The Top DSM Community on the Web

For 1990-1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, Plymouth Laser, and Galant VR-4 Owners. Log in to remove most ads.

Please Support RTM Racing
Please Support STM Tuned

97 GSX AutoX/DD sleeper

This site may earn a commission from merchant
affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Yeah the car is on stands, you just cant tell with my dad in the way. Ill try to get some more picture of my bumper cut out, and i can honestly say that is has help so much. I use to hear both of my fan run on full load after climbing the hill to my school. Now if i dont punch it hard, there will be maybe one to no fans on when i park.
 
Huge Update : 5 (Suspension, Brakes, Dipped Roof, O2 housing, Air box mod)

When i got my exhaust ticket, i was requested to pop my hood -_- . Everything i had under the hood was power coated black, so the officer really could not tell he was looking at. He did however give me hell for my air filter because it did not look stock. I came up with some bs excuse on how my airbox broke and a replacement was on it's way. Thankfully he let me go with a warning for changing lanes without signaling?!?!?
I now knew that i needed some way to cover that filter up to prevent future problems with the po pos. Luckily, a buddy of mine had a stock air box setup lying around that he no longer needed. I gratefully took that off his hands without a hesitation. He did not have the stock air filter that went inside of it, so i had two choices. 1: buy a new filter for it or 2: modified the air box to fit my current filter. Autozone was charging me 45 bucks for a k&n filter and i gladly walked away from that, leaving me with option number 2. There really was no planning done, i just got my angle grinder and went to town.
BEC88DE1-50AD-4121-A683-AA7E9D996C84.jpg

1B4A51DC-CEBD-4ADF-A5A8-9EDBD8CDD80D.jpg

D14B9279-B97F-4442-AAD6-66C919C70B98.jpg


All of the plastic that was removed, and the finished product.
EB20753E-208D-4EF9-BC1B-4182A3AA8A7B.jpg

E134E3AF-DD1F-454A-AC0F-AA6715B9227F.jpg


Finished product installed. Yes, Officer. Its all stock ;)
DC49D5B4-F896-4B7E-A875-422C96CC51C4.jpg


Next on the agenda was to give the GSX some sort of new look. By browsing the forms i stumbled upon Gofers build thread and i really liked the two tone looked he was rocking. He wrapped his roof matte black and it looked so sick on red. I however, had a silver car :/ and there was no way i was going to spend 200+ dollars on 3M wrap that may not even look good on silver... Then it hit me, could there a way to get a matte look for a 16th of the price of wrap? YES! There was, PlastiDip!
I am not sure why i took so much time prepping my roof because if i made a mistake i could always just peel it off and start over. Anyways i covered all my windows and curves that i did not want to get paint on with some tape and newspaper and after a nice wash with some dish soap the painting began.

Before:
download-9.jpg


Prep:
download-1-1.jpg


First coat done.
download-2-1.jpg


And 3 coats later:
fix.jpg

IMG_0375.jpg

IMG_0374.jpg


A quick picture of my new style at a local meet.
IMG_8455.jpg


Moving on to the next task at hand was my 02 housing. I really did not like where PR had place the o2 bung on these housing because it sat too close to the manifold. I kept a close eye on my o2 sensor wire and with time, the heat from my manifold was cracking the plastic wrapping around it. This really bugged me because i knew this was gona happen to the new o2 sensor i was planning on buying. I needed an alternative to this o2 housing problem, and fast.
A week later a FS ad came up on a local forum for a Lipp o2 Housing. I have never heard of this brand before but it looked sweet. I did some research on the web about them, and with the few reviews there are about them, all of them were excellent. I then saw that this o2 housing also had its o2 bung placed at the end of it, like the 1gs and on top of that it was cast molding. I had to have it... Couple of pm's back and forth and it was mine. In reality i could not be happier with any other o2 Housing, this thing is a work of art.
Take a look:
1B7629F6-60C8-4818-9047-79DA4BC77CF9.jpg

29B38250-EF10-49A7-ADC4-4575E219C57C.jpg


Fitment was great, and the new placement of the o2 housing was helping me sleep better at night. I also notice a quicker spool up and no more random spikes to 25 psi at wot. Sadly, no install pictures but your get the point.
 
