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96 GST Brought Back From the Dead

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gophishy10

10+ Year Contributor
350
7
Apr 17, 2012
Boston, Massachusetts
This build is about my GST that sat for 3 years and I am slowly bringing it back to life. My plans with it are not big. It is a daily driver in the summer months. My goals for now are to get around 350whp and still have money in my bank account. Like stated, the car is for daily driving and an occasional trip to the drag strip. I want to do a AWD conversion some day. Hope you enjoy and please give me your inputs on anything. Thanks!

Index:
Post #5 - Engine Swap and Front Bumper Repair
Post #6 - Prep for Paint Job and Spoiler Swap
Post #7 - Fresh Paint
Post #11 - Interior Work
Post #12 - Turbo Upgrade
Post #17, #20 - Winter 2012/2013
Post #21 - Few More Winter Updates
Post #22 - 1G Bov and Snow Pics
Post #25 - Spring Plans and Back up and Running
Post #31 - Interior Finished and Painting Parts


Ever since the very first Fast and Furious came out, I've wanted to get an Eclipse. When I was 16 and started driving, all I could afford was a POS Chevy Cavalier. I started working so I could eventually save up enough to get an Eclipse. Finally, when I was 20, I had enough money (so I thought) to get myself an Eclipse. I started browsing Craigslist and realized that there were turbos and non-turbos. I talked to a few friends that know cars and also started browsing the web for more info on these cars. I decided to wait it out for a GST or a GSX. Well, almost 8 months went by without me finding one that I could afford. So I decided to post a wanted ad on Craigslist. The very next day, I had an older guy call me and tell me he had a 96 GST sitting in his garage that he bought for his grandson. He said it had a blown turbo and his grandson didn't want to put the time into fixing it up. The car had sat for a two years before he had bought it and then a year in his garage. He said he would give it to me for $550 but he wasn't sure what else the car was going to need. So I decided to go take a look at this thing.

When I got there, I wasn't too impressed with the car. It looked a little beat up from sitting for so long. The front bumper was sitting inside the car along with a bunch of other parts. Half the engine bay was torn apart. The car only had a few minor dents and dings, but the spoiler and sideskirts were very sun faded. I thought this car was way too much work for me to do. I went home and did a little more research, found a t-25 turbo on ebay, and gave the guy a call back. I figured "what the hell!", I'll throw the turbo on and if it doesn't run I'll sell it for what I bought it for. So I had finally got myself a 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse GST with only 44,000 original miles for $550!!!


August 2011
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So I towed the car to my house and slapped the used turbo on it. I couldn't wait to get it started. However, my lack of mechanical knowledge cost me. I didn't prime the turbo with oil before I tried starting the car, nor did I do any maintenance or a basic check-over of anything. After about 5 minutes, I finally got the car to start. It fired up and what do I do??? I floored it! :ohdamn: Black smoke starts pouring out of the exhaust, the car starts bucking, and then a faint knocking starts. Gradually it gets louder and louder and louder. I thought it was a belt hitting on something so I tried adjusting the power steering belt. Still knocked. I ended up towing it to my mechanic and he told me I had a rod knock and the motor needed to be replaced. :cry: Whether the motor was already shot when I bought the car or if I did it myself I will never know, nor do I want to.

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The dog loved helping me out.

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T-25 turbo set in.


So now I had a decision to make: sell the car for $500 or buy an engine for it. I decided to find an engine. I ended up getting a fully rebuilt engine (all oem parts) from LKQ/Keystone for $1300. It pays to work at a body shop!


While I was waiting for the turbo to come in, I redid the cloth on the door panels.
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Well, that's it for now. I'll post more throughout the next few days to catch up to where the car sits now.
 
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nice looking project! there's alot of potential there man! keep up the hard work, you'll get it right. just go slow, dont cut corners, and double check everything
 
So much potential with it. Thanks man!
 
Engine was probably already toast before you got it started.
 
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September 2011

Well, we started to tear down the car to get it ready for the engine swap. A guy I work with was helping me out as this was my first engine swap. We decided to pull just the motor and leave the tranny in the car. Wish we had done it the other way after trying to align the tranny while it's all inside the engine bay.

Here's the teardown:
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Radiator out.
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Turbo and intake out.
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All fluids drained out.
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Wiring Harness all unhooked and other parts out of the way and labeled.
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Lenny did all the hard work while I operated the lift.
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Engine out....and a tear in my cv boot...
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New engine has arrived. We changed the timing belt, all other belts, pcv valve, thermostat, spark plugs, and wires.
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While the car was in the shop, I decided to work on the front bumper. This thing was in seriously rough shape. Here's the before picture:
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Had to rebuilt the whole lip on the driver's side. I used a flexible bonding agent to fill it. Then I sanded it all down and put a coat of bondo on it. Then more sanding and finally a coat of poly on it. Then I sanded the entire bumper with 320 grit and put about 10 good coats of high build primer on it. Then once again, I sanded it all, first with 320 and then 600 grit.

