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First time DSM owner

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To be honest, the first piece of high performance part that I want to install on my car is a clutch. Making the power and tunnig should be easy but getting that power to the ground would require a good clutch. As soon as all my parts are in I'm going to try and have some friends over to help me change the clutch. I thought about taking it to a shop but last time I took a car to a "reputable" shop to change the clutch they broke more than they fixed, not to mention my speed sensor didn't work afterward. I been fixing my own cars for the past 6 years with help from mainly youtube. So far there's nothing that has been too big of a job for me. Sometimes I really do wish I had help and sometimes it takes me way longer than it should but I get it right. I see that people on this forum are eager to help so I'm a bit more confident going into this build.

Make sure you're careful with what clutch you pick. You want the lightest one you can use for your setup. Overly heavy clutches introduce early wear on a lot of driveline/engine components. Also look into a better damper pulley, the stock one isnt that great.
 
Welcome! This site is the best, and I'm in Europe for another 2 months and I'm coming back to the states. This site has always had my back the whole time when searching for ways to survive the dsm life. I bought my first DSM in Germany and I'm bringing it back to Merica, the tip I can give you is basic maintenance checks is the first and foremost thing you should do before any mods. Buy new belts, check your suspension, spark plugs and wires, tires, all fluids, and you should be good. Believe me it cost less when you do all that now instead of waiting till something happens then you paying for rentals. For I had to pay in euro's. But repairs I did everything myself, my dsm is my first turbo car and it basically the first time I ever did maintenance and repairs. From changing oil to pulling my transmission twice and rebuilding it. Lucky for me I had friends here with evo's and one talon. Stick to this site and you be on the road to a great life with a bad ass car. FWD or AWD it doesn't matter, I'm kicking ass on the autobahn alot.
 
Make sure you're careful with what clutch you pick. You want the lightest one you can use for your setup. Overly heavy clutches introduce early wear on a lot of driveline/engine components. Also look into a better damper pulley, the stock one isnt that great.
I was told to save up and don't be cheap on the clutch. Lol. So far, looking at my budget and the amount I have spent and will spend, a clutch will be my biggest expense next to tuning. I just purchase my intercooler yesterday a big 16 turbo a few days prior and a day later some pte 780cc injectors. I've never spend this much money this fast in my life. Lol, but since I am I might as well do it right the first time. I'm worried about crankwalk and have been doing a ton of research. The problem seems to start by poor clutch selection (per my research). There's other factors out there for sure but that's what I put together. I haven't looked into damper pulleys but I will. Thanks.
 
Welcome! This site is the best, and I'm in Europe for another 2 months and I'm coming back to the states. This site has always had my back the whole time when searching for ways to survive the dsm life. I bought my first DSM in Germany and I'm bringing it back to Merica, the tip I can give you is basic maintenance checks is the first and foremost thing you should do before any mods. Buy new belts, check your suspension, spark plugs and wires, tires, all fluids, and you should be good. Believe me it cost less when you do all that now instead of waiting till something happens then you paying for rentals. For I had to pay in euro's. But repairs I did everything myself, my dsm is my first turbo car and it basically the first time I ever did maintenance and repairs. From changing oil to pulling my transmission twice and rebuilding it. Lucky for me I had friends here with evo's and one talon. Stick to this site and you be on the road to a great life with a bad ass car. FWD or AWD it doesn't matter, I'm kicking ass on the autobahn alot.
Thanks for the tip and advice. I have been do comfortable posting and following most recommendations from people on this forum. I have never seen a community so passionate for these cars. I used to live that Honda life before and everything was about rivalry. Here it seems like people want to help you succeed and achieve your goals. It's a great site and I'm thankful to have been introduced to it by the local dsm experts here. My first night joining this forum I bought a turbo and been getting advice from guys across the country who text me regularly. It's has been a few days and I'm still a probationary member but I feel like it's not a big deal.

This eclipse is my first dsm and certainly not my last. My girlfriend is just as excited as I am for this build and wants a eclipse when mines finished. Lol. From day 1 everyone so far has been extremely helpful and it wouldn't be the same without this site that's for sure. Looking forward to posting some more pictures up as it gets warmer and I start my build.
 
I was told to save up and don't be cheap on the clutch. Lol. So far, looking at my budget and the amount I have spent and will spend, a clutch will be my biggest expense next to tuning. I just purchase my intercooler yesterday a big 16 turbo a few days prior and a day later some pte 780cc injectors. I've never spend this much money this fast in my life. Lol, but since I am I might as well do it right the first time. I'm worried about crankwalk and have been doing a ton of research. The problem seems to start by poor clutch selection (per my research). There's other factors out there for sure but that's what I put together. I haven't looked into damper pulleys but I will. Thanks.

You are partly correct, but there are other factors. One being the design of the thrust bearings on the early 7 bolts, which in some circumstances didnt have adequate oiling for the thrust surfaces. In any block that has been rebuilt, the bearings are typically designed to help with this issue. But the other side of that is that the oil clearances were often incorrect, and also different between different bearings on the engine itself. When you rebuild an engine you typically carefully check these to make sure that they're within spec for the way the engine is going to be used.

I mean there are people with tons of theories and experience and ideas and results from various things, but clutch choice, like you've mentioned as well as what i've mentioned are typically things that contribute.

I would recommend bypassing the switch that requires the clutch is depressed to start the car, which is well documented. This allows there to be oil pressure BEFORE you depress the clutch, which makes sure that you cant cause any undue wear on the thrust surfaces simply from starting the car.

