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Manny The Mistake: A Lesson In The Dangers Of Nostalgia

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I've been trying to stay relatively positive about the engine situation but today I gave up. As indicated previously, I gave Buschur a full day to respond to me about the rods. They never did (and still haven't) so Tuesday evening I bought a set of Manley H beam rods: the ones that I had in the engine before the rebuild that I know will fit. They arrived today so after finishing up work I snapped this quick picture.
dfAASt4.jpg

Sure, the Callies will be much stronger and have much more material all around, but since this is a 16g street build that's not strength that I would ever need. After all, the old Manleys survived detonation in all four cylinders and only eventually yielded after some extreme temperatures. So I pulled the pistons out of the block, swapped the new rods on, and reassembled. I confirmed that I can now rotate the crankshaft freely. I can. But....
BScjAr0.jpg

JFC. Pistons are Wiseco K597M855. Meant for 88m bore 150mm rods. Rods are Manley 14022-4, 5.905 inches long or 150mm. So now that I have pistons installed and can finally rotate the crank, I measured the stroke. 94mm from deck to bottom piston. 6mm from deck to top piston. So I magically have a 4G64 crank now. To summarize:

* According to Buschur, standard operating procedure is 156mm rods and 6mm shorter pistons for a better rod ratio. That is what I would have gone with except that they didn't inspect my 150mm rods to find that they were not reusable until after they ordered pistons for said 150mm rods.
* The bearings that I paid for were shipped to a different customer in Dubai. A set of Callies rods were given to me as compensation for that and for the first 6 weeks of delay.
* The rods that were given do not fit my block and because I could not get through to Buschur to talk about this problem I had to buy an additional set of rods that will fit.
* Not only is this crank not the one that I gave them, it's not even for a 4G63 and as a result the pistons that are wrong and the rods that are also wrong don't fit anyway.
* I still don't have my head.
* I still don't have my dipstick tube. That was not returned to me when I grabbed the block and Buschur hasn't responded since before I reminded them that they still have it.
* According to Buschur, this was a one week job. It started on the 13th of January when they received my disassembled engine before they opened and should have been completed around January 20th. It has now been a bit over 9 weeks and while there is a valid reason for some of that delay, repeatedly telling me that it will be done "tomorrow" when you know that you won't have an opportunity to even get to it for another week or two is not acceptable. I'm not necessarily in a rush to get this job done but I have now planned four separate trips to Cincinnati to pick up the engine based on dates suggested by Buschur and yet I still don't have the engine back.

On an almost positive note, I have been calling Buschur's Wakeman facility and have occasionally gotten though to Mike The Welder, who is then making an attempt to forward my information on to Jimmy in Cincinnati. So far all that I've told him is that Jimmy has my head and that I am coming to Cincinnati this weekend to pick it up. I also reminded him about my dipstick tube, but this conversation started yesterday and finished before I had discovered my 4G64 crank today, so that will be yet another call in the morning. Mike The Welder was at least able to tell me that the head has been completed and just never got shipped out.

So that's where things stand. Now that I have assembled the shortblock twice, I get to disassemble it again. I may get my head this weekend but what I'm going to do about this crank is still unknown. I have two sets of rods for this build and I'm already running out of assembly lube.
 
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Somehow this working from home arrangement has left me with less time than usual but here's the painful update from last weekend. I did go to Cincinnati. I asked Jimmy if he needed me there Friday during business hours or if he would be in the shop over the weekend like he had been in past weeks. He said he'd be there the entire weekend, so I arrived Saturday morning. Jimmy told me that he was dyno tuning a car at another shop and wouldn't be able to meet me for an hour or so. I continued to get excuses until around 5PM when he asked me, "Tomorrow would work better for you anyway, right?" Which, no. No it wouldn't.

So I showed up Sunday morning. Didn't hear anything from Jimmy until 12:44 when he said he was still in bed not feeling well. I told him that I could give him time to get ready, but that was his last message that day. I stayed there until 5:45 when I had to leave empty-handed.

Monday I called Buschur again. I didn't get Mike The Welder and instead got a guy who weirdly avoided giving his name, but he took my shipping address and said that he'd get it shipped out. Tuesday Jimmy asked me if there was anything else that needed to be shipped beyond my crank and head. I reminded him again of the dipstick tube, and that's where the story ends. Mostly. I haven't heard anything or received any packages since.

