954g63gst
10+ Year Contributor
- 228
- 24
- May 24, 2012
-
gardner,
Massachusetts
95 eclipse gst shooting for 500hp
I had searched for 4 months for a copper colored eclipse. My friend had one and I was amazed at the color and body style. But he would not sell it even after he said he would, and I brought him the money. So I went to craigslist and went shopping. I found this 95 eclipse in 2008 from RI for $3500. 99% stock all it had was a bov. I new right then it was my turn. Shot him a message, then took ownership. He had vaccum lines missing and the bov was not adjusted correctly. So the car shut off when I pushed in the clutch or let off the gas. But I was determined to turn this little headache into a 500hp copper tar eater.
My goals were to get the car running 100%. By adjusting bov, and replacing vac lines. Then rims and alignment. After that I planed on working from the bottom up. Crank, Rods, Pistons, Studs, Head gasket, Valves, Springs, Cams, Gears, Fuel pump, Fuel rail, Injectors, Fuel pressure regulator. Followed by Intake, Innercooler, Turbo, Exhaust, Clutch. That was the plan, that I was dreaming, at the time I bought the car. Then reality hit me with all the complications
One of the first things I did was replace all the vac lines. I did this by getting a diagram off Google. It showed where all the vac lines should all go. Not knowing at the time there is a sticker under the hood that show the same pic. Haha. but the print out was a larger, more clear, veiw so good for me.
The very next thing was not the bov. Because I knew nothing of the unit.( that you can adjust it until the car does not shut off.) But I did do a full tune up. New oil, Filter, Coolant, Plugs, Tranny fluid, Brakes, Wipers, and replaced all missing and broken fuses. I also did all four brake rotors. Drilled and slotted.
About a week later my older brother bought new rims and sold me his old privat 18" 5 spoke black rims with a crome lip for $800 with tires. Mint not a scratch. ( My girlfriend changed that the first time I let her drive the car while I was at work.)
With all that done so far, I didn't know exactly where to start. But I did find a front mount innercooler for $150. I figured it would keep the turbo and engine cooler during operation and it would rid all spungy hoses I heard were crap anyway. So I bought and installed a 27x7x2.5 core and 2.25 piping with T-clamps. looked sweet in the little mouth on a 95 front bumper. I finished the job with a boost leak test and started driving again.
At the time I had all this money I figured I would get the best engine management and have it for life so I ordered an AEM 2g ems from AEM for $1800 shipped. I had drove the car to dent sport garage and they said the ems was to much for my car and he suggested me to sell the AEM ems and buy DSM link. Bummer. So I just took it and went home.
Ok now I was out driving around and I ran into two gear heads, like myself, and thought I would show them how we do burnouts. I reved her up. I dumped that clutch like a bad woman, and roasted tire in first. Then second. Then third, as i shifted into 4th and drove normal there came this knock, knock, knock. I drove it home drained the oil and found little metal turds from my rods. FML. Without further ado, I ordered new rod bearings and replaced them from underneath the car. And the car started up and the noise was gone. Yay!! For the moment.....
3 to 4 weeks later I started the car and headed to work like I do every week day. except on the last hill heading to my work I went to down shift, and the car did not agree. It locked up and would not crank over. The crank would not spin and jump starting did not work. I had to have it towed to my house and I never clocked in to work that day.
So the first rebuild begins. First thing I did was drain the oil and I noticed the metal returned. That Friday I ordered an engine stand from my tool guy. I went home and started tearing her down. After the bolt on's, I removed the head and then the block all by hand and all by myself. That following Tuesday my tool guy dropped the engine stand off. I went home and bolted the block to the stand. Flipped her over and took out the pistons and then the crank. I then noticed the middle bearing journal was chewed up on one side. I knew right then, it was crank walk. I had to ship the block and parts to a machine shop. With little research I came across the Frankenstein kit from dsmgraveyard and figured with a name like that they must be quick and good at this type of engine work. Wrong. Two months after shipping the block to them they said they would get it right in the machine shop just for me. On the third month I had to call them and they said they would have it done by the end of the week. Two weeks later I called and they claimed the rings were just coming in, and they would bump the shipping to next day cause it took them so long. I finally got the block back two more weeks after that. (how do you stay in business like that?) In the package came EVO 9 pistons .20 over, 6 bolt big rods, bearings, and a freash machined block.
