96 Spyder GS-T Weekend Fun Machine

[hofmania]

Background:

1996 Eclipse Spyder GS-T
Purchased: March 2013
Mileage: 120,000
Previous Owner: College girl, then dad's garage
Price: $3800

The Good: Well maintained - regular oil changes, cared for tires, no shaft play in turbo, timing belt serviced appropriately.

The Bad: None that I can actually think of

Goals:

- Super high HP on the butt dyno (~350-400hp if you actually measured it)
- Learn my way around a car and engine (know electric/audio fairly well)
- Explore computer based tuning and see if there are any tech opportunities
- One of a kind look/feel

Engine

Complete

- Change all fluids
- New Oil Filter
- Replace radiator with new Mishimoto (thanks @ludachris!). Original was starting to crack at the upper radiator hose.
- Punishment Racing FMIC (not hooked up to turbo yet, but installed behind front bumper)
- 3" test pipe + exhaust (ebay special)
- Replace starter (this was a bi*** to get out, piece of cake to get back in!)
- Spark plugs and wires
- Valve Cover gasket replaced

In Progress

- Balance Shaft delete
- Timing Belt Replacement + new water pump and pulleys
- Cruise Control delete

Purchased and en route

- Down firing 20g turbo
- Wally 255 (rewire if needed to push E85 appropriately)
- AFPR
- Bosch 1000 injectors
- Megan Racing Downpipe
- Megan Racing O2 Housing with external 38mm Tial Wastegate
- LC-1 Wideband and Gauge
- Dejon MBC
- New EPROM ECU with DSMLink V3
- Glowshift Boost Gauge / Oil Pressure Gauge
- 4" FP intake with custom ducting to route cool air
- 9" KN Air filter
- Speed density setup

I feel like I'm still missing something...

Future

Cams?
Exhaust Manifold?
1g Intake Manifold?

Electric/Audio

Complete

- New Optima Red Top
- Kenwood headunit
- Kicker 6.5s up front
- Kicker 6x9s in the back

In Progress

- Battery relocate to rear passenger seat
- Sundown Audio SD v2 D2 8" sub
- MB Quart OA1100.5 5 Channel Amp
- Wire clean up engine bay - possibly custom cover for passenger side engine bay

Cosmetic

Complete

- Flat black paint

In Progress

- Custom Spyder carbon fiber tonneau cover
- Custom 8" subwoofer enclosure
- Custom 6x9 speaker housings

Purchased

- 17" Kudo Flat Black rims
- 225/45/17 Sumitumo tires
- Eibach Pro Kit Springs

Couldn't have ever got this far without the DSMtuner community. So much great information out there. My post count is still pretty low, but I'd say I've read well over 1000 posts to date and can find almost anything I need/want to do. Thanks! Hopefully I can provide some good walkthroughs/photos here for others in the future.

Here we go!

 

[nickfromfortfun]

The car sounds awesome man! I also own a spyder just finished the performance side of it and did 293hp and 313 torque to the wheels so do a Awd swap you will want it at high hp! Lol but excited to see pics and read about this!!!!

 

[hofmania]

@nick looks like we've got tons of similarities. You better believe I'll be messaging you if I get hung up on anything you've already done.

So yesterday I started on the tonneau cover for my spyder. To get things moving along I wanted to make molds of the rear panels so that I would have something more solid to make the fiberglass mold/shape out of.

Here's what I'm trying to make...

1. Buy all your supplies

Fiberglass mat
Fiberglass resin
Fiberglass hardener
Gloves...get good ones
Mixing cups
Stirring stick
Tape
Wax, preferably PVA, but regular carnuba turtle wax works well
Aluminum foil
Paint brushes...lots 3" is good.

2. Wrap areas of the panels you want to mold off of - 1 layer of tape, 1 layer of foil, 1 layer of tape (blue tape is awesome)

3. Apply one layer of wax - let dry. This is so the mold will release from the tape.

4. Apply 1-3 more layers of wax depending on how anal you are. Two were more than enough for me in the end, popped right off.