But while I was killing time in Cincinnati waiting for Jimmy's response that never came, I happened to run into a guy in Kentucky who knew of Jimmy by reputation. He filled me in on exactly what that reputation was, then asked around for contact info. I got a direct business line to him which went straight to voicemail. A friend of a friend was available to talk and when we asked him how to get in contact with Jimmy the response was, "Good luck. You should just take your parts and go elsewhere" which could have been good advice if my problem wasn't that I couldn't "take" my parts. I also learned that Jimmy's shop is actually called All In Racing Engines and its affiliation with Buschur seems to alternate between having a common employee and having outright bought Buschur Racing depending on when I ask. At this point I don't care. I just want my Eclipse running again.
 
Somehow this working from home arrangement has left me with less time than usual but here's the painful update from last weekend. I did go to Cincinnati. I asked Jimmy if he needed me there Friday during business hours or if he would be in the shop over the weekend like he had been in past weeks. He said he'd be there the entire weekend, so I arrived Saturday morning. Jimmy told me that he was dyno tuning a car at another shop and wouldn't be able to meet me for an hour or so. I continued to get excuses until around 5PM when he asked me, "Tomorrow would work better for you anyway, right?" Which, no. No it wouldn't.

So I showed up Sunday morning. Didn't hear anything from Jimmy until 12:44 when he said he was still in bed not feeling well. I told him that I could give him time to get ready, but that was his last message that day. I stayed there until 5:45 when I had to leave empty-handed.

Monday I called Buschur again. I didn't get Mike The Welder and instead got a guy who weirdly avoided giving his name, but he took my shipping address and said that he'd get it shipped out. Tuesday Jimmy asked me if there was anything else that needed to be shipped beyond my crank and head. I reminded him again of the dipstick tube, and that's where the story ends. Mostly. I haven't heard anything or received any packages since.

But while I was killing time in Cincinnati waiting for Jimmy's response that never came, I happened to run into a guy in Kentucky who knew of Jimmy by reputation. He filled me in on exactly what that reputation was, then asked around for contact info. I got a direct business line to him which went straight to voicemail. A friend of a friend was available to talk and when we asked him how to get in contact with Jimmy the response was, "Good luck. You should just take your parts and go elsewhere" which could have been good advice if my problem wasn't that I couldn't "take" my parts. I also learned that Jimmy's shop is actually called All In Racing Engines and its affiliation with Buschur seems to alternate between having a common employee and having outright bought Buschur Racing depending on when I ask. At this point I don't care. I just want my Eclipse running again.
wow nightmare !
 
Dang, just read the last couple pages...I'd be livid...

You'd think when someone is going to put their name on, or affiliate with some other party/company, they'd stand behind it.

Hope you can get it sorted out man, but that crank situation is ridiculous. The Callie's rods may have for with a stock crank in there!

GL, hopefully things will turn around soon, don't back down!
 
For anyone following along, the lines about the head being ready to go and just needing shipping were all lies. One of the many times that I tried to get through to Jimmy, he actually responded and told me that the head was warped beyond what could be salvaged. He had a spare core in the shop, he said, and he would be building that for me instead. That was April 10th. There has not been any additional response via Facebook messenger, though my last message is "Seen." On May 8th I took the day off work, drove to Cincinnati, and paid a surprise visit to Jimmy. He gave me what I am told is his personal phone number because he can't use Facebook Messenger anymore, he said. I dropped off the 4G64 crank. He told me that he didn't have any 7 bolt cranks that could use standard bearings like I already had, but he had a spare EVO crank which would fit and, he told me, would be an upgrade. I collected by "custom bent" dipstick tube as well. He also said that the head core had been machined and was just awaiting final assembly. He had hired two new employees and one was tasked with assembling a line of heads the following week. My head would ship out the 15th, if not before, and on the 14th he confirmed that the head was on track to ship out the following day. And then, again, radio silence.

So I called Buschur today. Again. Someone whose name I think is Nick took down my information. I'm thinking that I should have listened to my mom back at the end of April when she told me file a police report for stolen property and asked if I wanted her to pay Jimmy a visit. She had a new baseball bat that she wanted to break in, she said.
 
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For anyone following along, the lines about the head being ready to go and just needing shipping were all lies. One of the many times that I tried to get through to Jimmy, he actually responded and told me that the head was warped beyond what could be salvaged. He had a spare core in the shop, he said, and he would be building that for me instead. That was April 10th. There has not been any additional response via Facebook messenger, though my last message is "Seen." On May 8th I took the day off work, drove to Cincinnati, and paid a surprise visit to Jimmy. He gave me what I am told is his personal phone number because he can't use Facebook Messenger anymore, he said. I dropped off the 4G64 crank. He told me that he didn't have any 7 bolt cranks that could use standard bearings like I already head, but he had a spare EVO crank which would fit and, he told me, would be an upgrade. I collected by "custom bent" dipstick tube as well. He also said that the head core had been machined and was just awaiting final assembly. He had hired two new employees and one was tasked with assembling a line of heads the following week. My head would ship out the 15th, if not before, and on the 14th he confirmed that the head was on track to ship out the following day. And then, again, radio silence.

So I called Buschur today. Again. Someone whose name I think is Nick took down my information. I'm thinking that I should have listened to my mom back at the end of April when she told me file a police report for stolen property and asked if I wanted her to pay Jimmy a visit. She had a new baseball bat that she wanted to break in, she said.

I like your mom.. she has the right idea :beatentodeath:
 
There's a reason a lot of people are afraid of my mom. Oh, the stories I could tell. One of these days I'll throw the car related ones up on Oppositelock.

@TK's9d2TSi No, I've completely forgotten about all of the other problems with the Eclipse while I focus on the head. I guess I should do that while the engine is out. Unfortunately the manifold, turbo, and O2 housing are all permanently one piece, but maybe the machine shop can deal with that.

In related news, Jimmy told me on the phone just now that the machine used for head jobs has been broken for the past few weeks and just got repaired this week, so he'll have the head ready for pickup this weekend. It doesn't line up with the "machine work is done and just needs assembled" story that I got when I was there last month, but I told him that I'd be stopping by next weekend while I'm in Cincinnati and there had better be a head ready with my name on it.
 
Get it independently checked. Last head work I had done was new valve guides that were done with a busted pilot that they didnt bother checking. All the valves leaked. Just sayin', after all that hell. Rush jobs breed crap work.
 
RBNRgGZ.jpg

Time has been exceedingly short, but I finally got the shortblock off the stand and ready to go into the car (and the K6A back on the stand). Just because of the way I pulled the engine out of the car I intend to install the shortblock this week and then spend the weekend assembling the engine in the car. If I can get some help I may have things back together by next week, which would be amazing. Unfortunately my new steering rack isn't done being rebuilt so I'll be driving the car with the power steering pump removed for a bit. @curt-s I do intend to check out the head, but other than making sure that each valve can hold water I'm not sure what to check. The sealing surface is a mirror finish so at least aesthetically it looks like good work.

I've also got some fancy RM Racing sway bars to get installed soon, but the priority is obviously getting the car back on the road. It has only been apart since November...
 
Water has a higher surface tension than, say, wd40. Without sufficient pressure to force it though water will not penetrate a seat-valve interface whereas air will quite readily.

Also can install the valves and shine a very bright light against the valve face while inspecting the backface via the port in a dark/blackout room.

Valves constantly rotate to some degree while in operation so it is imperative that the two surfaces meet well with a sufficient width of contact patch.

When I got my head back the first time after a delay, the deck surface was very high quality. Near mirror.
Not until when I checked the valves after install that I found all 16 leaked in some way, some worse than others. None held wd40, all passed light to the ports.

That is when I found out their pilot was busted. They never even bothered to check before it left out the door. This was a backed-up shop that delayed my head in just a minor way and has a rep around here. Shit happens due to Murphys Law.

Just sayin'
 
The engine went back together two weeks ago. Idle was super rough and while it was driveable clearly something was wrong. This was my first time using the timing belt tool kit and somehow with these fancy new tools I was able to get the exhaust cam advanced by one tooth. While trying to use the tensioner tool (rod) to fix the cam timing, the tool bent inside the mount bracket and now needs to be cut out. Which is great. Also the engine is running on two cylinders.

2 and 3 are great. 1 and 4 are not firing. I replaced the coil since I have two spares but I had already confirmed that all four cylinders are getting spark. Jiggling the fuel injector wires for 1 and 4 can instantaneously cause idle to smooth out, so it really sounds like yet another set of broken strands in the engine harness for the fuel injectors. For those playing along, yes, I have already replaced the last 8 inches of the fuel injector wires when I had this problem last year. Now I guess I'll go all the way back to the junction under the thermostat housing. I have my Suzuki engine harnesses in the basement that I plan to harvest wires from, and Bollinger Motorsport has an EV6 connector kit.

On one hand, I am so done with this shit. On the other hand, I am so close. On the third hand, I won't have time to work on the car for another three weeks. It feels like by the time the car is running again it will actually need the winter tires that are still on it. Summer rubber is just over two years old and has under 2000 miles on it because the car won't stay running.
 
Keep going! You’re a great writer and obviously very intelligent individual!

It’s been entertaining reading this build thread the whole way through. You’ve given me motivation and ideas concerning what I want to do with my build, so thank you for that!

Wishing you the best of luck (going forward of course)!

Scott
 
IT LIVES!
4sHG5Ob.jpg

I've taken a picture at this exact pump every time I've gotten the car running, and I didn't want to break the tradition.

I ducked out of work early Friday to get a start on the car. Before I tore into the engine harness I cut out the crimps for injectors 1 and 4 and redid them. There was no change in how awful the engine was running so I pulled the plugs. 2-4 were black and soaked with fuel and 1 was completely clean. My compression test showed 180 psi on cylinders 2-4 and 0 psi on 1. So I popped out the rockers, removed and cleaned the lifters (again), and put everything back together. And it fired right up! The low fuel trim is +5% but the other trims are right around 0% and AFRs are excellent under load. I did a quick one exit highway trip to let it fully warm up but I still have yet to really take it through a break-in.

The To-Do list is still very long.
  • It feels like my brake pads are just blocks of wood and the rotors are already scrap after just 1500 miles. Pads, rotors, rear calipers, and lines on all four corners are the highest priority.
  • The exhaust is garbage and I'm tired of waking up every person in my entire zip code.
  • Sway bars are here but not installed. I expect that I will still need to do springs/struts after those go on the car, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
  • The power steering pump was not reinstalled with the car and this half-assed depower is nearly undriveable. Even turning while the car is moving and on my narrow winter tires is incredibly unpleasant. An EPS column swap has moved near the top of my priority list.
  • The windshield is still cracked.
  • I have urethane engine mount inserts that I haven't installed yet.
  • I don't actually know what the boost is set at right now. I will turn it all the way down and start tuning from wastegate pressure again.
  • I loathe this ebay tubular manifold. I had planned to install the stock 2g manifold that came with the car but it was so severely cracked and poorly welded that it went straight to the recycling center.
 
Also I am an idiot and wasn't paying attention when I put the battery back in. I had the ring terminal for the HID relays and it didn't fit on the +12 stud, so instead of wondering how I drove the car with headlights which suddenly don't work, I grabbed my drill to open the ring terminal a bit. And the bit grabbed, which of course it would, and ripped the ring terminal right off of the wire. And it was at that exact moment when I realized that this was the GND terminal, not +12V. And the GND post is much smaller and, of course, would have fit. My repair with a new ring terminal works but doesn't look as nice as the original wire wrap and heatshrink.

I put 288 miles on the car yesterday for an impromptu engine break-in. I went to Cincinnati to have dinner with my parents, to Mason to drop off 12 broken pistons to a friend who wants to make drink coasters, and to Dayton to pick up a minty fresh OEM catback which should make my DSM nice and quiet until I can get around to having a custom exhaust made. I learned some things and I remembered some things that I should have already known.

  • I absolutely loathe window tint. This stuff has got to come off ASAP.
  • The dummy light still works, but the connector to the oil pressure sending unit has fallen off. I need to get that sorted out.
  • There is a rattling behind the gauge cluster that is quickly whittling away at my sanity.
  • I thought my gauge lights were all not functioning but instead for some reason they were turned off. Once I found the dimmer switch all was well.
  • ECUFlash cannot get my ECU to unlock for flashing, so I can't change the tune right now. I only had a minor deadtime adjustment to try out so I'm not too concerned just yet.
  • These brakes are still garbage. Holy crap are they awful. Outlander caliper brackets and new pads/rotors/SS lines/rear calipers/3G master cylinder are on the way.
  • There is a fuel leak at the rail. I'm assuming an injector o ring got pinched during assembly. I can't see the leak but I can smell gas under the hood and the line pressure drops to 0 as soon as I turn the car off.
  • My fuel gauge is way off. It hits 3/4 after 100 miles and 1/4 at 200 miles and stays at 1/4 until I would run out of gas. The fuel light does work but I need to get that sorted. Which is a challenge because...
  • The soft high pressure fuel line from the tank is seized to the hard line. I need to cut it off and reflare the hard line. The soft line is degraded and should be considered dangerous. I am shocked that I didn't rip it when I installed the fuel pump in 2018.
  • The suspension setup is just weird. It's exactly the same as my previous DSMs, but it feels appropriately damped but WAY undersprung. And it also reminds me of progressive springs in that they are very soft over bumps but anything past a certain amount of compression gets hard. Uneven highway expansion joints are quite bad. Sway bars will not help this. Now I get to decide between springs/dampers and coilovers.
 