Every week after that I dumped every bit of money I could on what ever I needed next. witch was a Mits MLS headgasket. After that new oem head bolts. I started looking at all my OEM parts going back on and noticed shaft play in the turbo, cracks all through the exhaust manifold. It all had me thinking. but then I remembered my mom telling me "You could do anything you set my mind to" and that's when I told myself I will build my own car from bottom up and I don't care how long it takes. I went to forced performance web page and ordered a fp exhaust manifold and EVO 3 big 16g turbo.
One day I was on the internet and I came across a balance shaft eliminator kit. I said why not I have the engine all turn down and bought it. Along with a new oil pump housing and bolts from extreme psi. Who had the cheapest price with the most quality parts, being mostly all OEM except the sprocket spacer. great kit.
Then I went to FFWDConnections.com and ordered a copper manifold to head gasket. A copper big bore manifold to turbo gasket. And copper turbo to o2 housing gasket. they also had the cheapest price for the foward facing oil fiter housing and bolt kit. Yes I got it. It looked so beautiful all put together.
Right before I was going to install the engine I looked at the fly wheel and said naaaaa. I had to order a new one from ACT web page along with a 2900 pressure plate and a 6 puck disc. Hoping the clutch would not slip no more. Boy was I right but it was not nice taking off from a complete stop. so with the engine now installed it started right up. Sweet. but if i went above 3500 rpm the car felt like it fell on its face.
With a little research I found out I was hitting fuel cut. So I ordered a Walbro 255 fuel pump kit from ebay $100 and a rewire kit. With all that set up. I took her out and same thing car felt like it fell on its face. So I ordered a AEM fuel rail. Installed it and same thing again. So at this point I did a hole bunch of research and ended up ordering new pte 880cc injectors, Dsm link V3 full, an ecu socket, a 3" gm maf, Dejon 3"maf to turbo intake pipe, and the gm maf harness for Dsm link from Cimotorsports.com. With all that gear and a little tune i had that car pulling right passed 3500rpm with ease. a little more maf comp adjusting she pulled right to 7000rpm. with no boost gauge or boost controller I never went that high again and she treated me good for almost a year.
Then I thought I would show my best friend how fast my 2g was. I had just shifted to 4th gear at about 120mph and let off and drove steady. I stoped at a mart store and when I went to turn on the car it cranked but didnt spark. Sadly i had it towed home again.
after the car got home I tried turning the crank by hand and it stopped. so I stopped and popped the spark plugs and looked in the cylinders with a flash light and found metal pces. Knowing I have to rip the head off. I ordered another Mits MLS headgasket and more copper exhaust gaskets. after ripping the head off again I found 3 damaged pistons and 12 broken valves. Now this is the cars second engine tear down.
The only thing I can think of I did wrong was this wire I came across installing the engine the first time was plugged into the cars harness and on the other end it was two wire melted in a dime size plastic but I told my self the car ran this long with out it and I ran it any way. Well I took the engine back out. Tore it all down and noticed the knock sensor was not there and I remembered leaving all the bolts in the block when shipping too the graveyard and the took all the bolts and sensors and never shipped them back so I called the dealer and ordered all new bolts where needed. Needless to say the wires to the knock sensors were plugged in therefor not throwing CEL and because it was not hooked on the sensor DSM link never detected knock and was not able to advance or retard timing. That's how I feel my engine failed this time
Learning from your mistakes is what I am doing now. just ordered a new knock sensor. Ordered another Frankenstein kit from Dsmgraveyard and with no machining the block it only took 3 months this time. With the new rods and pistons coming, I tore down the crank again it had 20 thow end-play. After looking at the thrust bearing journal i noticed one side was gouged. So i went looking for OEM new cranks and found one for $180 shipped. I also bought new standard ACL race rod and main bearings. I will be useing the new oil pump housing from the first rebuild. I didn't want there to be any issue with the head bolts so I ordered L19 head studs from extreme psi for $220. Now the block is set up for 500hp and its time to move on.
this time around I removed the trany too. Because I noticed a little rust here and there. plus a couple shiftier cable bushings were bad. I started a research on tranys and found fork failures so, I found STM street tuned motorsports and they had everything. I went shopping I ordered a street disc for my clutch to make it a little more street drive-able. I ordered a new OEM clutch master cylinder, new OEM slave cylinder, new S.S. clutch line, new clutch fork, new clutch fork boot , new pivot ball, and T.O.B. clip, What better way to start off. i also removed that intermediate clutch fluid chamber that was all rusty and bolted to the side of my trany. I ordered new OEM shiftier bushing for the cables to bolt to the trany. I had also ordered new output seals and figured I would just replace the axles while I was at it. The next time I touch the trany is to get it rebuilt to a dogbox.