5. Cut up your mat into small workable pieces. Mine were like 6x8"

6. Make your mix. I worked with 5 oz of resin + hardener at a time. Let me get big chunks done before the resin started chunking up.

7. Apply a layer of resin down on the tape, work in small areas.

8. Take some of the matt you cut up and press it onto the resin, just a little past the edge of what you want covered.

9. Dip the brush lightly into the resin mixture and then dab/press into the matt. I like to put all my mat down and then press more resin into it. Press it until you see that it's saturated.

10. Rinse, repeat until you get 3-5 solid layers done on your mold. Let it dry.

11. Do the other panel or areas

12. Once they're hard you can release them. Mine can apart easily by just pushing my fingers under the laters.

13. Cut/Sand/Smoothing is up to your individual project. I just needed the mold so I cleaned up the edges and got a piece like this

More to come!

Packing Slip --> I know what this is gonna be!!!!

New Punishment Racing o2 sensor housing with black Tial 38mm MVS wastegate

is how I feel

Look how pretty those welds are!

I got some speaker and power wire today too from knukonceptz.com. Great products btw, been buying from them for years.

 

[hofmania]

Balance shaft removed - this was a beast...had to call in back up. Thankfully found a neat dude on CL who came and helped

Timing belt - almost complete, waiting on some new covers as I broke mine while removing them originally. Had tons of set backs with this just from simply not ordering gaskets, got the wrong size water pump, blah, blah, blah. Huge headache, but it's almost done.

Cruise control deleted This was super easy, the write up you can find on here was helpful, but not really even needed. Hardest part is figuring out where to route the extra amount of wire.

Battery relocated to where the rear seats used to be, ran new 0ga wire and 4ga to the fuse box and alternator along with new grounds. Hooray for current flowing.

Walbro 255 installed. Had to get a little hacky as the pump i got didn't come with a new fuel filter, so I had to improvise. All in all, it was pretty simple as well.

Sound deadening added to doors and rear seat

LC-1 Installed + Boost Gauge + Oil Pressure Gauge

New EPROM ECU with DSM link installed and wired up to the LC-1 Wideband

Made tons of progress on the tonneau cover and rear seat baffle. Will post pics as soon as I get a new phone. Mine was stolen while installing...damn middle school kids.

The only thing holding me back at the moment are the timing belt covers and my 20g. I have the MR Downpipe, PR O2 Housing + tial wastegate, AFPR, speed density install and that's about it. All of this seems super easy after having been through the timing belt and balance shaft adventure.

 

[nickfromfortfun]

update this thing!!!

 

[cherrymane]

Hell ya I'm deleting just about all unnecessary hoses now

 

[hofmania]

update this thing!!!

Ha - ya...this needs a long overdue update. Not going to be very pretty either

Long story short - a guy was supposed to make and send me a 20g. Didn't happen. So i just started bolting stuff on in the mean time. Picked up a 16g on craigslist to at least start her up. No luck... So I've got a long list of fixes/checks to go through at the moment, but it's been really hard to work on the car since I don't have access to a driveway or a garage at the moment. Anyways, here's my action list...

Set timing - off by about 2 teeth
Install 1g CAS
Fix fuel tank leak
Figure out why starter is staying engaged
Figure out why AFPR isn't functioning

That should be about it outside of finding a 20g...

 

[cherrymane]

i have a big 16g at dsm shitty graveyard that they have to send me back and zero shaft play and a new adjustable wastegate it just needs a new bearing but you can use it to start it up and move it around or rebuild it.... 100$ sold let me know

 

[Jeremy19]

Any progress on the fiberglass tonneau cover. Very interested in making or buying one myself.

Had one of the originals from Kazitech but unfortunately someone stole that car and kindly lit it on fire.

Thanks