All painted nice and pretty.
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Added some grill wire from ebay, a carbon fiber emblem, and side marker lights.
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And finally we got the engine back in and the car was ready to fire up.
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The car was looking great. September 2011.
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However, with any car that sits for 3 years, there's going to be problems. I had to replace half the sensors in the car as well as the ecu before I could even get it inspected. Finally, in October 2011, I had the car inspected and on the road. It was running better than ever! Too bad I had to put it away for the winter in a month.

I was having a little too much fun with the car. Oops!
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Engine was probably already toast before you got it started. Take your time with the new one.

Yeah I definitely took my time with the new one. I checked and checked again before doing anything and did endless research. Didn't want to destroy another motor.
 
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March 2012
Well since I work at an auto body shop, I talked to my boss about getting a fresh paint job for the car. The car didn't have too many dents, but there were a few minor ones to fix. Also, I wanted to swap to the high rise spoiler since it is a turbo and I like the looks of it much better. So I talked to my boss and he said I could work on it if I came in early. I took two days before work (8 hours) to thoroughly go over the entire body and fix every single dent, ding, and scratch. I also had to fill the holes from the old spoiler and fit the high rise spoiler. I also stripped down the front bumper again and high built that once again (the car is so low I hit a lot no matter how careful I am). Once everything was in primer and masked off, I had to do my least favorite part.....sanding. At this point, I needed to talk to my boss about a price. He told me that he would only charge me for material which included paint, clear, primer, and paper. He came up with a price of $400. I was so happy I almost crapped myself. $400 for a Sherwin Williams paintjob is an incredible value. I was guessing it was going to be around $1500. Here's some pictures of the painting process. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any pictures of the actual painting because I was at school when they sprayed it.

Spoiler fitment.
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Sanding out dents.
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Filling holes from the old spoiler.
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Spraying high build primer.
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Stripping the rear bumper.
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High build primer all done.
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Starting to mask for paint.
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All masked off for paint and sanded. Just waiting for the paint booth.
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and Russell thinking he's cool...
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Some fresh paint!!!
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Did a little modification on the front bumper. I cut off the lip inside the big front hole and cut it thinner towards the front (see old pics of bumper).
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All put back together and looking good!
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Summer 2012

Now that the car is up and running, I decided to do a little work on the interior. I have never really liked grey. I decided to go with a black and red look. I looked for a while for black interior parts, but didn't really want to spend the money on them. So I decided to paint them all myself. I stripped the entire interior minus the dash. Since I work at a body shop, I have access to the right supplies for this job. On the door panels, I replaced the cloth part with new red cloth and adhesive spray. For the seats, I had my grandma sew me some custom seat covers. For free, they turned out pretty cool looking. Eventually, I plan on getting some nice black leather racing seats or something like that. I also redid the headliner with new black cloth. I also custom mounted my Apexi AVCR boost controller in the cupholder panel instead of it sitting on my dash.

Here's before the black/red conversion (I had already installed the carbon fiber gauge bezel and white faced gauges):
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Interior completely stripped:
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And here is after the conversion:
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I tried to do the back seat myself. My sewing abilities show. (*Note: these were taken back out a few days later for future plans in the back. And they looked awful LOL. Next time I'll let grandma do the sewing.)
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That's it for the interior at the time. I have plans to eventually do a black carpet and put a small stereo system in the back.
 
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October 2012

Well....I had my fun with the stock t-25 turbo, but now it was time for more. I did my research for quite a while on this one before I bought anything. I didn't want to spend more than $2000 for this upgrade so I had to search around and buy parts carefully. My plans for the upgrade were as follows:

- Evo III 16g turbo (used)
- Walbro 190 fuel pump
- injectors (wasn't too sure on size, just 650 or larger) (used)
- fmic kit
- upgraded bov
- 16g 2g install kit from extreme psi
- new fuel filter
- hard intake (new or used) with cone filter
- red couplers to match the car
- dsmlink v3 full (new or used)
- Megan Racing o2 housing
- Innovative MTX-L Wideband
- fuel pump rewire kit (ebay)

