1998 Eclipse GSX build

[idkiliketurbos]

I have wanted to start one of these for a while now. I figure since I'm doing my first "build", that it would be a good time to make a build journal. Let me start off by telling a little bit of my dsm history. I have had a 98 TSI AWD and a 97 GST. Both cars I owned while I was in high school and was not able to mod them a whole lot. After getting out of the dsm game for about 9 months, I had to have another. This time I was out of high school and able to afford a daily driver and also able to mod my dsm.

I am going to start this from the day I got the car.

I drove 8 hours for my 98 GSX after having a very hard time finding anything that was decent. The car was bone stock except for a Punishment Racing fmic kit. It was pretty close to what I was looking for (clean, mostly stock, 2gb gsx). It had a few minor things wrong with it (small rust, maintenance parts needing replacement).

The first bit of modding I did to the car included an Injen intake pipe with a K&N filter, 3" downpipe and catback, and a boost gauge. I was pretty impressed with how these few mods woke the car up. I wanted to lower the car just a tad so I bought some Eibach Pro-kit springs. After those bolt on parts I ended up buying a tactrix 2.0 openport so I could flash my ecu. All I did was a 5000 rpm 2 step for launching.

Picked up a set of evo 8 Enkei wheels and bought a set of BFG tires from Tire Rack for the wheels. These really set the car off in my opinion.

Here are a few pics of the car after I did the mods listed above. The car was a little dirty at the time of the pictures, but it still looks pretty good.

I took the car to the local drag strip and was not impressed with how my driving skills were, and also how lousy the car was performing (mid 15's with around 2.0 60 ft times).

Next up is the start of the winter build!

 

[manny correa]

Nice build.. And not to far from me. Love it up there, very relaxing. got fam in Milwaukee. And don't be to disappointed by a t25 . I to can't wait to start my build threads for both my awd 2gb's, and my Colt. Keep us updated bud, good luck.

 

[9O_tsi]

Looking good man! I live in Appleton and am currently going to the tech to be an automotive tech. If you ever need any help just let me know id love to help out. I cant wait till im out of school and can build my talon.

 

[idkiliketurbos]

The car needed some major maintenance since I didn't know when the timing components were last changed so I figured this was my opportunity to freshen up the car, and add some power. I decided that this winter I would make my car a quick street car and something fun I could take to the strip and be competitive with other street cars.

The first day I started taking parts off to pull the motor and transmission together. I spent about 3 hours the first day and 6 hours the next day working on getting the motor out. I figured working by myself for 9 hours was pretty good time for getting the motor and transmission out of the engine bay, especially since it was my first engine pull (I've watched/slightly helped my dad on a Focus in the past). I stripped the parts off the motor and started to clean a lot of the grease caked parts while I did some research on which parts to buy for my build.

Once I had the motor taken apart and some of the parts cleaned up, I decided to take apart my engine bay for some fresh paint. There was a tiny rust bubble that had just started along the seam where the strut tower meets the motor mount location on the drivers side. I ground down the metal with my Dremel and a grinding disc and found clean metal pretty quickly. There was also some paint starting to lift back by the clutch master cylinder. My guess would be somebody spilled brake fluid all over and didn't clean up. I finished prepping the rest of the bay for paint and then sprayed it with a few coats of r87 and followed up with a coat of clear. It turned out great, and now my engine bay paint looks better than the exterior. That will get worked on when it gets warm outside again.

Next update will outline my goals more specifically!

 

[idkiliketurbos]

My goals for the car are to have a clean, quick, and reliable street/strip car. I also want to show the local car scene that a dsm can be awesome if you do them right. This is pretty much my affordable dream car so I want to make it fun to drive.

The parts for the engine I will be adding are as follows:
MHI evo III 16g
Forced Performance exhaust manifold
Punishment Racing o2 dump housing
FP2 cams w/ evo ix valve springs and retainers
ARP head studs
XTD stage 4 clutch
ECMlink v3 lite (most likely upgrade to full once I get into tuning more)
FIC 650cc injectors
MTX-L wideband

Maintenance items will include:
OEM timing belt, tensioner, tensioner pulley, idler pulley
balance shaft delete
Gates waterpump
OEM composite head gasket
new oem gaskets in the bottom and top end
new supertech valve seals
Redline fluids throughout the drivetrain
(might be forgetting more but I'm replacing everything pretty much except for the bottom end)

Once I get the car running I plan on backing the car into my garage to drop the rear subframe and all the suspension components. Once that is done, I'm going to clean up any rust on the underbody of the car and coat the underside with bedliner.

I can't wait until this thing runs! I'll be taking more pictures this week for future updates!

 

[ThunderChild]

looks good man! pretty clean, get that thing running!

 

[bigbird94]

I think I saw that car w/ the black evo wheels on craigslist last summer or fall? Maybe it was a different one though. I live in the fox valley area as well (fond du lac).

Don't get 680cc injectors, just get 1000s or bigger. As long as you arent tuning with a SAFC you will be fine.

 

[idkiliketurbos]

Yeah, I was in a pinch for a while and needed money, but ended up just keeping the car and work picked back up. I already have the 650's, I bought them for really cheap a while back. If I need to upgrade injectors I will upgrade them, but we'll see.

It should be running sometime in January, machine shop just called today and my head and flywheel are both ready to be picked up. I'm just waiting on more money to finish buying everything else.

 

[idkiliketurbos]

I haven't had much time to work on the car lately so that means no pictures of progress. Engine is on the stand waiting for new parts. I do have some pictures of the parts I've been collecting to put on the car.

MHI evo III 16g

Found myself a great deal on ecmlink v3 full with an eprom right before christmas!

evo IX fuel pump and FIC 650cc injectors

This is the current state of my bedroom. FP manifold, fp2 cams, timing belt kit, couplers, wideband, water pump, arp head studs, and the list goes on.

 

[idkiliketurbos]

It has been a bit since I've updated my build thread. I've been busy with the car and haven't taken a whole lot of pictures. The current state of the engine is pretty much complete. I'm waiting on an oil return line gasket so I can fill it with oil and prime the engine before I put the timing belt on. Everything has gone pretty smoothly so far and I can't get the thought of driving it out of my head.

I decided to clean up my transmission and paint it with some cast aluminum color engine paint. It turned out good for the little time I have invested in it and it was totally worth doing because it was pretty gross looking before.

I decided to buy a factory service manual off of ebay because it was so cheap and I wanted a hard copy to have out in the garage. Best 25 dollars I've spent in a long long time.

Here are a few pictures I took of the engine accumulating parts. ( don't mind the mess in the background )

I'll be taking some more pictures as I finish up the engine and start putting the car back together.

 

[EisHERE]

I'm from wisconsin as well! Cool build you got going, that car sure does look nice. Good luck on the rest of the build!

 

[idkiliketurbos]

I made some good progress with the car a few days ago. The engine and transmission were installed so I can finally get this thing running later this week. The extremely cold weather here the next couple days doesn't seem appealing to go work in the garage. I can't wait to fire this thing up!