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Stock 1g and 1st time on Road course/Help!

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74runner

10+ Year Contributor
137
3
Nov 21, 2009
Brantford, ON_Canada
Hey everyone!

I've tried to use this link but it wont work for me:

Guide to setting up your car for road racing (1G):
Tech Guide: 1G Road Race Setup - DSMtuners

I've basically got a stock '91 Eagle Talon Tsi awd 5spd. I've done all the maintenance and gotten the car running and shifting nicely now and want to take it on a road course in 4 days, Friday Aug 29 2014!!

MY QUESTION IS:
What part/s should I install now to give me the best results for my first time out or will it even matter right now? LOL

Track web site:
http://www.torontomotorsportspark.com/raceway/videos.php?id=8

The car has been lowered but I don't know with what components. Possibly KYB
I bought and installed some aluminum rims fitted with Maxtrek ingens 235/45zr17 tires.
I've installed a front upper strut bar.
The air can has been hacked and the bcs restrictor has been removed.
I've installed a 190 fuel pump.
I've installed a boost gauge and was getting 7psi but am now up to 9psi after fixing some leaks.

I'm looking to buy a boost controller for sure before track day!

PARTS I HAVE:

I have a fmic and pipes.
I have a new stage 2 Exeddy clutch and machined lightened stock flywheel.
I have 550 injectors.
Polyurethane tranny bushing.

STUFF I HAVE BUT CAN'T USE YET.

I have a 16g turbo but needs a rebuild so thats out for this week.
I have a 3' down pipe with flex pipe down to the cat.From the cat down it would be all stock exhaust at this point.
An Evo Maf don't ask me from what year. I don't have a way to hook it up or use it yet. #'s on it are: 609 E5T06071
The cams out of that same Evo.
And a set of adjustable cam gears.

QUICK THINGS I COULD DO:

Remove the A/C belt, doesn't work any way.
Remove the balance shaft belt.
Empty the trunk, tire, jack, carpet, ect.
Adjust tire pressure, but to what psi????
What else???
 
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Ugh, the advice thus far besides possibly the clutch (assuming you know the existing one is due replacement) is awful and not given by people who have a clue regarding being on a road course. Drain your coolant and put distilled water and water wetter. Get some track brake pads (call carbotech, probably xp12/10), and flush your brake fluid with something like motul rbf600. Address ALL fluid leaks and mechanical issues, especially in the suspension. Check tire tread for at least 3/32" of tread. Touch nothing mod-wise and go learn to drive. You are not racing and will prove nothing by making last minute changes that can can easily botch your weekend if anything goes wrong with them.

A quick and dirty way to set tire pressures is to lower about 5 psi from stock, mark the sidewalls with a wax crayon or some chalk over the edge of the tread and then after your first session see if you rolled over the edge of your tires or not by examining the marks. If you did, add air, and if not up to the edge of the tread, let some out. Once near the edges you can with pressures to tweak understeer/oversteer a little.
 
tsiawd666 is on point there is no replacement for seat time and start with suspension and cooling mods before power and atleast the two piston caliper upgrade stopping is a beautiful thing the injectors are useless with a stock maf and no tuning definitely would invest in ecmlink you could up your boost to like 13 psi though but i would make sure u have all boost leaks eliminated and is your psi off stock dash gauge or aftermarket u didnt say
 
You will be sorry for following the advises given, except for what TSIAWD666 posted, and to add to it, you will have plenty to keep you busy if you want to keep the car under you, go a step at a time, the first problem you will have is yourself, follow by your brakes going away and your temps for everything going way high.
This will be your first time, and you will have plenty of opportunities in the future, dont go out to set the track on fire, use as little boost as possible, drink plenty of fluids.
Make sure all your fluids are fresh, take care of mechanical issues before going to the track, keep track of you tires as stated before.
Have fun and stay safe.
 
I race a mostly stock AWD car so my advice is.....

For engine cooling, I did find that running the heater full blast on defrost does help with the temps....Make sure your ducting to the rad is in place so it forces air through the rad instead of around it. Same applied is you use the stock intercooler.

Your brakes will be the weak link, period. Even the two piston upgrade isnt enough for heavy car, especially once you do your power mods. But a 2 piston upgrade with race pads and top of the line brake fluid and you can manage.

Camber bolts for the front struts as you will need to get a lot more front camber than you have. Real quick to do and cheap.

Make sure you understand tire pressures, where to start. Buy a cheapo laser thermometer, make sure you have a pressure guage and take notes on that.