Because the manual rack is damn near undriveable, I got started today on an EPAS setup. I will start a dedicated thread when I get closer, but for now I scored the complete steering column from a Scion xD today for $40. The long term goal is to use this setup for speed-variable steering assist as well as steering wheel media controls for my radio. I managed to nab the entire column with height adjustment, the assist motor, the controller and associated wiring, and the steering wheel and buttons. I had the airbag as well, but this junkyard refuses to sell airbags for liability reasons due to the explosive. I tried to remove the airbag itself and just keep the cover/horn but they threw the entire assembly into a dumpster. So if I'm going to keep this steering wheel I will have to source a used airbag. So dumb. I have the controller from a Yaris without ABS on the way. That controller takes a standard VSS input (the rest of the Toyota controllers all take speed signal over CAN) and SEEMS to be expecting the same 4000 pulses per mile that the 2g VSS is likely outputting. I'm still hoping to get confirmation for both of those PPM figures. And now some pictures.
MGEbgki.jpg

ZjtvATL.jpg
 
I finally placed the big brake order today and got a call from JNZ soon after telling me that the fluid and HPS rear pads are discontinued. They upgraded my fluid to ATE for free (Thanks!) and dropped the rear pads so that I could try to find them on my own, and I may have just purchased the last set of Hawk HPS rear pads in the country. The more I looked into it, the more it seems like a supply shortage and not discontinuation. These pads apply to pretty much the entire Mitsubishi lineup (except Lancer) from 1992 until the discontinuation of the 4G Eclipse and also the entire Chrysler lineup through the late 90s and mid 2000s AND the Subaru SVX, Impreza, and Legacy prior to 1999. Surely they aren't permanently discontinued. But if they are, Porterfield R4-S come highly recommended and are about the same price as front and rear HPS.

Thanks to JNZ for being awesome. It brought me back to 2008 when I could call in to place an order and end up chatting for hours. For the past few years they had been pulling back on the friendliness and phone interaction but I'm very glad to see that they're back to being an excellent vendor.

The part number for the keyless entry FOB is MR123944 but it also seems to be unobtainable right now.
 
I run Porterfield R4-S on an Outlander BBK setup and have been impressed with the braking prowess. What brake setup did you order?

Outlander front brackets, rebuilt rear calipers, and slotted rotors all around. It sounds like you and I will have the same brake setup except for the pads and my 3g master cylinder. What do you think of yours?
 
I really like the setup...it doesn't necessarily feel like it will plant your face into the windshield, however, the brakes are quite strong and stopping power is greatly improved over stock.
 
I am still unable to communicate with the ECU but I haven't tried investigating further. Until Saturday the tune that's on there was just fine.

I put 600 miles on the car on Saturday. That's the same amount of miles that I put on it in the prior 2.5 years of ownership. I took a friend to Illinois to look at a manual Cherokee and the car performed flawlessly except for the exhaust, which I want to take an oxy acetylene torch to, and only one of the many third gear pulls to redline showed tons of knock and stuttering. It's the only such instance since I got the car running again two months ago. I haven't touched the factory spark map in the EVO 8 ECU at all and I recall the fuel trims being ~+7% so I'm not exactly surprised that it needs tune attention. But now I need to figure out what's wrong with my setup, since EVOScan works just fine. If ECUFlash were working I would say that now is the time for a professional tune.

Centric FINALLY came out and said that the Outlander front rotors are on backorder. The blanks that they had acquired to machine down for me were incorrect in some way and having to reorder them means that they don't expect to ship them out to me until Octover 22nd. JNZTuning said they'd order a few sets to have in stock so that others don't have to deal with this delay. Fortunately for me, my current brakes work alright and this is just an upgrade, not an emergency replacement.

I emailed STM almost three weeks ago asking about their catback. I am adamant that I have twin tips and I asked them if they could create one for me that replaces their single tip with something else. For a fee, obviously. No response yet and their phone goes directly to voicemail, but they do have a message saying that they're desperately trying to fill orders and are crazy busy. Like the brakes this isn't an emergency for me, but the current exhaust is so bad and so loud that I am embarrassed to have fun with it on the street. I can't even hear the turbo over the racket. I also learned that the exhaust squeaks under any side-to-side movement at all and it can easily move left far enough to hit the tunnel; it makes a TON of noise while driving.

I picked BC Racing BR coilovers with Swift springs as my next suspension, but I still need to figure out spring rates. The standard spring rates of 12k/6k seem a bit high and the rates for the Swift springs are not given. I won't be ordering anything until I get these sway bars in, and I can't get them in without an impact and some help. I cannot get the end links off.
 
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