspective originally the car came off the line at about 3200lb! The rest of the body remains stock and is mostly steel!

When Mike started the build he didn’t go out to be the world fastest Galant but like anything else in the car world things start to progress. Mike’s first task was hitting a 9 second 1/4 mile which he met in 2015. It was Dan’s dream to go 8’s so Mike had his eyes on becoming the first Galant in the 8’s. This was foiled when someone ran 8’s a month before Mike did. Mike states that holding the crown as fastest doesn’t keep him up at night but while he was chasing the record he was staying up to date on what others were doing. The ultimate goal now is to be the first to break into the 7’s which won’t be done this year as he is taking the year off to build the next phase of the car.

Mike has built 99% of the car by himself and takes great pride in doing this. Everything that you see and some of the items you don’t, have all been touched and worked on by Mike. He bent all of the cage tubing with a borrowed bender, notched and welded with patterns he designed based on the SFI rule book. He did all of the body work himself and painted it in his 20x20 garage as well as all of the fab work for the hot and cold side piping. Wiring and all tuning was done by Mike and has become a go to guy in the northeast for tuning. His side hustle called “Gumby Tuned” has allowed him to work on some awesome rides in the area. Including the price of the car and all of the sweat equity invested Mike estimates he has $40K in his Galant. Pretty good value for the crown of “worlds fastest” if you ask me…

In the never ending pursuit to go faster Mike will be getting a Porsche style drive by wire 82MM throttle body with an Evo X pedal and further on down the line tiered traction control. An upgraded billet intake manifold and a homemade forward facing exhaust manifold to help the rebuilt motor breathe better. A full set of Kiggley Racing internal accessories to further bulletproof the motor and hold everything together. Mike will be filling the block and swapping over to a mechanical fuel pump to beef everything up for, wait for it…possibly pushing upwards of 50psi of boost.

Mike is a true grassroots racer and has a day job that involves him being a plant engineer at a vinyl extrusion company. He works on his cars in his spare time and is quick to lend a helping hand to any racer in need. He is humble and gives credit to many of the guys that supply him with parts and especially with his friend Dan. I have no doubts that Mike will be hitting that 7 sec number really soon and I hope I am there to see it live. If you want to know more about Mike and his Galant you can find him on Facebook at Michael Gombos or on Instagram @gumby4g63 where you can see all of his progress and an awesome MR2 that he will be K swapping. If you need some custom tuning done hit him up and i’m sure he would be more than glad to help you in any way. I want to thank Mike for bringing out the car while he is in the middle of offseason upgrades and I can’t wait to see that thing on the track live!