With the block and trany now already I had to start on the head. I went to craigslist and found a rebuilt 2g head from a 97 gst spyder with 6000mi on it. I talked him down to $200. Score. I decided I would sell that AEM 2g ems sence I have dsm link and I know its good enough for me. My best offer was comp 272 cams and $400 so I took it. I did some research and found out about degreeing cams for proper installation. At that point skunk2 cam out with new style gears and had there last model on sale red anodized 6 bolt adjustable gears for $170. Another score! A little more research and found I should do the valve springs and retainers before I install the cams. A guy from real street performance emailed me about a set on manley titanium retainers and spring for $230 and I am working on that before my build is complete.
I felt the need to get rid of the greddy style bov and ordered a new real greddy RS bov for quality purposes.
I also found the Cam angle sensor (cas) had to be relocated for the gears to work properly. I found this web site road race engineering that knew all about the process. I am in the process of ordering there 1g cas in a 2g harness. I am shopping for a good black top 1g cas at the moment. I have already switched the coil pack wires. And the ecu injector firing order wires.
with everything out of the engine bay. I started thinking about handling and drive-ability I knew at this point everything's good till the axles. But what about the spindle and bearings. So I started taken her apart and found bad bushings and rusty control arms I went to google and found good quality front control arm kit for $300.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e3f6353dfa8e&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Also new hubs and new front wheel bearings. I was unable to find any steering knuckles so I striped mine down bare. I wire wheeled that puppy til she looked polished. Then heated it up and sprayed it black the right way.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e5a8ed5d70f0&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e5a3b7b99767&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
I did the same to my calipers but I painted those Chrysler Hemi orange and I will rebuild those later on but I did pick up new brake pad hardware.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e5b392bfc9ba&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Still waiting on the pistons and rods to get finished from DSMgraveyard.
A short shifter cam in so I set out to my car for another mod. I removed the console and old shifter.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e416b0caf68e&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Next I had to fit the pivot mount on the shaft of the shifter base but it did not fit so I had to file the top of the shifter bracket.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e41f2711b499&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
just till the new pivot mount would tightly slid all the way on
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e438fd5e7511&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
After installing that I continued to install the rest of the shifter. I was looking for shortest throw so I used the bottom hole when connecting the shifter linkage. But I noticed it hit the bracket when shifting to 5th
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e4459944a17e&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
noticing it was not structural where it hit I decided to grind it out.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e44e54248586&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Now I was finished and every gear shifted just fine hope you like it.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e5781185e58b&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
My goals were to get the car running 100%. By adjusting bov, and replacing vac lines. Then rims and alignment. After that I planed on working from the bottom up. Crank, Rods, Pistons, Studs, Head gasket, Valves, Springs, Cams, Gears, Fuel pump, Fuel rail, Injectors, Fuel pressure regulator. Followed by Intake, Innercooler, Turbo, Exhaust, Clutch. That was the plan, that I was dreaming, at the time I bought the car. Then reality hit me with all the complications
One of the first things I did was replace all the vac lines. I did this by getting a diagram off Google. It showed where all the vac lines should all go. Not knowing at the time there is a sticker under the hood that show the same pic. Haha. but the print out was a larger, more clear, veiw so good for me.
The very next thing was not the bov. Because I knew nothing of the unit.( that you can adjust it until the car does not shut off.) But I did do a full tune up. New oil, Filter, Coolant, Plugs, Tranny fluid, Brakes, Wipers, and replaced all missing and broken fuses. I also did all four brake rotors. Drilled and slotted.
About a week later my older brother bought new rims and sold me his old privat 18" 5 spoke black rims with a crome lip for $800 with tires. Mint not a scratch. ( My girlfriend changed that the first time I let her drive the car while I was at work.)
With all that done so far, I didn't know exactly where to start. But I did find a front mount innercooler for $150. I figured it would keep the turbo and engine cooler during operation and it would rid all spungy hoses I heard were crap anyway. So I bought and installed a 27x7x2.5 core and 2.25 piping with T-clamps. looked sweet in the little mouth on a 95 front bumper. I finished the job with a boost leak test and started driving again.
At the time I had all this money I figured I would get the best engine management and have it for life so I ordered an AEM 2g ems from AEM for $1800 shipped. I had drove the car to dent sport garage and they said the ems was to much for my car and he suggested me to sell the AEM ems and buy DSM link. Bummer. So I just took it and went home.
