SBstar
15+ Year Contributor
- 3,038
- 123
- Jan 1, 2004
-
Jackson,
Michigan
HISTORY:
I hatched a plan in years ago to pursue the "AWD 14b no nitrous record" after following Project Goodwill and doing a lot of reading about Phil Beers and Leon Reitman. Eventually I was reading the pursuits of Dave Womer, and then Phil Beers rejoined the efforts.
I started with a 90 Eagle Talon TSI AWD shell that was donated to me in 2009. The exploits of that car can be found here:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/splitsecondracing-project-14b.445299/
With that chassis I attained my goals, eventually running 11.146 ET and setting a best mph of 120.8 (two separate passes).
But, the local track wasn't having it anymore, too quick and fast without the proper safety equipment. I thought about putting a rollbar/cage into the old blue car, but the northern rot had taken over. It didn't seem logical to put that kind of time/money into an old rotten chassis.
So a new plan was born, I found a shell in Eastern Pennsylvania with a 6 point chromoly rollbar. Drove out there, hoisted her onto a trailer, and the next dsm chapter started.
PLANS:
Old blue was scrapped and everything has been swapped into the new 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX.
Plans are to make everything as clean as possible, while remaining functional. My old blue car was never pretty on the inside or out, so efforts are being made to clean up the new shell.
During the 2013 shootout, my gorgeous wife approached the good folks over at ECMLink and asked if they gave sponsorships (without my knowledge I might add). Sure enough they found my build interesting and they were impressed with the times I had achieved on the little 14b utilizing their old V2 setup. They offered me a very nice discount sponsorship so the upgrade was made. So part of the plans are to get the V3 SD setup hooked up on the car and learn to tune with the new system! I can't thank ECMLink enough!
The plan for now is to stick with the 14b. I want to try a few new upgrades and things to get better times out of it before I go to a bigger turbo setup.
GOALS:
The initial goals are of course to get the car up and running, and get a decent tune on her.
After that the first goal is to break into the 10's with the stock 14b turbocharger that is on the vehicle now. I then want to swap on an authentic 6cm hotside and see what kind of results I can get from that, currently an old Big16g 7cm hotside is on the turbo.
Once I hit 10's on the 14b, we'll see just how deep I can take it into the 10's. But, after years on the 14b I'm interested in making some more hp eventually. So an Evo III 16g will be put on the car and I'm going to shoot for very low 10's on it.
SUMMARY:
Time to make an AWD stock 14b turbo no nitrous dsm go 10's in the quarter mile.
Also she's being called an Eclipsalon due to the fact it's technically a Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, but it's sporting Talon tails and a Talon Center grill. The eclipse tails I have are cracked, and I do not currently have an eclipse center grill. So far I like the look, it just may have to stay.
PROGRESS:
So this is where it all started. The shell had subframes laying under it, unfortunately the rear didn't have spindles and therefore my wife and I had a hard time hoisting her onto my trailer. It was definitely interesting.
Once I got her home she did a lot of sitting on the trailer throughout the winter. Little to no work was accomplished.
Finally after the snow was gone I started working on her. Most of the time was spent taking the shell completely apart and cleaning. Finally I painted the interior and rollbar so that I'd have a cleaner interior to bask in during a 1/4 mile blast.
And eventually the engine bay got some attention. I cleaned up the K-member, installed new Poly bushings, and threw the engine in it!
Got everything hooked up and ready to fire. Including a new 1 gallon fuel cell, external walbro 255, -6an lines, and Fuelab AFPR.
During the process I installed some stainless brake lines for peace of mind. I also gutted more of the wiring harness to save a little more weight. Obviously in order to make a low hp car go quick it needs to be light! After fixing some of my wiring mistakes, a few fuel leaks, oil leaks, and coming up with solutions for other minor issues, she was ready to fire up! She now runs and drives, but the tuning is just beginning. I've started playing around with the idle tuning and quickly discovered I had better do some boost leak testing before I get too far along. I'll be sure to update as I learn V3 SD tuning and finish up getting her ready for track time.
Last edited: