I bought this car in 2012, and have been working on it ever since. I was taking pictures of a lot of the work I was doing to the car with my phone and I ended up losing all the pictures. I was waiting to have enough work saved up to start a profile. So instead I'm starting this and plan on updating it with what I've done so far and current pictures since I don't have the one's I've lost. I also plan on updating it with the future work so I can see how far I've come.



I'll update more on this later on this month with the back story and what I've been up to the past two years and where I plan on going.

JGL122 updated My 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX future Daily Driver/Track car/Show Car.


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JGL122 updated 1998 Eclipse GSX Progress Journal


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JGL122 updated 1998 Eclipse GSX Progress Journal


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This is how the car looked in the for sale post and when I first bought it. Not a perfect base to start with but can't choose when its the only GSX for sale for miles.

A nice, clean looking car

Thanks man, That was around the beginning of 2013. I'm planning on updating with my progress over the years.

I know I'm missing some pictures, gonna check work computer tomorrow see if they're there. In the mean time,
I did a lot of maintenance and tried to follow the usual stuff said here on dsmtuners for those just starting out, I bought
OEM oil filter
All new belts/ except timing belt since that was still new, but I still want to buy a new one later on.
Changes oils
spark plugs
Spark plug wires
I drove it very little around this time, but when I did the boost felt awesome, it was my first car with a turbo. My two previous cars were both GS's and both red, first one had a tan cloth interior so this new GSX with leather tan interior was perfect, I thought it was cool being similar to the Ferrari style, . I ended up hitting a stupid deer with that one, it was heartbreaking losing my first real car that I fixed up. So with the insurance I bought another low mile GS and drove that until 2014 or 2015 can't remember. Since I had my GS at the time I drove that while I got all the maintenance done on this one. I wanted everything to be up to date before I started driving it and driving it hard.
One of the first things I did was remove the suspension the car came with, the fronts were prolly ok but they didn't match the back and rode like crap, I went and bought some used oem struts and springs and sold these, nobody wanted the rear so those were chucked.

When I had both rides. And after moving into my new house I had somewhere I could work in. I let the wife have the other spot.

I know i've posted this image before but a little explanation for this image. When I bought it, it had some autozone shifter knob and the shifter was cut for the "short shifter" look. I didn't like it, it was crap. I ended up swapping my GS shifter knob and shifter over to my GSX, since i was planning on selling the GS later anyway.
The stereo was ok but I was never gonna listen to it, the exhaust was too loud and I don't listen to music when driving my car anyway, so I sold it and I think I used the money for the used suspension parts.
I didn't like the turbo timer where it was at, with it not matching and wiring showing. It was cool i guess leaving it running and letting it turn off by itself but I hardly used it so I took it out. Sitting in my garage somewhere if someone wants it.
The middle vents on the right was broken so I ended up ordering a new one later on from Miller Import Parts, Shout out.
The gauges were cool, but they didn't match so I took care of that later.

Car After raising it back up. With its mismatched wheels. . I had started taking off the old tint, you can see it gone from the two front windows here. I was living in an apartment at the time and didn't want the car getting stolen or bumped into or scratched since the body was increadably almost dent free. I actually got one dent in the month that is was at my apartment, it made me upset, but once my mom moved into her new home with a garage I asked if I could part it there and thats where it went for a while.

I started ordering new maintenance parts and I ordered a new front vent to replace the one with the broken vent. Not a HUge issue but this was/is my dream car so everything needs to be perfect.

First of many orders
New belts
Spark plugs
gas filter
Oil Filter
Clamps
New pedal boot (The car came with some ugly Autozone looking pedal clamps that I took off, and one didn't have the rubber piece so that was added.
You can see it here, it looks newer than the other two.

New clips for the skirts, I they only had one clip each side holding them in. So got those.Ordered a hose for the BOV since it didn't come with one and at the time I thought it needed it. Plus I had a huge hole in my intake that wasn't being used for anything, just taking in unfiltered air. Didn't end up using it, and plugged the hole. The hose didn't fit the air intake hole. I might try again and get it to fit/match.
Fuse cover was looking worn so bought a new one, like I said nothing go fast just taking care of the details I think.

While I had the car parked at my moms, since she had a garage in her new house, I would take pieces home to my apartment and deep clean them with Mr clean pads, those worked great on my tan leather pieces, don't know how well they'd fair on other colors but for these it got out a lot of the dirt and age. That was time consuming cleaning every piece, I didn't know it at the time that I'd be swapping it out for a whole different interior.
Back seat sitting on my dining table getting cleaned.

Other than cleaning/details all the interior pieces, I order a new hose kit and while in there replaced the gas filter, which was a real PITA. You can see the wiring harness looks terrible, it was wrapped entirely in black tape and just sat on top of the engine. Something i'd address later on. The car alarm horn was placed next to the battery screwed in front of the id sticker with the wire going across the back of the engine bay from the drivers side, very sloppily done. That was to be moved to a better place out of site.


1/3/2014

That's a good looking DSM you have there sir! Not everyday you can get one that clean...

Place Holder #1

Continuing my transmission repair here from a drivetrain thread.
After accelerating from a light a ended up hearing something break and hearing a clicking sounds coming from the transmission. I figured the clutch broke. I ended up pulling the engine and trans together as I wanted to repair the ac compressor since it too was making a sound among other things.
While out I took a look at the clutch and pp and flywheel and everything looked good. I'm on a hta 68 and a few other bolt on's so I figured i'm not at the power levels to be breaking drivetrain components just yet so I didn't consider trans or transfer case yet.



I ended up replacing transmission seals and transfer case seals while I had it apart. Also replaced the water pump and installed new engine mounts.

I took apart the trans and found some metal of course and what looks like a piece of a shim or washer. Need to figure out where that came from. If you have any ideas let me know.


Center diff housing and gears were all really worn. This was after cleaning up all the grease.



This ring was broken

Bits of metal where the bolts go. Not sure what these are.



So i'm debating just rebuilding this one with new gears and a new housing from Jacks transmission or upgrading to a tmz or tre built center diff. One will be about 700 and the other ~1200. I don't plan on doing drag racing, just some spirited driving every once in a while. I feel this center diff was worn after 150k miles of driving. So maybe if I replace with 2spider again it'll last another 150k or so.
The washer that go between the gears and the housing were nonexistent. I'm guess they wore away a long time ago.

I'm leaning towards buying a built replacement and not having to worry about it.

I update to instagram to keep track of my progress. It's simpler to upload photos and content. I've always wanted to keep this thread updated, so maybe this way will help. If this works, I might go and update my progress backwards on my build this way. Let me know what you think of doing it this way. Thanks.


My ignition always bothered me with how it looked compared to everything else I've done with the interior, so I finally go around to cleaning it up.

I never realized I was missing a horn on my bov. I always assumed it was threaded for a hose to recirculate. Maybe one day I'll have a real greddy bov. Also I'm considering changing my needles to yellow. What you think? I got some yellow needle paint. The new after market gauges are great but it's kind of difficult to read the cluster. I'm thinking maybe yellow would help. It would also match the colors of the car.