What I actually got was:
- rebuilt Evo III Big 16g ported ($480)
- Walbro 190 fuel pump ($90)
- 750cc injectors ($180 used)
- fmic kit from cxracing ($380)
- no bov (kit came with crappy ebay one. Ran out of money for good one.)
- 16g install kit for 2g from extreme psi ($200)
- oem fuel filter from extreme psi ($22)
- used chrome intake ($70) came with new cone filter and red couplers
- new red couplers ($65)
- dsmlink v3 full with ecu ($630 used)
- Megan Racing o2 housing ($60 used)
- Innovative MTX-L wideband o2 ($180)
- fuel pump rewire kit ($20)

First things I got in the mail were the injectors and dsmlink. Then came the fuel pump. I installed these three things first while I waited for the turbo (which took a month from a guy on this site.) So my entire upgrade was pushed back for quite a while. However, I also decided to buy some new matching gauges. I went on ebay and found some gauges I liked from Glowshift so I ordered the white-face 7-color boost gauge and oil pressure gauge. I also baught a 3 gauge pillar pod and installed the two gauges and the wideband. Finally, after a month of waiting and fighting, I got my turbo! Time to do some real work. The install went fairly easy except for one problem I ran into. I somehow stripped out the two front bolts going into the turbo from the exhaust manifold. I tried a tap and die set, but all it did was strip the tool. So I got a smaller diameter bolt that was longer and a nut and bolted it up that way. Other than that, the install was fairly easy. I followed this well written write-up to do it: EVO 16G install

The rebuilt Evo III Big 16g turbo:
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Test fitting the fmic. It bolted up and fit perfectly. Very impressed with the kit.
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Everything installed and ready to go. All I need is a tube to recirculate.
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Some shots after everything was put back together:
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No more big hole in the front bumper.
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Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures when I was doing the actual install. It's hard to take pictures when your hands are all greasy. However, I really wish I had taken many more than just before and after pictures.

Next plans for the car are redoing the back end interior. I want to put in a small custom stereo system and do a battery relocation to the trunk.
 
that looks like a true labor of love man! The only thing i dont like at all is the red on the interior. I think it screams late 90's rice, but that just a personal opinion. If you like it, rock it. paint looks AWESOME man
nice work!!

oh, and i like how you mounted your avcr. very cool
 
Beautiful car. Glad it went to someone who's willing to take the time and money to fix it up right. If I were you, I'd keep the seat covers your grandma made. I wish mine were still around to do stuff like that for me. That's just something really special.
 
that looks like a true labor of love man! The only thing i dont like at all is the red on the interior. I think it screams late 90's rice, but that just a personal opinion. If you like it, rock it. paint looks AWESOME man
nice work!!

oh, and i like how you mounted your avcr. very cool

Thanks! And I know it screams ricer, but what's under the hood backs it up.

Beautiful car. Glad it went to someone who's willing to take the time and money to fix it up right. If I were you, I'd keep the seat covers your grandma made. I wish mine were still around to do stuff like that for me. That's just something really special.

Thanks! And I'll definitely keep that in mind. You made a very good point.
 
I like the red and black setup. I don't think it screams ricer at all. But that's also my favorite color combo, so I may not be the best judge on that. Lol
 
I guess it's time for an update on the car. It's been sitting in the garage for 2 months now since it started snowing. I'm hoping it's going to start getting warmer here so I can drive it again. I've been itching to pull it out.
My plans for the car this spring:
-OIL CHANGE!!!
-fuel pump rewire - DONE
-finish 3 gauge pillar pod
-1g bov - Received
-engine cleanup:
---STM egr block off plate - Received
---emissions delete
---ac delete
---basic cleaning
---painting misc parts
---calan catch can???
---non-cruise cable - Received
-find a cheap radio until I can afford a nice double din touch - DONE
-battery relocation to trunk - DONE
-custom stereo system - 90% DONE
-finishing touches on interior
-bleed clutch to hopefully rid of hard shift into first and reverse
-tune and possibly dyno
-paint strip over side windows
-NGK BRP 7Es spark plugs - Installed
-Redo headliner - DONE

Oh, and hopefully pass inspection.

Here's what I did while the car was sitting in the garage over the winter. I went to some expo in Rochester and bought a cheapass stereo setup. I ended up getting 2 Legacy 10" 1000W subs and an XPLODE 1400W 4 Channel Amp with all wires for like $200. I'm not going for a competition setup or anything here, just a little umph for a few bucks. Mostly, I just wanted to put something in place of the rear seats.

Here's the construction of the box in place of the rear seat. The battery box and amp will go inside the box.

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And a view from the back.

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Plywood for the base installed.

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Ready to wire up and install the subs.

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And here's the speakers isntalled and all wired up.

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I also did a rewire of my fuel pump while I was in there. I'll have more pictures of the entire back seat area in a few weeks.
 
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Love your whole build man.

I may have missed it, but what suspension you running?