Continued

Last thing on my list was to take care of suspension and brakes. My tokico illuminas were a bit too low for me at this point. I was really getting tired of maxing out the travel on them with some of these crater size potholes I have around me at school, so they had to go. At this moment I have a saving fund going for some JIC's, which left me with a limited budget for some replacement springs and struts.
Thank God, for DSM buddies is all I have to say. A friend of mine just went coils and so he no longer needed his barely used Tokico Blues w/ Eibach pro kit. He ended up selling them to me for a steal and I ended up finding a buyer for my Illuminas that same day. This meant i had to switch them out before the morning, which lead to a midnight suspension swap man. YOLO! I started at 11:45 pm and ended around 3:27 am:
0A3EFC0F-1D00-4831-B8CA-DA496076993F.jpg


And this is how the car looked in the morning, on stands. I left it this way because i was way too sleepy to mount my wheels back on LOL. (Of course hatch, hood and windows were closed)
The Famous DSM jack stand picture:
1401DCDF-744C-4D5B-B176-4E3F596A826F.jpg


Now for the brakes, a thing i have noticed about my last two GSX is how underpowered they were when it came to braking. It's not bad in the city but up in Norcal where there are open roads for days, stopping from 70+ takes a while. IMO these cars from the factory were too heavy for their stock brake setup, and I knew I would have to upgrade them somewhere down the line. I looked on the forums for the best bang for the buck and I came up with 3 four-pot caliper choices. #1: STOPTECHS #2: Evo Brembos #3: Baer ProKit (Super Rare). My first choice was StopTechs because of buds old 2g. He gave me a ride in it once and I swore he was going to run a stop sign near my house at 60+ mph. But to my surprise he started braking, (I was thinking in my head just how far off he would miss the line) but NO. This car stops so hard i thought we hit a wall and from then on, I wanted a set. But never could find a pair for the right price. I was about to go Evo Brembos at one point but they needed way too much modification to be bolted on these car. I wanted a kit that was designed for the eclipse platform, and one lucky day out of the blue. An ad on CL popped up that read "Baer Brakes Eclipse" no way they could be the rare four-pot style... When I clicked the ad I was shocked. I had finally found my kit. I bought them on the spot and I was in awe on just how big they were compare to mine. I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Stock set up with BBS
7B22FE2B-19D5-4341-BCD9-46F069C68124.jpg

1FF83A77-86C2-4614-B353-545A44CAC2CD.jpg


Baer Pro kit compare to stock:
699C7501-7872-4350-96BE-DC5F13AC84C1.jpg

81963FA3-6BB6-4598-8B35-6191159A75CE.jpg

31E9FB60-C3E8-4D10-A24C-9194AF1A9D12.jpg

311B3279-25B8-4742-8A92-4C565966CB21.jpg


Installed:
91D12B1C-8649-4692-8951-0E5B61CDC8EC.jpg


Installed w/ BBS
5ECCC486-20B2-4574-BD7B-F11E1513BEA1.jpg


Overall install was a PIA... Washer that came with the kit were too small, which led to the rotor not lining up with the caliper. But i finally found one that was the right size and got them to sit properly.
As for performance, WOW... these brakes are badass! I can actually stop from 75mph like nothing. No more shaking on hard braking, along with fear of not stopping on time for something. I do really love these brake and would recommend them to anyone who is in the market for brakes.

And thats pretty much a wrap for what got done during my summer break. I did mange to put in some new 3g lifters and timing belt but i was to annoyed at the GSX to take pictures of it. At the moment the GSX is down and sitting in LA because my rack and pinion is leaking like crazy and a torn cv boot. I didnt feel comfortable driving it from LA to NorCal like that so i left it at home. It waits for me to return and I sure miss driving it, but at the rate gas is going up here in cali $4.78 for 87??!!!?? WTH? I am glad im not driving anything right now LOL.
Parts are being shipped to my house as i type this, so be ready for another update soon! A fair well picture of the GSX and how it sits right now:
198795_4590476877761_779760799_n.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Update: Photo Session

I was able to borrowed my sister's SLR and have my own little photo shoot. These location are not the prettiest scenery but it will have to do till i get that car back up north. I dont got an "eye" for the artistic crap, im more of a point and shoot kind of guy, so forgive me if the lighting/angle/contrast is off. Let me know what you guys think.

IMG_0504.jpg

IMG_0503.jpg

IMG_0500.jpg

IMG_0498.jpg

IMG_0494.jpg

IMG_0496-1.jpg

IMG_0492.jpg

IMG_0488.jpg

IMG_0483.jpg

IMG_0486-1.jpg

IMG_0484-1.jpg
 
Thanks man, it been a headache but always worth it.