Ok now I was out driving around and I ran into two gear heads, like myself, and thought I would show them how we do burnouts. I reved her up. I dumped that clutch like a bad woman, and roasted tire in first. Then second. Then third, as i shifted into 4th and drove normal there came this knock, knock, knock. I drove it home drained the oil and found little metal turds from my rods. FML. Without further ado, I ordered new rod bearings and replaced them from underneath the car. And the car started up and the noise was gone. Yay!! For the moment.....
3 to 4 weeks later I started the car and headed to work like I do every week day. except on the last hill heading to my work I went to down shift, and the car did not agree. It locked up and would not crank over. The crank would not spin and jump starting did not work. I had to have it towed to my house and I never clocked in to work that day.
So the first rebuild begins. First thing I did was drain the oil and I noticed the metal returned. That Friday I ordered an engine stand from my tool guy. I went home and started tearing her down. After the bolt on's, I removed the head and then the block all by hand and all by myself. That following Tuesday my tool guy dropped the engine stand off. I went home and bolted the block to the stand. Flipped her over and took out the pistons and then the crank. I then noticed the middle bearing journal was chewed up on one side. I knew right then, it was crank walk. I had to ship the block and parts to a machine shop. With little research I came across the Frankenstein kit from dsmgraveyard and figured with a name like that they must be quick and good at this type of engine work. Wrong. Two months after shipping the block to them they said they would get it right in the machine shop just for me. On the third month I had to call them and they said they would have it done by the end of the week. Two weeks later I called and they claimed the rings were just coming in, and they would bump the shipping to next day cause it took them so long. I finally got the block back two more weeks after that. (how do you stay in business like that?) In the package came EVO 9 pistons .20 over, 6 bolt big rods, bearings, and a freash machined block.
Every week after that I dumped every bit of money I could on what ever I needed next. witch was a Mits MLS headgasket. After that new oem head bolts. I started looking at all my OEM parts going back on and noticed shaft play in the turbo, cracks all through the exhaust manifold. It all had me thinking. but then I remembered my mom telling me "You could do anything you set my mind to" and that's when I told myself I will build my own car from bottom up and I don't care how long it takes. I went to forced performance web page and ordered a fp exhaust manifold and EVO 3 big 16g turbo.
One day I was on the internet and I came across a balance shaft eliminator kit. I said why not I have the engine all turn down and bought it. Along with a new oil pump housing and bolts from extreme psi. Who had the cheapest price with the most quality parts, being mostly all OEM except the sprocket spacer. great kit.
Then I went to FFWDConnections.com and ordered a copper manifold to head gasket. A copper big bore manifold to turbo gasket. And copper turbo to o2 housing gasket. they also had the cheapest price for the foward facing oil fiter housing and bolt kit. Yes I got it. It looked so beautiful all put together.
Right before I was going to install the engine I looked at the fly wheel and said naaaaa. I had to order a new one from ACT web page along with a 2900 pressure plate and a 6 puck disc. Hoping the clutch would not slip no more. Boy was I right but it was not nice taking off from a complete stop. so with the engine now installed it started right up. Sweet. but if i went above 3500 rpm the car felt like it fell on its face.
With a little research I found out I was hitting fuel cut. So I ordered a Walbro 255 fuel pump kit from ebay $100 and a rewire kit. With all that set up. I took her out and same thing car felt like it fell on its face. So I ordered a AEM fuel rail. Installed it and same thing again. So at this point I did a hole bunch of research and ended up ordering new pte 880cc injectors, Dsm link V3 full, an ecu socket, a 3" gm maf, Dejon 3"maf to turbo intake pipe, and the gm maf harness for Dsm link from Cimotorsports.com. With all that gear and a little tune i had that car pulling right passed 3500rpm with ease. a little more maf comp adjusting she pulled right to 7000rpm. with no boost gauge or boost controller I never went that high again and she treated me good for almost a year.
Then I thought I would show my best friend how fast my 2g was. I had just shifted to 4th gear at about 120mph and let off and drove steady. I stoped at a mart store and when I went to turn on the car it cranked but didnt spark. Sadly i had it towed home again.
after the car got home I tried turning the crank by hand and it stopped. so I stopped and popped the spark plugs and looked in the cylinders with a flash light and found metal pces. Knowing I have to rip the head off. I ordered another Mits MLS headgasket and more copper exhaust gaskets. after ripping the head off again I found 3 damaged pistons and 12 broken valves. Now this is the cars second engine tear down.
