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91 GSX Purpose Built for the streets

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dsmspoolin

15+ Year Contributor
90
3
Mar 20, 2004
San Diego, California
DRIVELINE/BRAKES/HANDLING

SUSPENSION AND WHEELS- In 2005 I started out with Eibach Pro-Kit springs on AGX’s. That was good enough for me at the time. I feel that is how the car should have came from the factory as far as ride height and handling. With that suspension I ran an 18x8.5 +35 wheel with no clearance issues. In 2009 I found a set of used Ksport coilovers for $400 for a GST. The rears were shorter then the AWD coilovers which allowed me to go lower. Slapped those on but found out the fronts were blown. I replaced them with the newer black version shock replacements from Ksport. At that time I fitted 18x9.5 +35 XXR’s with a 225/40/18 tire and it was stretched but cleared with little rubbing in the front.
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While upgrading my brakes to CTS-V Brembo calipers (which I’ll talk about later) I realized the off set of the +35 XXR’s would not clear the face of the calipers. After a lot of measuring and fitment trials I ended up going with Rota Torque in Yamaha black 18x9.5 +22 offset.
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The back side of the spokes barely cleared the Brembo’s. Both wheels will not clear the spring perch of regular struts, coilovers are needed. With the 9.5” wheels some trimming of the rear trailing arm seem is needed. I trimmed and re-welded it together and has been good since 2009. I pointed this out in the pic of the rear trailing arms somewhat down the page. The front upper splash guards were removed. I eventually stepped up my tire size from 225/40 to a 255/40 which gave me about 9.5” on contact to the ground per corner and love it but needed to make all that meat fit the fender wells. I had to teach myself how to pull, roll and flare the front fenders and rear quarters using a heat gun and Eastwood roller. Not easy at all. The first rear side I did came out bad. There has to be a relief cut in the upper rear wheel well. If not, the quarter panel will buckle as mine did. When I did the other side I made the relief cut first and it came out good. Here is the ugly buckled side of the rear.
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In 20I2 wanted a better quality coilover set up and decided to go with Koni sport adjustables with a pieced together coilover assembly. Starting with the rear first, Koni discontinued the Sport rears for 1G AWD’s. I used 2G rear AWD Koni sports. They are a little shorter but install just fine. I ordered Eibach springs 2.5” diameter 7” tall in a 430 ft/lbs spring from Ground Control. I used QA1 coil over sleeves, top hats and threaded perchs. I had a friend machine an additional snap ring step a little lower than the two that come machined from Koni.
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Rear upper adjustable control rods from a 3000GT were installed. This put my rear camber almost back to zero degrees.
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Next was the Jay Racing active toe eliminator kit welded in to the rear trailing arms. My oem bushings were shot and I was blowing through rear tires like crazy. This part changed the whole feel of the rear end handling and I love it. Huge improvement.
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And here is a pic of the final rear suspension as of now. Also threw poly bushings for the rear lower control link. I have helper springs that I need to install to keep the spring seated when at full droop.
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Now for the front. I sourced two spare front oem struts to hack up and prep for the Koni sport inserts. Again went with QA1 coil over sleeves and lower threaded perches. I bought the QA1 top hats but ended up not needing them once I received the Ground Control camber/castor plates. Ground Control also supplied the front Eibachs 2.5” diameter, 7” tall and 450 ft/lbs spring rate. Summit Racing provided the Eibach 2.5” helper springs with the seat and 2.5” thrust washers to prevent binding when turning.
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Ground Control initially sent me the wrong upper mounting plates pictured below. As well as the wrong size bushings. They stepped up immediately and shipped out the correct bushings and upper plate. They have always been very helpful in assisting me with this build.
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I painted the modified strut housings with some mil spec polyurethane gloss yellow to match the rear Koni’s. They came out looking great.
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Then the alignment.
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BRAKES- I had already done the big GSX brake upgrade but 1, they would still fade out and warp under hard braking and 2, I just wanted sexier brakes behind those big 18” wheels and something a little different than the typical Evo Brembo upgrade. I found out that DSMtuners user KMV made caliper brackets for both the Evo Brembos and the Cadillac CTS-V 4 piston Brembos which are a little bigger. I ordered a pair of his brackets with hardware for $110. I ordered the calipers from gmperformancepartsdirect.com for $130 each. Evo X slotted rotors for $270 13.9” diameter I believe, Evo X pads for $90, Stainless steel braided lines for about $120 but you have to have the front lines made with a banjo fitting to the caliper. OEM pin, shim and spring kit from Mitsubishi for $100ish. They are the same size for the CTS-V calipers. I have to say that KMV’s brackets and spacers have perfect placement centering the caliper over the rotor. A little modification needs to be made to the lower portion of Brembo caliper in order to clear the bracket and spacers. It doesn’t affect the structural integrity of the caliper and can be done by machining or a porting tool. After installing everything the pedal pressure just wasn’t enough to push that increased volume of fluid and felt soft and spongy. I pulled a 3G Eclipse brake master cylinder out of the junkyard which bolts right up for $20. You only need to bend the hard line to the cylinder to make it work. These cylinders have a slightly larger piston bore and push enough fluid for these big 4 piston calipers plenty. Since then I NEVER have brake fade. Driving in Southern California they definitely get used but I also put them to the test ALL the time. If you are planning on running 18” wheels, I don’t think you can get a better big brake kit for the money. Not to mention an OEM Brembo caliper. Total spent I believe was just around $1k. Here is a pic of the brakes first installed. I have more detailed pics of the brackets, spacers and the small area on the back of the caliper that needs to be removed in order to clear. I’m on Deployment in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as I’m typing this and do not have access to all of my pics but will update when I return.
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The rear brakes as of now are only upgraded with a pair of Powerslot rotors.

