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'97 Cayenne's 1997 Eclipse GSX

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'97 Cayenne

10+ Year Contributor
183
19
Mar 30, 2011
Milford, New_Hampshire
Time to make my build thread on my never ending project. I've always loved the 2gb eclipses ever since i got my license i wanted one, but it had to be a gsx. Unfortunately, 4 years and two cars went by before I picked up this bad lary. After losing my license for a solid 90 days over the course of a winter, I put my 3G 2000 eclipse GS up for sale and began searching for the first of my dream cars which would be a clean, well taken care of 2GB eclipse GSX. I found that GSX about 5 months later in PA.
Here is the general outline of the things that will be done to the car as long as I own it:
Complete engine bay overhaul
Complete build on 7 bolt motor
complete suspension overhaul
Switch to 100% black interior
Reliable 500hp spring/summer/fall daily driver

The deal
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Here she sits when I got her until the end of october
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After I changed some things around
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Got the car a year ago at the end of March. This past winter I tackled the project of the engine bay overhaul. This consisted of:
Full wire tuck
Fuse box relocate to glove box
A/C delete
Power steering delete
Alternator relocate
Cruise control delete
ABS delete
Clutch line tuck
Shaved
Hood prop delete
Hood latch delete
Battery relocate
Coolant resivior relocate
Wiper fluid resivior delete
And some other things, keep an eye out for them ;)

And so the project begins

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Due to only being able to post 20 photos at a time. I'll have to wait until somebody bumps this thread. I have alot more pictures of whats been done!
 
As promised. More pictures

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I highly recommended NOT using a harbor freight paint gun. That's what I used well because, my dad got it for me so it was a freebie. I don't suggest this gun because it does not cover nooks and crannies well at all. Also, It cannot handle a thick spray of primer. I found that out the hard way. I don't see a problem using this gun for general panel work. As long as you thin your primer and color to about the consistency of juice, you'll be fine. But like I said. it is absolutely horrible for tight areas that are hard to get to. You will not get coverage.

Now that that's out of the way, I had thought long and hard about what type of DD I wanted. Big turbo with lots of mid to high end power, and spank anything on the highway? Or Smaller turbo with low to mid range power that's quick off the line? If I went big, it was a choice between the GT35R and PTE6262. If I went small, it was a choice between FP Green and EvoIII big 16G. After thinking it through for a while and looking at what I wanted my power to be and what I mainly use this car for, I decided to go the practical route with the FP HTA Green. In the same sense, I wanted this project to be installer friendly, and the hybrid 50 trim HTA FP Green was the best bet for me. With that being said, I scratched the surface of the 7 bolt engine build.
FP HTA Green
VRSF FMIC
Punishment Racing o2 v-band wastegate flange open dump
Tial MVS 38mm wastegate
Tial 50mm Q BOV

Other goodies include:
Wrangler Northwest 200A alternator
Speed Density bundle from ecmtuning
Jegs 300A master kill switch
New dipstick


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Being the main project the engine bay overhaul, I of course I had to ad some color in there. The next bit it the motor breaking down and parts being cleaned. Pretty cool what a parts washer, toothbrush and the occasional wire wheel can do

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Shaved

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I was looking around to find somebody for powdercoat and I came across somebody here on the forums. Saw the work he did on another member's parts and I immediately contacted him.

I wrote up a review about him not long ago. I highly encourage you to take a good look if you need anything powdercoated. He also anodizes, but I did not have any anodizing done, but may be a possibility in the future. Details of the work you see below are in the thread link.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/app...70-if-you-need-powdercoating-done-go-guy.html

I initially sent out one batch of parts to be done. When I recieved them back from powdercoat I decided to send out a second batch cause I liked it so much. I also needed welding done on certain parts in both batches, but like I said the details are in the link I posted above. Here is my bling

First batch

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Second batch. I changed my mind last minute about the compressor housing and did not get it done. What you don't see are the top trans and motor mounts. Just weren't in the picture at the time

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I've reached the limit on photos again. Bump it for more!
 
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The color I chose was black stardust. A little more expensive because of the amount of flake that is used. And also it was a two stage baking process. Bake once for color, bake again for clear.

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haven't updated this in a while. honestly i just got super lazy with dealing with making new posts LOL. but the engine bay has been done for a while now. i'll post the rest of the progress here.
Car made 300AWHP 312 AWTQ on dynotech's MD on stock 7bolt

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Well, the car lasted almost 6,000 miles from when it was tuned till about three weeks ago when it decided to take a shit on me. Was on my way to work and did a pull and a few seconds later it started to spit and sputter on me and eventually just died on me. luckily there was an exit coming up just as my car died and I rolled off the highway LOL.

Checked my fuel and spark, both were good. Obviously i was getting air, so right then, I knew it was either my valves or rings. Car would crank great but wouldn't turn over for shit. Got the car towed home and did a compression test real quick and here we're the numbers
Cyl #1 - 120
Cyl #2 - 0
Cyl #3 - 110
Cyl #4 - 120

I had to get to work at that point but I knew right then that the motor was toast. That weekend, I pulled the head and did a water test on the valves. Cylinder #1 and #3 were both leaky, not bent but leaky as if they just weren't seating right any more.
I later pulled the oil pan and got the pistons out. #2 piston ring was toast.

