Street Build '97 Eclipse AWD GS-T (2006 to Present)

[gofer]

10APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 3: Locating/Dropping In AWD Gas Tank & Rear Subframe Bolts ​

 

[gofer]

12APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 4: Pulled Front Suspension & Started M/T Conversion​

 

[buhay6]

Nice build man, I'm jealous of how lucky you are to have a garage to work in. But I have a question nagging my brain, what happened to the 97' GS you had? It was beautiful!

 

[gofer]

Nice build man, I'm jealous of how lucky you are to have a garage to work in. But I have a question nagging my brain, what happened to the 97' GS you had? It was beautiful!

Actually, that wasn't my garage it was my friends. I lived on an aircraft carrier with a bed the size of a coffin for 3.5 years. I'm lucky I have good friends...

That bottom bunk with the curtains was my home from Nov. '05 to Jul. '09.

As for the MGP DSM, I still own it and fix it when it needs it. The car has 180,000 miles on the clock and I just recently put a new clutch on it, actually.

 

[buhay6]

wow that must be a pain having a bed that small, mattress's look like their junk to haha. Not a big fan of the navy but I am of air force! Love the flight deck pic you posted earlier should post more of them if possible.

Love that 2G GS of yours such a beautiful car, never used to like the 2G's at all but the more I see them the more I want one.

You discharged or still in service? (cant remember if you said you were or not)

 

[gofer]

I have 1000's of pictures around the ship, I put a few up in the Random Photo Thread we've got on Tuners.

I'm still active duty but I'll be separating in 6 months, time to move on and grow up.

 

[buhay6]

Sweet I'll definitely check them out man! Love those F-18/a's!
Must be glad to be out of the service soon eh? I'm more then likely joining the Canadian forces soon seeing as I already have some military experience.

 

[clemu93]

Woo hoo! another mt/awd swap! btw did you get my pm about the down pipe?

 

[97gst_spyder]

What caused the fire the RRE strut bar hitting the battery?

 

[gofer]

What caused the fire the RRE strut bar hitting the battery?

Something like that.

Only after I pulled the strut tower brace did I realize, the brace had completely rubbed through the wire loom and insulation on the cable going to the (+) terminal on the battery.

 

[gofer]

13APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 5: Dropping A/T Transmission, Replacing Motor Mounts, & Strapping Up AWD Gas Tank​

If you can't tell by the pictures below, dropping a FWD A/T is a pain in the ass. Once we finally got it off it was time to loosen up the bolts holding the flexplate to the crank and, in doing so, I broke my ring finger. Unfortunately for me, I was pushing as hard as I could on the breaker bar when the socket rolled off the head of the bolt and my finger went into the radiator.

A few of the photo I took were comparing the A/T VSS gear to the M/T VSS gear and the A/T motor mount to the M/T motor mount.

Enjoy.

 

[gofer]

18APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 6: B&M Shifter, Shifter Cables, RMDSM Rear Sway, E-Brake Cables, and AWD Rear Subframe Install​

 

[gofer]

19APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 7: Clutch Fluid Reservoir and SS Clutch Line Install. Removed A/T Flexplate Spacer! ​

The clutch fluid reservoir and SS line are pretty self explanatory however, for those of you who've ever had to remove that flexplate spacer should know how big of a PITA it is to pull. I can tell you that it took us nearly 6.5 hours of none stop abuse to it and we still had to get creative. Believe me when I say that we tried EVERYTHING and in the end we measured the I.D. of the spacer with a caliper and then took a trip to Home Depot and bought a wooden dowel with a matching O.D. I packed inside of the spacer with axle grease (from a torn CV boot on my FWD A/T axle) and hammered the wooden dowel into the spacer. The dowel was about 6' long so one crack on the dowel to the side and the spacer popped out like it was barely even in there. F.uck'n right!

 

[zachyd23]

Such a nice build man! Keep it coming!

 

[2GEEZEY]

very nice car and build, please keep going with the AWD swap because im looking for tips and the easiest way to swap my gst

 

[gofer]

21APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 8: M/T Plate, RMDSM Front Sway Bar, ACT Chromoly Flywheel, and ACT 2600 PP/Street Disk Install ​

Don't judge me, I know those aren't the right PP bolts holding it to the flywheel.

 

[gofer]

22APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 9: AWD Transmission Install​

Not a whole lot to see here, Dan got the transmission bolted to the block and wrapped things up until I got back from a 5 day underway on the aircraft carrier I was attached to.

 

[gofer]

29APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 10: Routed Shifter Cables and Installed My Symborski Shifter Base Bushings, Axles, Driveshaft, and Transfer Case then filled the Transmission with Fluid​

I had just gotten home from a LONG week out at sea so I was motivated to get my car finished. I got off work a few hours earlier than Dan so I got to work on the easy stuff, saving the hard stuff for him to do. Everything was coming to an end, what a great feeling...