DRIVELINE- In 2010 I picked up a well priced TRE stage 2 23 spline trans an hour and a half away. I installed it with a local clutch company’s clutch here in San Diego that held a little more than an ACT 2100. At the same time I bought a new oem throw out bearing, pivot ball, clutch fork, master cylinder, slave cylinder and a stainless braided clutch line. Filled with Redline MT90. I added shifter base bushings as well as shifter cable bushings to the combo and love how it feels shifting.
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I had to source a matching 23 spline Transfer case and was hooked up by a friend for $75 and is still going strong always with Redline Shockproof.
Early 2012 I found a Southbend Kevlar clutch set up with only 1k miles on it for $200 from a local guy parting out. At this point the stock flywheel was only stepped to .610”.
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I love this clutch. Pedal pressure isn’t bad at all for a clutch that can hold 600+ ft/lbs TQ. But even after multiple adjustments it wouldn’t fully dis-engage at higher RPM’s which happened to a couple other local guys running the same clutch. Months later one of those DSM’ers figured out after pulling his trans over and over that with the Southbend Kevlar clutch the flywheel needs to be stepped to .625” in order to fully dis-engage for smooth higher RPM shifting. Just before deploying I was able to pull the trans, clutch and flywheel to step it to .625” but did not get to run the car before I left.
A little previous to this I snapped a 3 bolt axle inside the rear differential. I found a complete 4 bolt rear end to swap in days later.
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While I did the 4 bolt swap I did some exhaust work also.
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I'll upload the rest of the build a little later, and sorry for some of the 90 degree pics...ish got a little crazy trying to make this build thread LOL.
 
Love the car so far!
 
