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2G Hello, new to dsm tuning. Can you help tune my new ride?

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bizie

Proven Member
129
3
Jul 17, 2014
hagerstown, Maryland
Finally got my first boosted car. Good old 97 gst with the 16g turbo at 16psi, 272 cams, 550 injectors, safc2 tuner, walbro 250, or is that 255? I don't know but the guy told me 250. It has a full 3" exhaust from the turbo back, it does have a cat, and it does have the ARP head studs. It has a pro-comp ultra lite air fuel ratio meter and when I stomp the gas it's right before the rich zone and often flashes green. When I am just driving normal I barley see the fuel air meter move at all and is usually in the lean zone if it does come up. Does all of this sound normal? This car also has no power steering, the seller said removing it added 10hp, LOL, I almost lost it when I heard that. I mean I could understand maybe a 3hp gain but no way 10hp, LOL. I am a motorcycle mechanic and know very little about turbo cars, any help is much appreciated.

I got the car for $3900 and it was out of tune from the 4-5k rpm range, but only in 3rd and 4th gear. Car pulls hard in all gears until 4k rpm in 3rd or 4th and looses all power. The seller told me its just 3rd and 4th gear being short and I needed to shift, I told him he's lost his mind LOL, this guy...smh... I noticed my air fuel meter going very rich at the time of the power loss. So I started reading and reading about the safc2 tuner and tried to work out the tune. By trimming more fuel away in the 4-5k rpm zone (At -33% now) I was able to get the car to pull all the way through 3rd and 4th gear. For some reason now the tune issue has jumped into the 1st gear where it was not before. Its losing power at about the 3k rpm in first gear only but more so when the engine is cold. I have the tune so good for 3rd gear I am reluctant to mess with it anymore. Also, the 1st gear seems to pull hard once I've been driving for a while and every things nice and hot but when I first start the car pull out of my road I stomp first gear and lose power at 3k rpm. I'm not sure if this is normal for a supped up turbo car or not.

My safc2 Hithrottle settings are as follows, 1000rpm @ -12%, 1600@ -16, 2200 @ -20% 2800 @ -27%, 3400 @ -28%, 4000 @ -33%, 4600 @ -37%, 5200 @ -38%, 5800 @ -38%, 6400 @ -39%, 7000 @ -40, 7600 @ -43%. Do these numbers sound okay for the mods I have? It really seems to pull great for the most part.

I'm from Hagerstown MD and everywhere I call for a dyno tune turns me down when I say I use the safc2 tuner. I don't know why they would since ignorant old me can even make improvements but its still not perfect and I've been slamming 3rd gear around hear for the past two days straight. I really don't want to slam 1st around here since it peels wheels every time.

Can someone help me tune this thing with the equipment that is currently installed? Do I need to buy a fuel pressure regulator? A person I talked to said he has a 450hp eclipse with out one and it isn't 100% necessary. Does anyone know where I can get a dyno tune around here? I think I know where they get the name tuner cars... LOL all day tuning.
 
Looks fine for now, eventually I'd just go pick up a few feet of vac line from the store. The clear tube when it gets hot could collapse on itself because its not reinforced. Usually I go in to the parts store and buy the stuff 10-15 feet at a time so I always have some. But it looks much better.

Yes, the bov is what makes the noise. You do not want to mess with the set screw on the bov. The set screw dictates how much boost the bov can hold before it starts to open. You have to have it set to the correct vacuum so when you let off the boost vacuum can open the valve and dump the air. If you crank it down and you over power your cars vacuum then it won't open at all, that's not good.

As for the tune controlling the boost, no. Well, not with what you have. To have a "tune that controls the boost" you would need link or aem stand alone engine management, a two stage boost controller and lots of tuning.

Like I was saying earlier, you are hitting 20psi because of boost creep.

It sounds like things are getting better, just swap those lines out with some automotive grade vac line. Look into the boost creep issue and I'd get a wideband before a boost controller. Check out ebay for "innovate" widebands. If I recall I paid like $127 for mine, never had a problem with it.
 
I may have found out why the original owner had the brass fitting.

Inside the fitting is two balls and a spring. Tighten the screw and you tighten the spring inside the fitting to only open at a certain pressure. I took it over to my air compressor and tightened it to where it was opening at about 20psi. Then I put that on the wastegate pressure line so that it would only open after 20psi at the J pipe. This seems to be keeping the wastegate closed until I get to the desired boost.

The car is driving great again. I guess I just made a MBC? or not quite? I will be getting one of those with the wideband. I'm not really sure what I did but it seemed to help.
 
t3/t4 is bigger then a 16g so it can push more air. and your boost controller should be loosened or tighten to make more boost. If you have never done it before i would recommend going to youtube and there is prob a how to video.
 
ya ya but put a .56 trim in one and no t25 is gonna keep up and T3 pretty sure stands for 3inch inlet and 4 inch out btw so its much bigger then t25 and 16 which i believe are 2.5"
 
Marc, please don't spread misinformation, just like the bold black writing above the " post reply" button said.