 

[gofer]

30APR2009 - Drivetrain Swap Day 11: FINISHED! The AWD Swap. ​

It felt good to be taking the car off the jack stands and back onto its own tires, definitely a little nerve racking though. Dan and I had never done anything like this before so we were in for the unknown and hoping we didn't skip a crucial step in the swap because it seemed too easy.

Found another shot of the car backing out of the driveway after the swap, its iPhone quality but a classic none the less.

Besides the reverse lights not working, which is a downside of swapping in a M/T and still using the A/T wiring harness, the only thing that needed adjusted was the clutch pedal. You can see Dan under there (in the last picture) trying to get a wrench on it while I was snapping a photo, I was so excited.

 

[turboglenn]

Gofer, Just want to commend you on an awesome pictorial/thread on the swap from FWD to AWD as well as the key notes on making the swap from AT to MT at the same time.. The ET's you are running on that setup is truely an inspiration to me to not only go back to a smaller turbo but to clean up the car in general, your shiz is ####-n-span!@

And you're right, the swap isn't that hard, I had the same thought of "what did i miss" goingon for a week at least but everytime i did the checklist everything was covered. Now if i could just stop replacing parts that were bad from buying a driveline that sat for YEARS before i got it, i'd be i heaven

Did you use the royal purple in the trans too or just the t-case and diff? I currently have Gl-5 (wrong stuff) inmy trans cause it's all i could get and i'm debating wether to go with synchromesh or something like the shock proof oil.. i like the results i hear about the synchromesh but it does seem like a rather thin fluid, and i don't "shock" my trans with hard shifts, but am making a good bit of power.., hell from whati've read though even going back to a GL4 would be a workd better than what i've got.. buti really can't complain about this shifting since i fixed the worn pedla in my 2g assembly, it's just that faster/easier is always better .. I used a trick some one passed onto me that builds their own DSM trannies and put about 3/4th's a quart of ATF Dex III w/ mercron into the trans before adding the GL-5 to supposedly help shifing and like i said i can't complain.. I hope to finish mybuild thread with some pics of my swap and other things i've done lately

keep the good info and pics comng, love that car of yours!

 

[gofer]

Thanks man! When we first jacked the car up off its wheels I wasn't planning on taking pictures of anything accept beginning and end. My buddy, who helped with the swap and stored the car in his garage while we did it, asked his wife to take pictures that first day we started pulling everything off. After that I realized it was probably a good idea but I got a little carried away, I think I snapped 800 pictures total. More is better than less I suppose! The swap, even from A/T to M/T, seemed like it all fell into place which worried me once we got the car back onto its wheels. But who knew? The AWD swap really is THAT EASY!

The Royal Purple SyncroMax was used in the trans and the Max Gear was used in ONLY the transfer case, we never pulled the axles out of the rear diff and it already had a fresh quart of Redline Heavy Weight in it. I don't recommend either of these fluids though, looking back I wish I would have done more research on the subject. Now, I run only Redline fluids and this is the breakdown for each...

• Transmission - 50/50 mix of Redline MT90 and Lightweight Gear Oil
• Transfer Case - Redline Heavy Weight
• Rear Diff - Redline Heavy Weight

This is what Shep recommended and, for whatever reason, I trust that guy.

I'll keep posting up, I've still got 2 years of catching up to do!

 

[2GEEZEY]

WOW! props on the pictures and journal in general, cleared up a lot of stuff. This swap looks like cake walk now, i can fab up some mounts haha

 

[clemu93]

Any word on that downpipe, im still a bit intrested and i havent gotten a PM back, Good work!

 

[OG PeNGuiNz0Rz]

Nice work. I love your swap. It's in my favorites on Google Chrome. Keep up the posts.

 

[gofer]

10MAY2009 - First Long Drive AWD and Out To Sea For 3 Weeks​

The AWD swap was done about 40 minutes away from my home (no garage) and the Navy wanted us to go back out to sea for 3 weeks. I had to get the car home eventually so, after going over everything to make sure it was good, I started my 40 miles drive. I was a bit nervous so my buddy Dan (who helped with the AWD swap) followed me in his Evo until I made it all the way back. To both our surprise nothing serious was acting up after the swap, just a partially working fuel gauge and no speedometer.

Here's the first shots I took of the car after the first long drive in the newly AWD swapped DSM.

It was fun having my turbo DSM back again, especially after all the work making it M/T AWD, but I had to park it and go out at sea. I took advantage of my time away though, I gave everything I wanted powder coated to a buddy to get coated matte black so it would be done once I returned.

Leaving my cars behind in long term parking...

Returned 3 weeks later and installed all my matte black pieces...
(IC piping, HKS bov, front bumper brackets, heat shield, clutch master bracket, fusebox bracket, and hood post)