Seat time as what others have mentioned. Stock or heavily modified, knowing your starting tire pressures is key.

My car ( and from what I understand ) the 1g has a natural push. I helped minimize it by a upgraded rear sway bar.

The cars weak links are brakes and handling and weight. Active toe elimination kit, rear sway, poly bushings, camber bolts, strut bar will all help once you are past the newbie stage. I have upgraded to the VR4 brakes, race pads and added brake cooling ducts and still have a problem.
 
As John said, save the mods for later. If you start modifying your car only 4 days before the event, you're greatly increasing the chance that something mechanical goes wrong and you'll spend your day wrenching in the pits instead of having fun on the track.

Just make sure you have fresh brake fluid. Track compound pads will allow you to run more consecutive laps without fade, but you could get away with your street pads if you just run short stints. If you're getting an instructor, chances are you'll be going relatively slow for the first half of the day anyway.
 
I wouldn't bother with the FMIC. It will just hurt airflow thru the radiator, and you'll need all the cooling help you can get. The SMIC will be fine on a stock car. I would probably pull it out and clean it inside and out though.
 
As John said, save the mods for later. If you start modifying your car only 4 days before the event, you're greatly increasing the chance that something mechanical goes wrong and you'll spend your day wrenching in the pits instead of having fun on the track.

Just make sure you have fresh brake fluid. Track compound pads will allow you to run more consecutive laps without fade, but you could get away with your street pads if you just run short stints. If you're getting an instructor, chances are you'll be going relatively slow for the first half of the day anyway.
And I agree with this - don't do major work on parts swaps right before the event... I've done this so many times and spent most of my free time in the pits addressing problems, even missing track time because of it. Save all of your setup changes in the offseason when possible.
 
I agree with everyone telling you not to mod the car. Good braking components and tires should be all you need. If I were you, I would spend 4 days inspecting all of the cooling system including factory ducting to make sure everything is up to par. DSMs have always scared me for road coursing due to the small frontal opening for the cooling system. Putting a front mount in front of your radiator prior to the event will likely be disastrous due to restricting airflow to your radiator core. A good system for road course duty takes lots of planning and understanding of how the systems should function.
 
He means that FMIC's are known to block free flowing cool air that would otherwise be going directly to the radiator. The radiator gets second-hand air that is heated up from the intercooler, and less of it because of the air disturbance of the FMIC. If you want to use a FMIC and not run into coolant issues on a road course, at the very least you need to make sure you have good airflow ducting that directs air through the radiator and doesn't allow it to go anywhere else after it leaves the FMIC. The ducting should be fairly air tight. You also want to make sure you run a coolant additive like Water Wetter and make sure there is no air in the cooling system. Most road courses will want you to run water only, no anti-freeze. I believe additives are fine though.

You also will want to put a hood vent on the car to allow for hot air coming through the radiator to escape. That high pressure area between the radiator and the exhaust manifold is going to make the airflow through the radiator less efficient.

If you haven't put an FMIC on yet, don't try and do it before this event. And seriously consider whether you need one at all. It just creates more problems.

And on a side note, let's hope you don't hit anything with that front bumper (assuming that's your car)! You'll probably total the car with a 5 mph impact. Not a good idea to have no crash beam on a road course.

Cleaned up the thread and removed all questionable advice.
 
Haha thanks ludachris. yeah the last owner did the damage before i could stop them. Yeah I totally agree on the intercooler issue mine manages to block ALL the air. But couldn't u make up the difference with a aluminum radiator and some high quality fans? I mean look at corvettes for instance, they are worse off than our 1gs
 
Thank you guy's, I appreciate the honesty and I'll take your advice.
I think it might be more fun running it this time stock to give me a base line of where I'm at with my skill level and then I'll worry about turning up the boost as I get better. Any one against me removing the A/C and balance shaft belts? My thinking is it would be 2 less parts that could fail and it will free up some parasitic drag ;)
 
A/C removal would likely be beneficial because the heat exchanger sits in front of the radiator and like you said without the belt, you have one less item to fail. There are mixed feelings on the balance shafts and I see benefits to both sides. I guess that would be up to you to decide. This might provide a good reason to keep them http://www.jackstransmissions.com/pages/keep-your-balance-shafts .

