Showcar Build 95 Eclipse RS turbo show car build

[jesse12345]

I beleive the srt4 pistons don't work in the 2.0. The pistons that I have in are neon pistons which have a slightly lower compression than the eclipse 420a.

 

[DrewmHolland]

that’s a misconception srt4 pistons do fit on stock 420a rods and they lower your compression to 8.3:1, i haven’t done it personally but it’s a common swap and the measurements are all the same plus they’re strong as hell

 

[DrewmHolland]

Also I believe the sohc neon pistons would raise your compression because they don’t have valve reliefs but still come up to the same compression height as regular 420a pistons so it’s probably like 10.5:1

 

[jesse12345]

Looking at both srt4 pistons with 420a ones the wrist pin size is slightly bigger. So I don't know how you could use them and I don't know why a guy would want to knowing how weak the stock 420a rods are. The 420a pistons have a very slight compression bump with the dome top, the valve reliefs are so they don't make contact with the pistons since its a close tolerance engine. The neon sohc pistons have the slight dish.

 

[DrewmHolland]

Interesting idk what your compression is then but you’re right I just looked it up and you’d have to get the rod small end turned from .827 to .866in to fit srt4 pistons

 

[jesse12345]

And its a press fit so I don't know what rods you could use, I'm not sure you'd want to slap stock ones on. With lower compression maybe it'd be better but I'm not sure. I don't know enough about these engines but I'm learning.

 

[jesse12345]

Back to working on the 95 rs. I installed a new fuel pump along with a new fuel filter to hopefully combat my lean condition going into boost. Last summer I tried different fmu's along with setting them up differently. I have a fuel pressure gauge in the car and the pressure did go up when I gave it gas, so I'm just going to rule out old things that haven't been replaced yet. I hate just throwing parts at cars but these old beauties deserve it. I usually have it all on hand anyways, so it doesn't hurt.

I may have to drop the trans again which I did last summer, the stock clutch was slipping. Now the throw out bearing is making some bad noise which sucks because I already replaced it. I should have left the old one in. It's all fine I don't mind.

 

[jesse12345]

Last night I started taking the ac off the car since I found my old belt that fits just the power steering without ac. I also found out the unorthodox crank pulley is smaller than the factory so the belt didn't fit. I will be throwing my stock crank pulley back on to fit the belt. I want the engine bay as bare as I can get it, and the ac didn't work anyways. I won't be throwing anything away, just in case maybe one day I'll want it back on.

I also started cleaning out the entire car since it's been a storage for all my other parts. I'd like the get the make shift sunroof taken out, I'm just not sure what I should put there (roof scoop)? Or is that to ricer? It's not a factory sunroof so whatever I do decide it'll have to be custom either way.

I am way to excited to get this thing back up and running, I really do miss having a manual. I'm only going to be running the car at maybe 8lbs max so If I can figure out the fueling problem and then just leave it alone, ill be happy. As much as I wanted to leave it how the previous owner had it, I'm super ocd about how certain things should be.

 

[DrewmHolland]

Good luck getting her back on the road, lmk if you have FMU or other fuel related questions since I run a very similar setup to yours

 

[jesse12345]

So this setup worked great on my 95 talon but I'm struggling to get it working on this thing. I'll see if I can't get it out here soon to see if my fuel pump was the issue. Before I started swapping everything it boosted 5 pounds without any issues. I should take a picture tonight of how my fmu is setup, I'm not sure what year yours is but mine has the return style setup in the engine bay.

 

[DrewmHolland]

That’s interesting I have a 99 and I ditched the FPR and only use my fmu, it sits under my car where the original FPR was

 

[jesse12345]

Yeah mine has the return up front which makes it super easy but I may have the wrong fuel rail on. I'll look tonight but mine should have a fpr on the rail and that may be what's going on since the spa fmu has one built in, If I remember right. I should try hooking up the vortec fmu with the other fuel rail on and see if that fixes it.

I have a 340 pump in so the stock fpr won't work anyways so I'll just set it up with the spa and see what it does. It's set up exactly like my talon was now so it should work in theory of course.

 

[DrewmHolland]

Yeah there’s some restrictions so if you run a pump that big you may have to sand down the plunger on the inside of your fmu, for instance I have a 255 and when I prime the car it spikes to 30psi then drops to 20psi of fuel pressure and holds it there but when running it sits around 34 psi because it’s forcing a lot of fuel through the return line

Technically my base pressure would be 20psi and I don’t think you can go lower than 25 without sanding the plunger down which I had to do but that’s because I’m using 24lb injectors

 

[jesse12345]

I mean it is an ebay pump so the numbers may be inflated, but I do have a wideband which was telling me my idle was stupid rich with stock injectors. I'll have to see when I get it fired up again.

