Specs & Mods
- Ownership Status
- Currently Own
- Year
- 1990
- Model/Trim
- Mitsubishi Eclipse GST
- Turbo Type
- 14b
- Transmission Type
- Manual
- Build Type
- Street
- Background
- Well this is my first DSM, my first "project" car, and the overall cause of my headaches as of right now :p Well to add a background, the car was bought not running, PO thought maybe a head gasket. Well I get her home and just life got in the way for a few months, once i started to have some time to tinker it was pretty much winter. So she sat, she sat for about a year maybe 1.5 after i got her before any sort of "progress" was made. I was doing all the normal checkups for cars not starting, got to fuel stuff. Dont ask how, because i still dont know, but i snapped the fuel rail in half, clean in half.
WELLL i was still somewhat new to the whole DSM stuff, still consider myself a "noob" compared to majority of those here. So i had no idea where to find a fuell rail for a 1990 eclipse. Well once again life got in the way and she sat for a bit longer until i found a stock fuel rail. Well that got fixed but it was winter so she sat thru the winter and once spring came I had someone come pick her up and see if they could get it going.
He took it to his house and the next day called and said my timing was off. So he got that fixed and the car started right up. He brought it back to me and thats when i found the clutch/shifting issue. Pretty much the clutch just would not disengage, pedal had a good amount of free play at top, slave and master was old.
SOO with new master and slave, same problem. I did all new fluid lines, i bench bleed the slave, bleed the shit out of it for a day or two. Still to no avail, also not having funds to drop into her at that time, she started sitting again. This was winter of 2014, Now we arrive to 2015, Weather tsarted getting nicer in February. and i could not see her sit another summer without hitting the road.
Brought it to a local garage, had a OEM clutch kit from extremePSI delivered to me. He got a little backed up so the car was there 2 weeks before he had the chance to look at anything. He called after doing some looking into it and said when it does disengage, it is beautiful shifts. Said he inspected everything from the master to where the slave moves the fork. All looked good he said, soo he started taking the trans out to check the clutch disc, plate, etc. Said everything looked fine, clutch looked pretty much new, in his opinion less then 50,000 miles on the clutch. So to not throw any variables into this mix, we kept the old clutch in and he reassembled.
After about 1.5-2 months he called said he found a broken part in the pedal assembly, I believe he said it was the where the pedal rod meets the bracket. This was allowing roughly 2-3 inches lost in my clutch pedal, which is what was causing it to not fully disengage. He tried welding it once, but it would not hold. So he ordered a new one and installed.
We now have a perfectly shifting car.
Now that I can actually drive it, I can start diagnosing issues. Well issue 1. it has a idle surge when cold, got a few ideas in mind what it may be. 2. and my biggest issue right now is this stuttering and bucking while on acceleration. I am going to contribute this to a or alot of boost leaks. As the car has been pretty much sitting in the same spot for 4 years I am sure there are vacuum lines and intake hoses that are cracked or have loosened.
SO with the background of the car known, my future plans for the car are to find and fix all boost leaks, do a vacuum line and EGR delete. Pretty much get all hoses, pipes, tubes, lines, and belts replaced. I also have no power steering as it has a very quick leak, i can deal with this for now. I have been unable to get under the car since I got it back this weekend so i havent been able to source the power steering leak.
EVENTUALLY my goals for this car is daily driver with 350-450hp but this is not something I plan to accomplish anytime soon, due to a few factors. I would like to keep it stock as long as I can either until i break something and it HAS to be replaced, or until I get another DSM. If i find another DSM i will take the better condition one, and keep that stock and take the less nice one and build it.