T3/t4 is an exhaust flange size, it has nothing to do with being a better turbo than a 16g. Did you come from hondas? Cuz I smell vtec all over your posts...

His 16g will produce more power than his fwd platform can handle. Unless of course he decides to weld the front diff with stronger axles and drag slicks... which I doubt.

This thread he started is about him tuning and getting what he has NOW to run correctly, which is a very decent setup for a fwd that seems to be a daily driver. As far as I can tell, he wants it to run right, be tuned right, and after a couple of mods (remember to buy the wideband to tune bud) make max power on the 16 g. Which will make this a cloud machine through third gear if done right. 25-27 psi through the fast spooling 16g, fwd, anything less than fourth gear will be a burn out monster.

And your arguement of a 56mm vs a t25, really.... we aren't talking about a t25. Think about spool characteristics of the 56 in a t4 housing vs the 16g. The 16g is two cars ahead before you even hit your boost level... if you arent here to help him fix and tune his ride, then keep it to yourself.


And bizie, if you ever want help outside of 10, 000 other people seeing, who may or may not know that they are talking about (like marc), feel free to pm me. If I don't answer I'm at work. I may not tell you what you personally want to hear as far as "i want boost now mods", but it will be sound advice based on personal trial and error. Really, the basics of this whole dsm thing is making sure you have the fuel upgrades and tuning capability BEFORE you up the boost or the turbo, and try to run with new mustang gt's and z06 vettes... the 550's will take you to about 250... that's all. And 650 is as far as the safc will take you as far as being able to compensate for the injector size. You cannot go above 650. This is still just breaking 300hp.

Now that its thrown into perspective. Now you see the reason dsm link and much larger injectors are recommended. For a goal of about 300-350 hp 850-1000 cc injectors are recommended.

This is waaaaaaay down the road. You still need to boost leak test, do the final fix on the vac lines (with reinforced vac line) and get tuned for now, boost leak free, and with at least a wideband.

I promise you will make power, and your street tires won't keep up. Just get the leaks fixed, wideband, then tune for the boost level. I haven't steered you wrong yet.
 
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not spreading misinformation...he talked about wanting more power and i am pretty sure most t3/t4 exhaust housing come in 3" inlet and produce way more horse power then a 16g will. considering i had one on mine. it was pushing about 420 hp and yes you have to do trans with a diff upgrade but hey i was giving him ideas
He will prob break his diff with the 16g too. consider the spider gears suck ass in a fwd. not that they are any better in an awd. Maybe my tech isnt 100% right but i was pointing him towards some fun shit that makes the car stupid fast.
 
Considering the thread title states, " new to dsm tuning, will you help tune my ride." A turbo swap isn't the best option. He still has no logging capability, he's using a generic air fuel gauge, and this is his first turbocharged car... to me, that is a lack of reading what is really going on and spreading misinformation.

He has about a dozen other hurdles he needs to go through before he even thinks to upgrade from the turbo already on the car. As stated before, his 550's won't cut it. The safc won't cut it. His lack of tuning capability is on the top of the list...

He has 550's, a 16g that was ghetto rigged by a previous owner, and no REALway to tune. Give advice on that.

The best thing this thread has produced is him getting rid of tee ville he had under the hood. He still has to do a boost leak test before ANYTHING is final as far as a tune goes.

Op, trust me, you will tell the difference between a vehicle with leaks, and vehicle that is mechanically sound.
 
And marc, he hasn't hit the max power of the 16g yet, which is WELL ABOVE the street application of the turbo... hell, even some bfg drags will break loose at the 25psi+ this turbo is capable of through 3rd gear.

Assuming he doesn't want to spend $300 per strip/street tire to drive the streets, the 16g should be plenty.

And, as previously stated. He needs to fix what the old owner screwed up first.
 
yup i actually previously said some things he needs to do before he gets anything else like a wideband and dsmlink. But during post he said there goes my extra turbo money and i was giving him a for instance of how much a turbo would cost after. You are kinda like the pot calling the kettle black by telling me to read the post when you obviously didnt read my other posts. Its like you want to argue. I was merely giving him other ideas.
 
I will be sticking with the 16g for this car. My question was just a general question encase I wanted to turbocharge another vehicle of mine like my broke down VR6.

Right now when I floor it in 2nd gear the car lights them up as soon as boost kicks in. Its already silly fast. You think that's only 250 whp? I was thinking I'd be around 300 already the way this thing drives.

I got the stuff that I think I can make my boost tester with, I haven't got around to it yet. I'll post the results.

And yeah this car was ghetto rigged thanks guys for telling me how to correctly hook up the wastegate and BOV lines.

Everyone's post is always helpful for a turbo noob like myself.
 
The article was using this math:
450/550 = .82
1.0-.82 = .18 = 18%
 
Bizie, with your injector setup you are definately in a 250hp and under bracket. The injectors can be pushed past their limits and make more power than that, but typically not 50 more hp.