I hear you from the financial standpoint, I dropped close to $1k just on small upgrades (ic piping, FPR, exhaust manifold) and then an issue with the rebuild on my car as I bought it killed the engine, so i ended up spending around $2k more probably to get the car back running. I ended up doing tons of upgrades during the assembly (2.4l, forged internals, etc etc) and planned my build with other upgrades in mind in the future.

I think the best advice I can give you, in terms of not only my personal experience, but what i've seen other people do as well is to say that you should pick a path for your build when you start out. This way, you can avoid buying parts, and selling them to upgrade, buying, selling. You can minimize that if you plan well enough. Also, and you seem to be already aware of this, but make sure you have all the supporting mods and maintenance needed to not blow the car up. You'd be surprised how many people overlook this.
 
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Clutch jobs are AWESOME on the ground with Jack stands and buddies I wouldn't do it any other way, ok, maybe with a lift LOL have fun with it i would trust myself with my car over a shop any day no one else to blame when it breaks except yourself, do your self the favor when trans is out replace the fork and pivot ball STM sells the brand new oem
 
You are partly correct, but there are other factors. One being the design of the thrust bearings on the early 7 bolts, which in some circumstances didnt have adequate oiling for the thrust surfaces. In any block that has been rebuilt, the bearings are typically designed to help with this issue. But the other side of that is that the oil clearances were often incorrect, and also different between different bearings on the engine itself. When you rebuild an engine you typically carefully check these to make sure that they're within spec for the way the engine is going to be used.

I mean there are people with tons of theories and experience and ideas and results from various things, but clutch choice, like you've mentioned as well as what i've mentioned are typically things that contribute.

I would recommend bypassing the switch that requires the clutch is depressed to start the car, which is well documented. This allows there to be oil pressure BEFORE you depress the clutch, which makes sure that you cant cause any undue wear on the thrust surfaces simply from starting the car.

I hear you from the financial standpoint, I dropped close to $1k just on small upgrades (ic piping, FPR, exhaust manifold) and then an issue with the rebuild on my car as I bought it killed the engine, so i ended up spending around $2k more probably to get the car back running. I ended up doing tons of upgrades during the assembly (2.4l, forged internals, etc etc) and planned my build with other upgrades in mind in the future.

I think the best advice I can give you, in terms of not only my personal experience, but what i've seen other people do as well is to say that you should pick a path for your build when you start out. This way, you can avoid buying parts, and selling them to upgrade, buying, selling. You can minimize that if you plan well enough. Also, and you seem to be already aware of this, but make sure you have all the supporting mods and maintenance needed to not blow the car up. You'd be surprised how many people overlook this.
This is great information. Thanks! I'm going to research myself on some of the topics you touched on here. I want to make sure my motor and car last me a long time even being modified. I don't mind spending money on quality materials it's just that I have never done so for a car. I recently passed my Cisco certifications and bought expensive Cisco rack equipment. Now that I'm done certifying I refuse to sell it and have it as my main network at home in a midsize apartment. Overkill ? maybe but I have the felxability of tuning my network how I like and even have VPN access back home and into my servers. I have the same attachement to my car, I'm putting my heart and hard earned money into this project and thanks to guys like everyone that has posted on the thread so far I can keep it for years to come.
 
Clutch jobs are AWESOME on the ground with Jack stands and buddies I wouldn't do it any other way, ok, maybe with a lift LOL have fun with it i would trust myself with my car over a shop any day no one else to blame when it breaks except yourself, do your self the favor when trans is out replace the fork and pivot ball STM sells the brand new oem
I have thought about this. Lol. I would just need to get things moving and set a date. I am waiting for all the parts to get here for the mere fact that I'll be working under the car I might as well toss the intercooler, piping, injectors, downpipe, exhaust, LC-2 wideband, and the rest of the goodies the same day I do the clutch. (I'm going to have tons of beer and Pizza that day) So if anyone from Wisconsin feels like getting dirty, drunk and fed hit me up, LOL! Again, I'm going to wait until it gets a bit warmer and all my parts are in. I'm only missing my exhaust but I have not decided yet on that yet, downpipe, and a few other things.
 
You could with Some flange welding it would defeat purpose of upgraded down pipe to go from 3inch back to 1 1/4 inch back to 3 inch seems a little pointless just go with a cat back or get a friend who does inspections and emissions testing to pass it LOL
 
I only have to go through the ECU plug test for emissions. No sniff test.
 
I would love to do that but we have an over sensitive police department. I've had my issues with them in vehicles but it pays to have a criminal justice background and challenge them on every citation. They just give me warnings now for dumb stuff but I still would have to keep the car's noise within the noise ordinance.
I would have to search up on how to keep the o2 sensors because I want to still pass emissions. I'm sure there's ways
 
O2 bunge weld on drill a hole weld the bunge on its already pre threaded so after it cools you can screw the O2 sensor right in. There's a company in Australia working with butterfly exhaust valves, pretty much you flip a switch in cabin clap opens full three inch exhaust roar..... oh crap there's a cop, flip switch butterfly closes outlet is then closed back to oem 1 1/4 inch out roar turns into a purr LOL
 
This is cool. I hope that you have better luck with yours than I am. If I didn't love it, I would have sold it LOL. Just keep the tires and brakes up to snuff. And there is a proven pattern build to get that 350hp to the wheels. Gotta love the DSM!
 
I use the electric exhaust cut out so I can be quiet when I have to and open it up when we go to the track or for whatever other reason I may deem it necessary :cool: Cost is about 200 plus the exhaust shop to install it then you wire it up.
 
Welcome to the world of DSM's. I am going to stress maintenance and the use of quality parts..With a DSM you really do get what you pay for part's wise. there's a million different ways to get 350 whp MHI EVO 16g is a great way.
 
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