The only thing I can think of I did wrong was this wire I came across installing the engine the first time was plugged into the cars harness and on the other end it was two wire melted in a dime size plastic but I told my self the car ran this long with out it and I ran it any way. Well I took the engine back out. Tore it all down and noticed the knock sensor was not there and I remembered leaving all the bolts in the block when shipping too the graveyard and the took all the bolts and sensors and never shipped them back so I called the dealer and ordered all new bolts where needed. Needless to say the wires to the knock sensors were plugged in therefor not throwing CEL and because it was not hooked on the sensor DSM link never detected knock and was not able to advance or retard timing. That's how I feel my engine failed this time
Learning from your mistakes is what I am doing now. just ordered a new knock sensor. Ordered another Frankenstein kit from Dsmgraveyard and with no machining the block it only took 3 months this time. With the new rods and pistons coming, I tore down the crank again it had 20 thow end-play. After looking at the thrust bearing journal i noticed one side was gouged. So i went looking for OEM new cranks and found one for $180 shipped. I also bought new standard ACL race rod and main bearings. I will be useing the new oil pump housing from the first rebuild. I didn't want there to be any issue with the head bolts so I ordered L19 head studs from extreme psi for $220. Now the block is set up for 500hp and its time to move on.
this time around I removed the trany too. Because I noticed a little rust here and there. plus a couple shiftier cable bushings were bad. I started a research on tranys and found fork failures so, I found STM street tuned motorsports and they had everything. I went shopping I ordered a street disc for my clutch to make it a little more street drive-able. I ordered a new OEM clutch master cylinder, new OEM slave cylinder, new S.S. clutch line, new clutch fork, new clutch fork boot , new pivot ball, and T.O.B. clip, What better way to start off. i also removed that intermediate clutch fluid chamber that was all rusty and bolted to the side of my trany. I ordered new OEM shiftier bushing for the cables to bolt to the trany. I had also ordered new output seals and figured I would just replace the axles while I was at it. The next time I touch the trany is to get it rebuilt to a dogbox.
With the block and trany now already I had to start on the head. I went to craigslist and found a rebuilt 2g head from a 97 gst spyder with 6000mi on it. I talked him down to $200. Score. I decided I would sell that AEM 2g ems sence I have dsm link and I know its good enough for me. My best offer was comp 272 cams and $400 so I took it. I did some research and found out about degreeing cams for proper installation. At that point skunk2 cam out with new style gears and had there last model on sale red anodized 6 bolt adjustable gears for $170. Another score! A little more research and found I should do the valve springs and retainers before I install the cams. A guy from real street performance emailed me about a set on manley titanium retainers and spring for $230 and I am working on that before my build is complete.
I felt the need to get rid of the greddy style bov and ordered a new real greddy RS bov for quality purposes.
I also found the Cam angle sensor (cas) had to be relocated for the gears to work properly. I found this web site road race engineering that knew all about the process. I am in the process of ordering there 1g cas in a 2g harness. I am shopping for a good black top 1g cas at the moment. I have already switched the coil pack wires. And the ecu injector firing order wires.
with everything out of the engine bay. I started thinking about handling and drive-ability I knew at this point everything's good till the axles. But what about the spindle and bearings. So I started taken her apart and found bad bushings and rusty control arms I went to google and found good quality front control arm kit for $300.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e3f6353dfa8e&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Also new hubs and new front wheel bearings. I was unable to find any steering knuckles so I striped mine down bare. I wire wheeled that puppy til she looked polished. Then heated it up and sprayed it black the right way.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e5a8ed5d70f0&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e5a3b7b99767&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
I did the same to my calipers but I painted those Chrysler Hemi orange and I will rebuild those later on but I did pick up new brake pad hardware.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e5b392bfc9ba&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Still waiting on the pistons and rods to get finished from DSMgraveyard.
A short shifter cam in so I set out to my car for another mod. I removed the console and old shifter.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e416b0caf68e&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Next I had to fit the pivot mount on the shaft of the shifter base but it did not fit so I had to file the top of the shifter bracket.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e41f2711b499&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
just till the new pivot mount would tightly slid all the way on
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e438fd5e7511&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
After installing that I continued to install the rest of the shifter. I was looking for shortest throw so I used the bottom hole when connecting the shifter linkage. But I noticed it hit the bracket when shifting to 5th
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e4459944a17e&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
noticing it was not structural where it hit I decided to grind it out.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e44e54248586&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Now I was finished and every gear shifted just fine hope you like it.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...att&th=13e4e5781185e58b&attid=0.1&disp=thd&zw
Last edited:
