Project Overview 2007 P.1

[nrml]

Heya, I know most of you, rather, all of you have probably never seen a post from me. So, I thought I'd change that. I present to you:


Project Overview 2007 P.1


Who: Myself and my girlfriend (yes, she actually works on the car with me) under our alias NRML Tuning.

Goal: To build a clean purpose built road race car; to enjoy doing it.



Buildup: Primarily A Visual Guide



Phase I - The Begining


Here is the original car, a 1989 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX:

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I'm 6'4" and didn't fit with a helmet, so I decided to cut out the floorpanel for a custom low seat:

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Cut rails, Welded in brackets:

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Phase II - Simple Details


Braking is probably the most important thing we'll be doing, so we went with a set of stoptechs. The build quality is great, they work extremely well with a good balance. My only complaint is the proprietary hat makes paying for rotors more expensive than it should be.

Stoptechs mounted:

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The CV joints looked a little worn, so we replaced them with raxles. Ordering was simple, the staff was friendly, the package arrived fast. The build quality is exceptional, highly recommended.

Raxles:

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Next on the list was exhaust. I didn't see ANYTHING on the market that was what I was looking for. So we built our own exhaust.

V-band flanged 2.5" downpipe to a 3" magnaflow (that sits under the driver) followed by a 3" borla with an intercooled tip on the end. Both mufflers are straight through design, we run the gate as an open dump, it's louder than we had hoped, but not as loud as it use to be with only one muffler.

Pic from below to the rear of the car:

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Pic of the rear of the car:

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Next we threw some volks on it, with some Toyo RA1 rubber and enjoyed it for awhile..

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Phase III - Interior Considerations


We went with a set of defi gauges, mounted on a simple custom gauge panel. Overall, aside from the color, I really like the Defi gauges. The stepper motors are charming, the memory features are really useful for tuning and the built in visual ques are extremely useful.

Defi gauges mounted:

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Next we stripped out the interior, removed all the insulation / extraneous materials. Painted it and reassembled it. We also built a reverse mount for the e-brake. (it wouldn't fit with the custom dropped floor panel)

Shot of the interior:

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[nrml]

Phase IV - A New Hearbeat


After running her for awhile, we soon realized that with 140k on the engine, that it wasn't likely to survive long with the sort of punishment we were ancitipating. Time for a teardown..

Removing the head, my shamefully dirty enginebay at the time:

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Cherrypicker to remove the block:

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Car on stands:

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I was thinking of buying a custom intake manifold, but after long consideration decided to rework the original. (for reasons I will not go into here in this post) As such, here is the before and after.

OE intake manifold:

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Reconditioned intake manifold, by method of jet washing & extrude honing:

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Then, we inspected the exhaust manifold. We carefully measured the cylinder head and the exhaust manifold and port matched them. Afterwards we coated the manifold in a high-temp paint.

OE exhaust manifold port:

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Porting job:

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Re-painted mainfold:

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The next step was a new longblock. I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching both my options and the companies who would do the work. After a series of correspondence between several engine builders, I finally decided on FFWD Connection. And, without a doubt, I can tell you that I would not have received a better product, nor, better service anywhere else. PERIOD. Darren King worked with me personally over the course of 3 months, dealing with all of my questions, concerns and last minute changes. He even responded to me on Christmas EVE, it blew my mind. And as far as price, he was just as competitive as any other builder. (you must, I emphasize "MUST", seriously take into consideration what you are getting with a longblock before you acccidentally make an "apples to oranges" comparison of engine builders)

The details of all of my particular spec are in the PDF at the end of this document. Sufficient to say that I wanted a 2.0 forged engine, with moderate porting, aggressive cams, and 8.3:1 compression.

You may now find this exact combination as a build option on the FFWD Connection site: (in fact, that is a picture of my motor)
http://www.ffwdconnection.com/20new.shtml

Here is the longblock:

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Next was the turbo.. After an awkward amount of correspondence with Forced Performance, we finally managed to get our hands on a GT3076R.

GT3076R mated to the exhaust manifold:

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Finally, we wrapped it all up by replacing every single fastner in the engine bay with a new OEM fastener. I'm sure the staff at Norco Mitsu wanted to kill me with my 427 item part list of specific bolts.

 

[nrml]

Phase V - Fabrication Makes Me Cry


Small projects can sometimes turn into big projects. This happened to us in the fabrication department. The biggest priority was to simply build a FMIC & IC piping. Why not buy a kit? Well, I'll get to that.

We decided on a bar and plate intercooler, primarily for it's space saving size, as we wanted to retain an UNMODIFIED front bumper support.

Here is a test fitment of position on the bumper:

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Here is the IC piping from the compressor:

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Why did we need a custom FMIC? For our custom bumper with brake ducts, obviously.

Here is the backside, you can see how the ducts are attached:

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Here is the front side, bondo applied for smoothness:

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Next I wanted a a custom radiator setup, primarily to allow airflow in front of the engine. So we built brackets to hold push style fans to the of the radiator.

Here is the front of the car with the push fans:

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Here is the clearance between the radiator and the turbo, awesome huh?:

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It was necessary to move the oil cooler to the side like this:

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Next on the list was to get the air out of the engine bay, guess we'll need hood vents.

Initial fabrication of the hood vents, yes, that's me:

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A shot of the vents in progress:

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My girlfriend cleaning up some bondo work on an old dent:

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[nrml]

I still wasn't satisfied with the airflow to the engine bay. So we removed the useless center piece on an early 1G and started to hack it up for a molded intake.

Initial cuts on the original piece:

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Here is our current progress on converting it to a molded intake:

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Finally, since we were at it, we decided to close up the two holes on the rear spoiler.

Patchs for the antenna and wiper holes:

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Phase VI - Nearly Complete


OK! You've made it this far, I guess you deserve it.. Here is my glamor shot of the engine bay as it stands now:

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I'm sure I left out 60% of what we did, but, that's why it's called an overview. There is still a lot left to do (paint job, roll cage, etc.), I'll try and post another update as the project nears completion. Hope you enjoyed it / inspired you to work on your DSM. Boost on!


PDF of all the specs: http://tuning.nrml.cc/other/89_GSX.pdf
NRML Tuning: http://tuning.nrml.cc/

Thanx to:
FFWD Connection for a beauitful motor: http://www.ffwdconnection.com/
Raxles for a superior product: http://www.raxles.com/
My girlfiend, who is also a musician, so I will shamlessly plug her site: http://www.madworldrecords.com/

 

[diddy456]

Very clean!... GREAT WORK! What are you looking to be running in this beast?

 

[DSM Jeff]

Very very nice build up. I'm impressed with all the details. Goodluck with the project and racing.

 

[Auto RS T]

Very nice. The detail and effort really show.

 

[madgrrl]

What are you looking to be running in this beast?

I'm assuming you mean timeslip, I think we would prefer to give you an actual number versus an estimation. That said, this car was not built for 1/4 track, instead, we want to take it to tracks like willow springs, Infineon/Sears Point and even the Portland International Raceway for time attacks.

I'm sure dyno results will also follow!

-mp-

 

[DSMunknown]

Keep it going. She's pretty easy on the eyes, too.

 

[brute]

Subscribed. As noted above, the effort and attention to detail absolutely shows. There's nothing I like better than a clean project. Keep up the awesome hard work and try not to let little stuff discourage you too much!

 

[2gGSX]

+1 on the great effort, I can't wait to see it when everything is officially completed. Your custom jobs are also very clean and well done.