Here is a good read based on injector size and turbo flow rate. It will give you an idea of where to go in the future. Almost anyone will advise you to go a 1000cc minimum on an injector upgrade if you happened to get link down the road.

All the info is on the second post.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/x-hp-which-fuel-injectors.393264/
 
If you are spinning second i would also recommend looking into better tires. Nitto NT-555r is a good series for hooking up. Suspension also will be very important. But as a warning if there is no transmission work and its stock my biggest and first upgrade with money would be to rebuild the tranny with a quaife dif. http://www.quaifeamerica.com/qdh7b this will cost a lot but will save you a lot more money in the long run. Because the first time you hook hard and you spider gears break and go through your trans case it will be a f***ing nightemare. Now at 250 or less hp you should be fine but any fwd with miles on it this could be a problem in the future. One of my many adventures is breaking 3 trans before replacing with this. I only broke axles afterwards. The shorty tends to break with 300 plus. But when you break it 10 or more times you tend to be able to replace in less then an hour while at the track. I always had another in the back. Dont bother spending more on the stronger ones they break just as much with power in the later game. 400 compared to 90 is a huge difference. So all and all clean up what you got get better fuel management and monitor like the wideband o2 then after that go straight for the transmission it will save you so much time and money.
 
Maybe that is what happened to my Jetta VR6. Its trans is locked up and its sitting in the driveway waiting for me to tear into it.

Holy crap! A G for that differential!? That's crazy. Yeah the suspension is stock also.

Could you guys let me know what it means when you have a 'rewired' fuel pump. I have the walbro 255 and the other day my wife ran the car out of gas but there was no indicator light.

Funny story; here I am in the grocery store parking lot checking grounds an d going through wires. After a good hour of turning the motor, checking wires and hard thinking I finally thought man its acting like its not getting gas, wth. The needle was just shy of E so my first thought was we were good but then I started thinking about the 255 being in there and thought that maybe that did away with the warning light. Man the type of things the car was doing just from no gas was nuts, the thing was even overheating. It would start and idle and then cut out as soon as you hit the gas. I'm lunching, thinking I have to change the water pump and its cutting out because of the high temp. I'm in the parking lot and next door is Autozone so while I thought about my problem I went and got a water pump and then came back to the car, now it being nice and cooled down I was like it'll start and I'll double check that the water is moving or not since last time I had my friend check. Well now it wouldn't even start and then I knew it wasn't the water pump. Not until then did I really think to add gas, uh duh. Man, after that I felt retarded, but at the same time thrilled that the car didn't need work.

Looking at the thing I am wondering how the hell you even get the water pump out. It definitely looks like a fun job :|

So I noticed some loose hoses. I was wondering if I could get help placing the purpose of these being disconnected? I also changed my valve cover last night. That was such a pita because the other idiot that over tightened the bolts and cracked the cover also striped two of the bolts, so I had to retap them. All of this while recovering from a hernia surgery. btw, don't try to yell over top of a women, you could get a hernia...:nono:

Pics of disconnected hosed. To me they look like throttle position sensors but I'm not sure why the original owner would have disconnected them. Maybe he was anti hoes :D because every hose on this thing seems disconnected...WTF

Driver side of vehicle on the firewall there seems to be a bypassed sensor of some sort. Any ideas why or what?
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Now behind the intake manifold is some more hoses at a T with one hose dropped off. Intentional? What and why?
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Same section
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I know with bikes some people bypass TOS (tip over sensors) or other factory safety sensors for stunting. What would be the reason to bypass these sensors on the car?

Thanks.
 
Sorry to hear about your misfortune on the gas gauge. The gas tank level indicator could have been damaged or bent when it was removed to put in the 255. A "rewired" pump means an extra fused wire is ran from the battery to the pump, because the factory fuel pump wiring is know to drop off voltage when it starts pumping out gas at high rpms.

A water pump is typically something you only replace when you do a timing belt job.

The "hoes" you speak of look like a very half ass emission delete, look it up and you will find our what you can keep or get rid of.

Also, doing a boost leak test would rule out if any of those line are actually still necessary. They would leak if still hooked up correctly, if they aren't, the guy before you was just too lazy to pull all of it out. A quick check would be if all your lines (3) are still hooked up to the top of the throttle body, or if they are capped off/ just running to each other with a small section of hose?
 
Not sure on the bottom picture T, but the line on the top right should have a T "assuming you have a boost gauge" and hooked up to the fuel pressure solenoid behind it in the picture. You can see the light red fail paint T i did :D

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[DOUBLEPOST=1414774640][/DOUBLEPOST]Nothing is connected to the Solenoid, so you can try to undo what the PO did or make sure all that jazz is removed and hooked up proper for the bypass. I'd at least put nipples on the open vacuum ports to protect the internals in case you ever want to reuse the part.
 
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