I have reason to believe that this happened because I did not have a crankcase ventilation setup for the longest time and nor did the owner before me, causing excessive crank pressure and ruining the motor.

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Time for the motor build that's on my to do list for the car and here's the route I'm going:

Built port and polished head from Dynotech tuning, already purchased (manley oversized valves, manley springs/retainers, revised lifters, 7bolt head ported to 6bolt)
Fp2 cams
JMF 6bolt street SMIM
S90 throttle body
Crower I-beam rods
Wiseco pistons
ACL main and rod bearings
COP setup
Quartermaster twin disk clutch
Custom Tubular DSM flanged manifold by Dynotech tuning
 
Been a while since I've updated, but I've been making good progress on getting this turd back on the road.
Picked up 'redrocket's' edgar built 6bolt 2.0 a while back. checked everything out and everything is what he said as far as the motor. Shout out to him!

Motor consists of:
Eagle H-beam rods
Wiseco 9.0:1 .040 over pistons
Clevite 77 tri-metal bearings
HKS titanium valve springs and retainers
HKS oversized valves
HKS 272 cams
cometic 1.6mm headgasket
ARP hardware inside and out
Port and polished head

On the way home

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This new motor will be making some serious power. So I needed a new transmission. So i got one

Shep stage 3 awd manual trans

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I ended up trading my FP HTA green for a BW S259ET with DNP manifold, 3" vband j-pipe o2 housing and oil feed and return lines.

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Being that I had previously removed my heat and A/C, I went and took out all my hvac duct work and tucked my brake lines

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I also needed a serious clutch for all this that I wouldn't mind daily driving. Always liked and heard good things about quartermaster, so that's what I went with

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Having some fun before the motor/trans go in

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It's back together! for the most part

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Went with an S90 70mm TB cause its the only good size aftermarket TB that allows you to keep the factory ISC, which I decided to put back in

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Going with ECU controlled boost now

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Ah, all these build threads of people who own or have constant access to a lift makes me sad.:(

I really like what you've got going on here man. Keep up the progress.
 
Update. been a little while but i've finally got everything together. and she's running!! not much to say other than that so ill let the pictures do the talking.

Calan V2 catch can with -10 inlets

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Tial 44mm

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Zeitronix wideband, AEM boost and aem oil pressure gauges in my radio trim piece that i modified

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couple shots of the JMF drag intake manifold. waited a month for this. it was worth the wait. thing is huuuuuge!

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I needed boost pipes made along with a custom downpipe and WG dump. I never let anyone work on my car but welding was one thing i couldn't do. So I went to a local shop in my town that specializes in german cars (so i was hesitant on going there), but the fab work they do there is excellent, so I gave them a shot. I'm so pleased with the service/fab work, that they're now my go-to shop for anything welding related.

The boost pipes will be polished out eventually so they will look even better after that

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this lower boost pipe needed to be extended because my DNP mani moved the turbo closer to the passenger side

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don't mind the horrific rattling. it's just that brace that goes from the bumper support and is attached to the lower radiator support, which mine isn't attached. it's just rattling, gotta fix that

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Holy crap! that things sexy. would love to check it out some time man.
 
Got the car down to the shop to be prepped and tuned. hit a couple snags along the way and ended up finding something surprising. i had put the knock sensor in the wrong hole on the back of the block so i had brian move it to the correct hole. In order to get to the sensor with tools, the intake mani has to come off, and thats when we saw this.

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Oil in all four runners. and the intake tract is clean with no oil, so it's not the turbo. we figured it is valve stem seals. although i'm not sure on this as the motor is brand new and appears to had oem seals put in. in any case, i figured i would change the seals anyway

So i went back down to the shop to pick the car back up and trailer it home to work on it some more. I bought the euroexport spring compressor tool for the 4g63 which made the job a piece of cake. i highly recommend this tool. I replaced all the seals with supertechs.

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I've also went and ported my OFH as i know that needed to be done, but was going to wait till it was running properly to see what my oil pressure was at on a wide range of rpms. I was seeing as much as 100psi oil pressure at 3-4 grand. So i'm starting to wonder if that much oil pressure was just pushing oil past the seals. I have my balance shafts deleted but still have oil squirters. I use brad penn 10-w30 partial synthetic. This is my porting job

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I also went ahead and put in some L19 ARP head studs. I know ill be pushing more than 30lbs of boost so i wanted to be on the safe side.

Left: standard arp stud
Right: L19 ARP stud

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That's it for now. waiting on some parts before it's back together and running. I'll run it for a little while idling, then pull the intake mani to see if there's any oil in the runners again. if nothing, then ill put it back on and go do some light cruising without boost, then pull it AGAIN to check the runners. then if its still good then ill do it again while getting into some boost. it'll be tedious but that will tell me when the oil is coming out if at all anymore
 
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