ENGINE/TURBO
The bottom end is a completely stock 6 bolt with 180k miles. I have kept up with the maintenance and replaced small stuff such as water pump, timing belt, tensioner, pulleys, gaskets, BISS and ALL of the coolant sensors which I might ad that gave me very smooth drivability and idle. The head has not been touched as far as porting, just re-surfaced and tanked due to a semi blown HG. Installed it with a Cometic gasket and ARP studs a little over torqued.
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Corona always makes things better while working on the car
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The valve seals were going bad around 150k miles so I picked up Viton valve seals and 4G63 specific valve spring compressing tool. The seals were done with the head on the block long before the HG went. Since the cams and valve train were being removed I decided to upgrade right then and there but on a tight budget at the time. I went with Delta 272 camshafts and Manley springs and retainers. I have to say that for some reason these Delta 272 have sounded nastier than any other 272 on a 4G63.
I’m still running the stock intake manifold and throttle body for the time being. I did however replace the throttle body shaft seals. The intercooler set up is an ETS street core with a Tial BOV along with a FP 4” non-recirc intake pipe. I liked the idea of still running the crash bar since I drive this car on the streets of Southern California A LOT but it will eventually need to make space for an ETS race core soon.
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During some down time I prepped and coated some items with some of my mil spec polyurethane gloss black and white to clean things up. I would rate this stuff a notch under powder coat but last longer and is more durable than any other spray paint. It has a separate hardener inside the can that needs to be activated and is good for 48hours before hardening in the can.
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An EGR block of plate and vacuum line delete was done as well. I wanted to do a little clean up so I extended the harness to the TPS and CAS so I could run the wires through the intake manifold instead of on top of it. The TPS was also clocked 180 degrees so the plug faced down to keep the wires out of site. The cruise control was removed and a shorter non-cruise control throttle cable was installed and routed under the intake manifold. The injector connectors were replaced with the newer style clips from 2G’s and Galant’s style, and also routed through the intake manifold and injectors were clocked to face downward. The A/C system was removed as well. These few things made a big difference on the cleanliness of the engine.
I ordered a silicon black radiator hose kit and a cheap ebay aluminum radiator along with all new coolant sensors. The radiator hose kit looks great but almost all hoses needed to be trimmed a lot. A cheap 12” slim fan was installed and a 10” is still waiting to be put in. I have a JMF coolant reservoir that still needs to be installed.

TURBO
For my first turbo upgrade for this car I went with FP’s off the shelf HTA 68. I loved the fact that it looked like a stock turbo, made as much power on E85 as it did and spooled as fast as it did. I got a great deal on it barely used even before FP raised the prices on brand new units
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I ran the HTA 68 internally gated and mounted to an FP Race exhaust manifold. FP recommends to not use a heat shield or blanket due to the possibility of cracking the manifold but I wanted to keep the engine bay temps down some and also not have to look at a rusty cast manifold so I ordered a manifold blanket from ebay that fit stock, Evo III, and the FP race manifolds. This thing is thick as hell and works. You can literally put your hand on top of the blanket while the engine is running or after a pull.
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With the HTA 68 on E85, my first tune was for around 22psi. At that time my 850cc injectors were limiting me. I had fun with that for a while and then turned up the boost when I installed 1000cc injectors. Well, the boost didn’t go up past 22psi with the Hallman MBC opened up. I ordered a higher psi internal wastegate from FP and was kind of pissed that it did absolutely nothing LOL.
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I had heard from SR20 and SRT-4 guys using throttle return springs hooked on to the wastegate flapper arm to keep it closed a little longer for more boost. It took a little trial and error with different springs but I found one to give me about 30-32 psi and loved every minute of it on the street. At that time I was using a Greddy 2 bar boost gauge and it was just a little over 2 bar. I wanted a higher reading boost gauge so I went with an Innovative Motorsports digital boost gauge that reads up to 43.5psi. I installed the gauge and a friend of mine hopped in to see exactly what the boost was at. Got on the freeway and did a third gear pull, hit 36psi and it felt like I blew off an I/C coupler except the engine would die when the idle dropped. Limped the car back and found two holes in my turbine housing one with a blade protruding.
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Running a little too lean and a little too much boost. The entire turbine wheel sheared at the shaft and most melted away. What didn’t melt was shot through my exhaust.
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Compared to my 14B on the right.
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So the hunt began for an upgrade but of course on a budget as always. Found a GT3582R with a T3 3” V-band and a tight pie cut bend on the exhaust side that came in handy. Here it is next to the HTA68.
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Also picked up an OBX ram horn style T3 manifold with a 4 bolt wastegate flange. I heard all the horror stories about cheap tubular manifolds but the only thing that I see that can go wrong with this manifold is the wastegate pipe breaking at the welds as I’ve seen in the past. Everything is made out of 321 stainless steel and the runners are braced on the bottom. I picked up this manifold hardly used for $210 shipped AND it came with a real Tial 41mm wastegate with 15 psi spring. Not too bad.

As I got it.
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Fit testing everything to make my wastegate dump recirculation.
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The compressor housing comes very very close to the front engine mount but the oem engine mount is notched perfectly for it.
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Wastegate cleaned up.
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I wrapped the manifold, downpipe, wg dump pipe and bought a turbine housing blanket. Wrapping is not fun at all LOL. Again the gloss black polyurethane paint was used for the compressor housing also.
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Installation.
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For the oil feed I went off of the oil filter housing and used the proper BSP fitting to a -4 AN black nylon braided line and oil restrictor to the center section. I believe it’s .035” from STM but the brass fitting quality is horrible. The flare needed to be filed and centered in order to seat properly and the threaded side that goes to the turbo was warped but I got it to work. Oil return was a pair of -10 flanges from STM but the threads were nasty as well. They need de-burred. I don’t blame this on STM. I think it’s the manufacture of the parts that they are selling. I’ve always had good service from those guys. For the rest of the oil drain I used -10 push-loc fittings with Aeroquip push-loc hose. I love this stuff but it can be a pain in the ass to push on. Best method for me was heating the hose up with a heat gun and putting a little oil on the barb end and it slips right on with some force.
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I don’t have pics of the water lines out here on deployment but I used the same Aeroquip push-loc hose in -6 AN size and came out pretty nice. It’s rigid enough but soft enough to work with if that makes any sense LOL.
I picked up an Odyssey 680 mini battery with a used JMF tray of course painted with my favorite polyurethane paint.
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Installed and wired as neatly as I could. I’m no electrician LOL but I love how it came out. I added some thick gauge grounds to the battery and on the engine/trans/intake manifold as well.
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FUEL/MANAGEMENT

With the HTA 68 set up I was using DSMlink and Innovative wideband and 2G mas for tuning. For fuel I had a re-wired intake Wally 255, N/T 1G fpr and RC 1000cc injectors on E85. Fairly easy to tune, but the 1000cc injectors were MAXED out. With the GT35R install, I left the 255 intake to feed a Bosch 044 into Fuelabs -6 AN fuel filter to Magnus fuel rail. That feeds FIC 1450cc injectors and is regulated by Fuelabs adjustable fuel pressure regulator. All with a bunch of money down the drain in fancy shmancy black fittings and Russell pro classic nylon hose with is very very easy to work with.
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What an awesome build! How do you like the gt3582r? What hot side housing is on it?
 
killer looking setup!
 
Love those coil overs im still debating to get coil overs or not, I got some time, either that or kyb set up.
 
Sweet build man, when about are you scheduled to come back? I'm ready to see this thing make some power on that new turbo setup. I'll be heading back over in a couple months, maybe you'll still be there.
 
Yes pricey but if I spend any more money I think that's where it will be the suspension, got fuel need more, got turbo want bigger, and I have link so that's next, among getting speed density, and running e 85.
 
Hey Spoolin, awesome build!!

I was curious if you could clear up a quick question I had about your wheels and wheel fitment. Im looking to buy some 18x8.5 +35 wheels for my 1G, and you seemed to have experience with the exact size of wheels I want. After several hours of searching and reading, I found that its tough to find wheel fitment info for 18" wheels on 1Gs, so I was hoping you could help me out.

You mention
SUSPENSION AND WHEELS- In 2005 I started out with Eibach Pro-Kit springs on AGX’s. That was good enough for me at the time. I feel that is how the car should have came from the factory as far as ride height and handling. With that suspension I ran an 18x8.5 +35 wheel with no clearance issues.

Then, after talking about your new wheels (the Rota Torque in Yamaha black 18x9.5 +22 offset.), you mentioned:
Both wheels will not clear the spring perch of regular struts, coilovers are needed. With the 9.5 wheels some trimming of the rear trailing arm seem is needed.

I was just curious if you meant both SETS of wheels would not clear the Spring Perch?
Or did you mean two of the Rota wheels would not clear the Spring Perch?

If it was a mistake or typo, I dont mean to point out a mistake or anything, I was just looking for some additional info to make sure I understood you correctly.

I know this was a while ago, so Im hoping you can remember, and Im hoping you can help me out!!!

Thanks in advance for any info you can share with me! I really appreciate it!
 
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