While unbolting the flexplate bolts I noticed a bit of rust on the "frame" rails. The worst of it is about 4"-5" long. The rest held up pretty solid. I also have the rear corner bit rusted on both sides. It's going to be a dedicated track car so the plan is to strip it down to bare essentials. I'll take some pictures tomorrow to give you guys a decent idea on what I'm dealing with.

How much rust is subjective to the person who owns the vehicle. All the rust can be repaired if you're willing to repair it. Older vehicles that are completely rusted out can be restored to how they once were with the right amount of hours and work put into it...

I guess the real question is: is your Eclipse worth the amount of time and effort to repair the rust?

Just cut it out and weld in new material. If it's not that all the way through and still solid then bring it back to metal and seal it up to prevent future corrosion. Mine is rusted from the rear rockers all the way to under the door. I still plan on repairing everything even though some other people would probably scrap it.

Fair enough. I spent a few months looking for an Awd 4g63 car under 500 to be a budget drag build. Most of the cars I found were 420a cars and people still wanted over 2500. To me the rust is minimal for Michigan, I was just worried about structural integrity since it was on the rails. I'll probably bend up some metal and tack it on.

If you can poke it with a screwdriver, or worse, your finger and it's goes right through then you need to do something about it. If it still has some structural integrity, then do what Twistaye said, grind it down, clean it up and put a protective coating on it. I'm a big fan of POR15. I restored an old car and was a bit of skeptic, but I bit my lip and bought it on the recommendation of another. It's awesome, coats almost like a hard candy shell. Like a lot of things, the key is in prep work though.

I guess it could be worse. I'd imagine doing 135+ in the 1/4 mile would be like reentry aboard the challenger space shuttle in a super rust car. To me, the car is worth saving even though the girlfriend sees just a pile of parts.

mine doesn't understand either but luckily allows me to do as I wish