To Oren, in my opinion, you shouldn't need cooling fans at speed. The guys that run the DSM chump car (endurance racing series) would agree because their car doesn't have radiator fans, though they do have a sizable hole in their hood. If I were you and I really wanted/needed a front mount, I would contact someone like ETS and discuss your goals. They have many core options with different fin density/angle/etc. that suite all sorts of applications. Also, Corvettes utilize some interesting components and principals to make sure they don't over heat. They also utilize an aluminum engine that doesn't incorporate and heat pump (turbo).
 
Jacks transmissions is a solid website. I'm glad there is such a strong following for auto x guys. Unfortunately where I live in as there are zero autox events. But if I ever decide to get into it I'll consult the community for information.
 
After thinking about the over heating issue I realized that was the first time I drove the car with the front license plate on the car.It covers half of the opening, along with the lower plastic filler/insert being bent/folded up and red paint on the rad I think I may have found my cooling issues.
--- Double Post Merged, 34 minutes ago ---

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I took the car out to the track and had a blast tonight!!!
The breaks were great, no fade at all!
The suspension needs work for sure as it bottoms out and bangs at times.
As I got better and faster the engine temp started to go up and I had to pit 3 times. I'll pull the rad and check it over and clean it out until I can buy a better one.(Recommendations please)
1st and 2nd gear turbo lag was brutal! (Need some advice here)
I managed to lift the back left tire off the ground in one corner :) LOL
My fastest lap time was 1:44.08 and the slowest was 1:55.87
My top speed was 135km/h
Here is my video with my friend Brandon coaching me.

Heres the video:
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Thank you sir!
I can't wait to go out again!
I've got a '90 tsi awd just sitting around that is far from ever being a clean original car so I might make a lighted track car out of it and keep my clean original car on the street ;)
 
1st gear? I cant imagine at all needing 1st on a road course. Brakes will be a issue once your going faster. 135kph isnt a problem for brakes. 180-200 is.
No helmet? You would be surprised at the crazy things that can happen on the track. I am actually surprised you can be out on the track with no helmet.
You posted some numbers, but what were your tires temps and pressures after your run? Your cooking the front tires based on the sounds Im hearing on the video, thats going into the corner a little too fast. You should try to hitch a ride in one of the other cars to get a feel for what another driver would do for weight transfer, the line, etc. But Im sure your hooked now :)
 
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Quote: "1st and 2nd gear turbo lag was brutal! (Need some advice here)"

I would think you have some other issue with the car if your car is stock. Plus, at TMP once your up and rolling why would you need 1st or 2nd.

Good to see another DSM trying the "twisty stuff" though, don't see to many at the tracks anymore.
As with any form of racing there is a big learning curve, walk before you run, get lots of seat time.
 
Some of the corners are so tight that you have to drop down to 2nd gear and coming back up from that takes too long LOL 1st gear to second is on start up on the front stretch.
No clue on the tire temps, didn't get that far into it yet, just worried about making it all the way around and not breaking my car or any rules LOL.
I did go for a ride in the white Subi that's behind me in the pic above.I can see the difference between his skill level and mine LOL
I let my friend drive my car and he loved it, normally he drives a civic si or Subi on that track and has lots of seat time.[DOUBLEPOST=1409782299][/DOUBLEPOST]Do you run at TMP often? There were 2 other dsm's there that night. A laser RS fwd and a 91? Talon tsi.
I'm going to pull the turbo this weekend to have a better look at it, it doesn't have any shaft play but it sure spools up slowly compared to my stock 1990 AWD TSI.
I hope to see you out there one day.
 
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Some of the corners are so tight that you have to drop down to 2nd gear and coming back up from that takes too long LOL 1st gear to second is on start up on the front stretch.
No clue on the tire temps, didn't get that far into it yet, just worried about making it all the way around and not breaking my car or any rules LOL.
I did go for a ride in the white Subi that's behind me in the pic above.I can see the difference between his skill level and mine LOL
I let my friend drive my car and he loved it, normally he drives a civic si or Subi on that track and has lots of seat time.[DOUBLEPOST=1409782299][/DOUBLEPOST]Do you run at TMP often? There were 2 other dsm's there that night. A laser RS fwd and a 91? Talon tsi.
I'm going to pull the turbo this weekend to have a better look at it, it doesn't have any shaft play but it sure spools up slowly compared to my stock 1990 AWD TSI.
I hope to see you out there one day.

We haven't been to TMP for about a year now, little out of our way for open lapping.
If your running a cat, check the core, sometimes they will come loose and block the exhaust. Also, the 1G fuel tank is terrible for circuit and oval, make sure you have plenty of fuel, otherwise the car will starve of fuel on corners and accel.
 
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