 

[jesse12345]

Awesome news, the fuel pump fixed the lean problem. It's now making about 7 pounds with no problems. It feels great! I'm going to start building my spare motor and it'll be a factory rebuild that I can reliably rip around with.

 

[jesse12345]

The past couple of days I've been slowly getting things how I want. I installed my short shifter that I've had lying around for awhile now. It feels alot better than before.

I also finally got around to swapping the door panels, and while I was at it I fixed all the speakers so a guy has a radio again. It's starting to feel some what complete, since the interior has been ripped out for awhile now.

As a bonus I was gently taking out the condenser and ended up breaking the radiator, so I have a new one on the way, classic. It's at least 15 years old so it probably wouldn't hurt to slap a new one in anyway. I've also been taking bolts out and cleaning them all up with a little bit of anti seize, they were pretty crusty. The ac bolts snapped right off, so the rest are getting some care now.

I'll do some other little things here and there but my next big move needs to be focused on what I'm going to do about this horrifying sunroof. I either have a shop do it or I try to tackle it myself. I'll have to flip a coin and see.

 

[jesse12345]

I finally got the car back on the road. I decided to swap my 380cc injectors in and I turned the boost up to 12. Im not going to lie it pulls very well compared to the 7 pounds it was at. I'm not intentionally trying to blow the engine I'd just like to see how it holds up.
I'm actually grabbing a 2.4 from my buddy for 200 bucks this weekend, so that's one of the reasons. I'm just trying to enjoy the car a little before it's down again for awhile.

 

[DrewmHolland]

How’s the cold start and idle on those and what fuel pressure are you running?

 

[jesse12345]

It starts exactly how it did with the stock ones and im running like 30 pounds. It runs very well and feels good, I'm really happy with it. The only issue I can see is when I get into it the fuel pressure doesn't go up as fast as I'd like.

 

[jesse12345]

I started getting after this horrendous sunroof tonight and I'm still trying to figure out how I want to tackle it. Do I sacrifice my talon for the roof or try to patch this thing I have no idea. I can't stand custom sunroof jobs.

I've also decided to take this whole build to a completely different vision that I have. I'm going to sort of turn it into my version of a show car from the 2000s. I'd like to keep my gsx stock looking and experiment on this thing. I don't want to "rice" it out but I do want to play with it since the whole thing is going to be getting stripped down anyways. The front and rear bumpers will for sure stay stock but I do have some aftermarket sideskirts that aren't to wild. It's going to be pretty fun, ill probably do a custom stereo setup in it also. I do know I won't drill into anything and I'll also make everything removable, and any of the stock parts I won't be cutting or modifying. It'll be more of a very light tuners show car.

 

[talonesi95t]

Carbon fiber sunroof plug maybe?

 

[jesse12345]

That's definitely an idea I just dont know how I'd go about getting it to stay in there. I think I'm leaning towards panel bonding because I know if I try welding, I'll warp the metal. It's just so thin and flimsy, I don't know how that sunroof didn't bow the roof.

 

[jesse12345]

I have started the tear down process tonight. I'm super stoked that I finally have some free time to actually get into this again. Any and all rust will be taken care of and every thing on this car will be either replaced and or cleaned up and painted. I want to take my time and really make this car how I would have wanted it in high-school. I'm not going to rice it out or anything crazy, but I may shove some old school neon under it for shows. It's not going to be so much of a nostalgia build like my gsx but more of a build I dreamed of back in the day.

 

[jesse12345]

I think I'm going to be dropping the rear subframe and gas tank next. When I was unbolting the tank filler neck shield 3 out of the 4 bolts snapped. Just my luck so to keep things in a safe manner ill just drop everything and refinish it all. There are so many rusty bolts it's unreal.
I have yet another part of the rocker that needs to be cut out and fixed along with other weird places I haven't seen rust build up before.
I know not many are interested in the 420a build since it's just a 420a at the end of the day. I sort of have a soft spot for them since I had 3 non turbo eclipses before I got my first gst. I don't mind putting in hard work on any of these cars, there all special to me.

 

[jesse12345]

I decided to tackle some rust on the passenger side floor. It wasn't to bad and I just thought I'd get the floors out of the way. I'm really itching to get the car where I want so I can start putting things in it.