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Back to the roots

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So I’ve never exactly started a “build thread” per say so I figure no better time than now to maybe help gain back a little momentum. I’ll start with a little background on the car, this isn’t my first DSM and I’ve had this one going on 9 years this September. The car started life as a bone stock non turbo 1992 Eclipse GS, and has since been repainted (a Toyota blue close to the original color but a bit deeper) in a Laser color scheme and with a 1gb Talon front bumper cover.

Over the years the car has seen various different set ups and has hit various personal achievements. I played with it naturally aspirated, added a China 16g, then added a real MHI evo 3 16g (from none other than Justin Whitesell) and bc 272 cams and was able to squeeze out 420 horsepower at the wheels and 430 wheel torque with it turned all the way out on the corn squeeze. Then following that I did a (short lived) low budget 8 blade hx35 in a .70ar bep T3 housing, once that went I went crazy with a Borg Warner s363sxe in an AGP .82ar open T3 housing mated to a Morrison Fab large runner manifold. On this set up we were able to squeeze out 454 on the crappiest Sheetz 93 octane pump gas I could find, had every intention of seeing if it would hit 600 on Slowmotion’s dyno on e85 but unfortunately didn’t make it back before the great k&n oil filter incident of 2020. Won’t go into great detail but let’s just say dragstrips weren’t opening on account of the Covid-19 so me and my buddy decided to go to Mike Dewine’s free public drag strip with his wife’s 3 valve 4.6 Mustang on nitrous, seal split on the k&n oil filter I was using, Rotella conventional blew all over the side of the car, oil pressure gauge pegged zero, blew oil all over an M&H race master at 130mph, straight did NOT have a good time that night. Might I add all these variations were on the untouched stock 6 bolt non turbo bottom end that had never been out of the car.

Fast forward to 2022, after that failure I had determined it had spun a balance shaft bearing and tore up the oil pump all in one shot. I obtained a spare 6 bolt bottom end with a crank from another local dsm buddy to work with as I didn’t know the extent of damage. I had every intention of throwing my head and parts on the new bottom end and running it as is, but unfortunately upon further inspection found deep vertical scratches in 3 out of 4 cylinders, with that I discovered it was another non turbo block someone honed and slammed whatever used stock 1g turbo pistons in. No biggie and not my buddy’s fault, it was legitimately running fine when he drove the parts car on to the trailer 5 years prior, for the price I paid I felt it was my sign a drop in running 6 bolt block is a unicorn these days and no matter what it was destined for the machine shop.

At that point I tore it down, discovered the oil pump was failing as well and a few of the bearings were starting to look real not good. Luckily it escaped without heavy damage to the crank, unfortunately the straight cut gears in the oil pump were toast (I suspect whoever assembled it had the timing belt entirely too tight which resulted in excessive wear to the oil pump). At that point with the damage to the cylinders and pistons brand new pistons were ordered. What pistons might you ask? Stock replacement non turbo pistons in 85.5mm. For years I joked “some call them non turbo pistons, I call them low budget high compression pistons”. I decided after 20k miles of seeing boost and with no damage to the 130k mile non turbo pistons I wasn’t ready to stop pushing that limit, besides with todays technology and such I’ve determined that once you push it that hard they’re just as big of a risk and no more a risk than stock turbo pistons. Once the pistons were ordered the block made its way to Exigent Solutions in Cincinnati Ohio where Glenn Wallace worked his magic and bored the cylinders to size with the new pistons, hot tanked it, surfaced the deck, and polished the crank.

That leaves us off to where we are today. While the DSM hasn’t exactly been on the back burner, I haven’t had the time that I’ve wanted to invest between my other vehicles, camping, work, and most importantly spending time with my family and raising 3 (soon to be 4) kids. However, it hasn’t been out of mind as I’ve been slowly gathering parts to simply yet entirely change the set up. Now for the changes:

-New turbo is here! The hot parts kit from Matt and Samantha was hands down one of the nicest things I’ve ever owned, however the big turbo life just isn’t for me right now. I reflected back on the last 16g set up the car was on and how that to me was indeed the most fun the car had ever been, after a lot of thinking and a lot of throwing ideas around with Justin I decided on a 14b. Yes, essentially a stock turbo. Why? For one because I’ve actually never used one, second off I like doing more with less and just want to see how much I can push it and just how fast I can go with it. I’m not chasing a record, just self gratification combined with no desire to try to be the fastest guy anymore as that’s just not enjoyable to me anymore. New set up is a 14b in a 7cm turbine housing with a Holset wastegate actuator that Justin Whitesell conjured up in the lab one day. This will be mated to a ported 2g manifold and likely a ported evo 3 o2 housing.

-The transmission, the trans I had been using was a pretty beat 91-92 fwd turbo trans with a whooped 2nd gear synchro, the car my buddy pulled it out of to part out had actually been used to deliver pizzas for some time. While the thing was beat up, I simply dumped synchromesh in it and proceeded to beat the absolute living bajesuses out of it. I had been using a 90 fwd turbo trans with a welded differential and broke a shift fork in it my first pass at the shootout in 2018, that transmission was readily available so again dropped it in open diff and all and gave it a big gulp of synchromesh and proceeded to beat the living crap out of it. To my surprise despite being a piece of crap it’s laying here on the floor of my garage still in working condition and has been my longest living transmission. It will be tucked away as a just in case, but going into the car I have a good 2g fwd trans I’ve been sitting on for a few years that I know is in good working order. I will be welding up the differential and trying that out. I’ll likely blow it to hell on the first or second pass and end up putting the ol faithful pizza delivery trans back in, but for now that’s what I’m using.

-Last big change is the chassis. No cage yet as im not going to that extent until a time slip justifies it, but she’s going on a major diet. Nothing that can’t be undone, but back seat, plastics, passenger seat, electronic face grabber seat belts, etc all getting safely tucked away for now. A plastic Summit Racing seat and 2g seat belt are on their way in. Heater core, wiper motor and transmission, all that is also getting put up. It will still have glass and working lights, but I don’t drive it on the street often as is anymore and when I do I’m not bothered by that, if I don’t feel like dealing with it that day I have a plethora of other junk to drive that does have those creature comforts. In my younger days I daily drive a 91 Civic hatch, that’s barely a step above dairying a lawn tractor or go kart, if you can daily one of those and not be bothered then it takes a lot to not call something a street car at that point.

As far as goals go, my first order of business is to hit my previous personal best but with the 14b. On the s363 with pump gas I managed 12.4 at 117 at the 2019 shootout. Not all that great really for a mid 400 horsepower DSM even being front wheel drive, and not by any means making excuses, but that was indeed my only track outing on that set up as I had been chasing constant gremlins (that were my own fault at that) but is what it is, I’m not out to impress anyone. After hitting my previous personal best I plan to keep going to see just how fast I can go with the little stock turbo and what I have. Perhaps make a few small changes once I get some data on the set up, but once I feel I can’t go any faster that’s when I will be talking to Justin about something along the lines of a billet compressor wheel 18g or maybe even another 16g as I’ve never actually settled that score with myself either. Below are a few pictures of the recent years to just recently to get the party started, and I will be using this platform frequently going forward to update as I’ve exited the realm of social media and have ZERO desire to go back. Mod list as to what I have to date is current in my profile and feel free to ask questions, look forward to getting this going again and sharing the journey with you guys.
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And I’d also like to add which I completely forgot to and didn’t mean to, I’ve also been following guys like Justin Aichele, Shane Webster, Joe Bucci, and Phil Beers for several years and I owe it to them for their hard work to give me the drive to try this. I’ve been lucky to have had discussions on the matter with Justin and his accomplishments with the 14b, as well as getting to shake Shane’s hand at the shootout a few years back after he put that 10 second number on the board, huge thanks to those guys and their hard work!
 
A clean 1g here too! Keep them alive :)
Thank you! I’m ashamed to admit I’ve done nothing with it lately except pick up small odds and ends and watch grass grow up around it. Got pushed on to the back patio so other things could get worked on and it’s been out there like 2 months now, I’m really living up to the broke dsm stereotype. However, I’ve actually decided to change directions a bit. Was out for chasing some numbers for personal gratification but the more time ticks away the more I just want to drive it as I miss driving it let alone a dsm or boosted car in general. My new goal in mind has actually been to daily it to work and such the next salt free season before it gets much older and relive my high school days of dailying a dsm but in my 30s (first mid life crisis? Probably not), all while seeing how far I can go on the 14b before going back to a 16g or perhaps trying one of Justin’s td05 18g’s or a 20g. Once I fix my beater Crown Vic the DSM WILL be going back into the garage where it usually is, and I have no choice but to get my ass in gear and get that done as I don’t drive my Ranger in the salt months either but it has been my daily the past few months so that leaves me with no choice but to get a roll on. Once that’s done and I do some routine maintenance on the family minivan I’ll finally be able to start putting in real time on it.
 
So aside from occupying the garage fixing daily drivers and rot buckets, I’ve been a bit occupied on the side changing directions with my car a bit and getting back to what made it once enjoyable. No, I’m not planning on it being fast, no I’m not expecting the impossible out of what I’m doing, just having fun working on my car again and building things which is what counts in my opinion. While this is a bit of a preview of what I’m working on at work in my spare time (need to water jet some things) I’ll give more details as it comes together.
 

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