As for the exhaust question, i never got the car dyno with my HKS so i dont have set number to anything off. So with that being said, i have not notice any huge decrease in power. Im sure i lost a couple of horses but nothing to lose sleep over. And on the plus side, no one takes a second look at it because its so quiet, until i WOT it.
 
LOL, loud can be fun at times though. Of course there are moments where i really do miss my HKS but i can hide the fact that i have yet to be pulled over. I plan on going custom 3 inch to a vibrant dual muffle or a magnaflow, so you'll have best of both worlds. A quite high performance exhaust system.
 
Dude those vents make your car look kinda like a Pontiac Grand AM. Naturally I like your #9 BBS rims.
 
Is that a compliment or a diss? LOL Either way, they were a must because of my over heating issue i was dealing with when climbing up hill for an extended period of time.
 
Glad this car is in good hands. I know the previous two owners and i have spent some time under it. Did you ever sell the hks exhaust?
 
Love your build thread, lots of good stuff going on. And I find myself checking for updates often. There was one sin committed to those evo9 Bbs wheels tho, and that was taking away the gorgeous "diamond black" look for flat black plasti dip :/.. Peel that crap off those wheels! Lol those are so hard to find around here, and when I do see a set they are hella over priced. Fml
 
Damn, I totally forgot about this thread. I guess its a good thing because that means everything is working on the car as expected, but a lot has changed. I just finished my last final today and will be catching this thing up to where the car currently sits.

VergeTST: Hope you check up on this again, been meaning to get a hold of Rigo or the previous owner to let them know of its progress. Yes i did sell the HKS, regret it everyday but cops loved it. Funny story is i bought the same exhaust about a year later but it sits in my room most of the time. I'll explain later in my build thread.

Manny Correa: Yeah the BBS were dope rims no doubt but the black diamond look got old for me and so did the plastidip look as well LOL. I ended up peeling it off and sold them
 
So I skimmed this pretty quickly, but allow me to get this straight, in the great state of California they can cite you for an aftermarket air filter? I understand theyre strict about things, but really, an air filter? Its a tad ironic the racing mecca is also the one place you can not mod your car at all. Almost makes me glad I live in PA where just about anything goes. Around here if your car stops safely and has decent tires and functioning headlights youre in the clear to do whatever you want.
 
Must be nice sir, but yes if the cops a true DICK they're allowed to cite you for an "aftermarket" filter because it is not an OEM item or because it does not have a CARB legal sticker. Luckily, ive only had to deal with cops giving me a hard time for it being exposed, but i wasn't gona push my luck any further.
 
Update 6: (New wheels :thumb:)
Well, I believe that I lasted left this thread with my newly dipped BBS wheels. All in all, these wheels were great but all my friends in Socal bought a set and I was no longer that cool guy with some BBS's. These wheels became so popular within the DSMs in LA that we acquired the name 885 crew (BBS kinda look like 885 LOL), assuming we had them because they were replicas... Needless to say I had to get new wheels asap, so I put them up on CL and sold them to an EVO guy. I had my car on jacks stands for about 1 week because I didn't know what wheels where next for me. Luckily, a friend of mine got rear-ended and started parting out his 2g including his wheels. I made an 80+ mile trip to pick them up and boy were they worth it. :D RPF1 !!!
IMG_0631_zps7ef2527d.jpg

IMG_0633_zps3f5b7cae.jpg


These wheels were mint! And totally complemented my 2g like no other. The sad thing is that Enkie totally sucks in their spoke design when it comes to big brakes. In order for these to work out for me I had to use 20mm spacers up front to clear my brakes. This didn't seem bad when the car was up in the air but when I dropped it, damn did these wheels poke out LOL. In theory I was running +35 with 20mm spacers, which left me at +15 offset. I really didn't care because these wheels were dope as hell and everyone was super jelly when I rolled up with them on. I made a thread about them to see what exactly I did in order to fit them and what not :
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/handling-tech/460566-rpf1-17x9-35-w-big-brake-kit.html

I didn't let a little poke ruined my life though, I ended up running these wheels for quite some time. I did a bunch of photo shoots here and there, just enjoying the car the way it sat. Here are some for your enjoyment:
IMG_0024_zpsa66a169d.jpg