For right now, it's what was on the car when I bought it. I believe it's tenzo 3" drop lowering springs. It needs new shocks when my funds increase.

Quick update....I went to my parent's house on Saturday (where my car has been all winter) to bring it down to where I'm living. I planned on replacing the crankshaft pulley/harmonic balancer while it was there so I could do the work in a garage and get rid of that damn awful sounding squeaking. I replaced that no problems at all. I also took off my a/c belt since I plan on removing the whole a/c system soon. I then went to leave and the car made it half a mile down the road and took a shit. I was at a cruising speed when it seemed like I lost power. I was still on the gas and gave it a little more gas, but it didn't respond at all. It sputtered a bit and died. I tried to restart it and all it would do is crank. I finally got it to start again and it died at the next corner half a mile down the road. I finally got it back to my parent's house to figure out what the hell was going on. It seemed like whenever I went to push in the clutch, or let the rpms drop, it would sputter and die out. It also backfired sometimes when it stalled. Unfortunately, I had to head back to Fredonia for class, so I didn't have a lot of time to investigate. I'm headed back to my parent's house on Friday to hopefully figure out what's going on.

In the meantime, I've received a few parts for the car:
--radio - $35 used
--non-cruise cable
--new NGK BRP 7ES spark plugs
--STM egr block off plate
--1g bov
 
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Still in the process of figuring out what's going on with the car. I'm thinking I got water in my gas tank from it sitting in the freezing cold for so long. So this weekend, I'm going to drop the tank, empty and dry it, and then replace fuel filter, injectors, and put in the new spark plugs. Hopefully this solves my problems.
I've been working on a few other things while I've been away from the car:

I finished the headliner in black cloth:
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Ready to go in:
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This is the adhesive I used on it. This stuff worked really well. Hopefully it holds up.
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I also replaced my crankshaft with a brand new OEM:
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My non-cruise throttle cable: (I plan on painting before install):
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New 200A ANL inline fuse for my battery relocation:
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New OEM fuel filter: (I may get a -an line for filter to rail)
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Here's the pictures of my fuel pump rewire that I previously did:
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I also received a 1G bov that I decided to clean up and paint. I'm only using this until I have enough funds for a higher quality unit.

Here's how it looked when I received it:
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Started some sanding:
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Got all the old crap off the bottom:
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My cheapass dremmel tool from autozone:
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Some fresh paint. It turned out pretty good. I may be doing the bottom and the base in a flat black. Not sure yet. I'm not too worried about since it's only temporary.
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And this is how the car looked when I went to get it last weekend. It was so packed with snow in the engine bay when I got there from all the blowing snow. The engine bay pics are after I got most of the snow out!
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Haha your car looked a lot like my supra, 3 feet of snow on top and 2 in the engine bay! I don't entirely know how cold you guys get down there but I dont think you get cold enough for water to condense the fuel that bad. I let my supra sit for 2 years and temps got down to -54 (celcius)a couple times and the bi*** still started with out being plugged in. :confused: If its the fuel you probably got a bad batch or it staled on you.......mind you this is DSM's we're taking about here.
 
Haha your car looked a lot like my supra, 3 feet of snow on top and 2 in the engine bay! I don't entirely know how cold you guys get down there but I dont think you get cold enough for water to condense the fuel that bad. I let my supra sit for 2 years and temps got down to -54 (celcius)a couple times and the bi*** still started with out being plugged in. :confused: If its the fuel you probably got a bad batch or it staled on you.......mind you this is DSM's we're taking about here.

It's got down to sub-zero temps here (in Fahrenheit). So I don't really know if that's what it is, but I guess I'll find out this weekend.
 
The car is up and running once again. Not too sure what the problem was but it is now fixed. We are supposed to get some nice weather this weekend, so I have a few things planned:
--Oil Change
--Boost Leak Test
--Compression Test
--Change Power Steering Belt - DONE
--Install 1g BOV - DONE
--EGR Plate Install - DONE
--Paint strip over window
--Possibly remove ac - 1/2 DONE
--possibly remove emmisions - DONE
--Start cleaning up engine bay

Over this past week, I made the decision to do everything on the car in black and red. No more chrome anything. This is of course going to be a long process, but I started with the interior this week. I redid the door panel fabric in black and ordered a brand new black carpet. I also ordered black carpet to finish up the speaker boxes.

The door panels torn apart and pieces all over the living room. Sucks being cold outside.
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New black fabric. Looks much better.
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New NGK plugs.
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Plans for the weekend:
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This weekend, while the weather is nice, I may start to pull and paint some of the chrome pieces in the engine bay. The front bumper is also getting fixed and painted once again.
 
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