IMG_0025_zpsc80504b5.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Update 7: Photo session around school
I go to school in one of the most beautiful campuses around the states. Napa valley if full of green scenery and trees. Its a nice contrast living in the city and going to school in the country. I just had to snap some photos of my car around my school to share with others. Enjoy
IMG_0708_zps8a76b9ae.jpg

RPF1s_zpsfe91cc39.jpg

RPF1s-3_zps4f232f8e.jpg

RPF1s-4_zps9e1b2a69.jpg

RPF1s-5_zps2981668a.jpg

RPF1s-10_zps3798a24f.jpg

RPF1s-12_zpsc7abb60a.jpg

RPF1s-13_zps02d7fcfd.jpg

RPF1s-15_zps9ee4b521.jpg

RPF1s-18_zpsa67578a7.jpg
 
Deng.. No feed back?
You mean about the scenery ? Yea the backgrounds are very nice :p
LOL JK...Gorgeous car man and the wheels compliment the overall look of the car. It is rare i see silver 2gbs anymore, especially around town here. Car sits with a nice stance too ! :thumb:
 
Well of course about the scenery, i could care less about the car! Put a lot of work in finding these locations.

Got rid of the dipped roof because i got tired of the look.I can always go back but im liking the silver look better than ever.

More updated coming soon, just had to upload my photos!
 
Use to love coaching 12-14 year old baseball in that area a few years ago when I was stationed there. Very nice area and wheels too by the way.:thumb:
 
Update 8: MPG Tune and New Car
For some odd reason my car loved these wheels and gave me a noticeable gain of 2-3 mpg a gallon. With this in mind I came to the conclusion that I was going to try to max out my mpg with this car since it was my daily that took me to school (LA to SF) almost 10 times a year. I ended up making an agreement with a fellow tuner here in LA (eclipsegsx1736) who would tune my car on 87. That's right, a fully built GSX tuned on 87 gas LOL...
The road tune was... well... what can you say, interesting. We pulled back all the timing in the world and tuned the boost down to about 12psi. At WOT we richen it out like crazy to avoid any knock which was damn near impossible but ended the day with a clean tune for both WOT and cruising. The gsx after we finished :
IMG_0664_zps41588171.jpg

The next week I had a prefect opportunity to test out my freshly tuned GSX, since it was time to head back north. Let me state that my car was completely stuffed with clothes, books, tvs, computers, and everything needed for college. I filled it up at a gas station 1 mile from my house, topping it off with about 13.5 gallons and from there I reset my meter and began driving. During the trip up north, I have to climb a huge hill we have here in Cali called the grapevine, which is nothing but increasing incline for about 25+ miles. All in all, I say I was completely happy with what I got to one tank :D
IMG_0905_zps3cd24313.jpg

That's right, 431 miles to a tank. I ended up making to school with one full tank, 70% highway and 30% streets. Again this was all on crap ass 87 gas with 14.7-15.5 AFR cruising and a full load. I loved the MPG my car was giving me, but it was kinda depressing driving it around know how much potential power it had waiting to be unleashed.
During this time I also went ahead and bought a drag car that a local tuner was selling. This Talon was making 680hp/610tq on a 2.3l with a 6262, but lets say the motor didn't agree too much with that.
IMG_0954_zpsaa51f765.jpg

This car was loaded with parts that had less than 200miles on them: QM Twin disc, ETS FMIC, AEM EMS, Built tranny, Built diff, Full Blown Double Pumper, Ksport coils, New rotors, pads, 10 gauges, etc... I bought this car with hopes of keeping my 2g a daily and this my power maker. Sadly though, it ended up getting back into by a neighbor of mine. It suffered some questionable frame damage.
IMG_0930_zps4458ee90.jpg

IMG_0937_zpsd673176b.jpg

The damage on the car was not worth repairing so the part out began. I ended keeping some parts and throwing them on my car such as the coils, but the car is now living amongst 6 dsm in CA. RIP Talon
IMG_0944_zps8133e3b4.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Support Vendors who Support the DSM Community
Boosted Fabrication ECM Tuning ExtremePSI Fuel Injector Clinic Innovation Products Jacks Transmissions JNZ Tuning Kiggly Racing Morrison Fabrications MyMitsubishiStore.com RixRacing RockAuto RTM Racing STM Tuned

Latest posts

Build Thread Updates

Vendor Updates

Latest Classifieds

Back
Top