98 Eclipse GSX Restore and Build

[Brad0615]

Hello All: this is my new (to me) 1998 Eclipse GSX that I will be doing a little bit of work on.
Road Map can be found Here

Some info on the car:
Standard Transmission
After Market Blow off valve
3" Exhaust (Burned my bumper )
Front Calipers have been changed apparently?
Everything Else is stock
120,XXX Miles


Alright this is my Second DSM that I have ever owned and I am happy to finally post a build journal here and seek the communities support, knowledge, and general bad-assness that is DSMTuners. My first DSM Sadly was owned by my former self about five years ago. I knew nothing about cars back then and so long story short the car didn't get to far, I bought it broke, and was never able enough to fix it.
More Info in second post so this post does not become so cluttered.

I work 40+ A week so this journal is likely to be slow as money and time will only allow me to do so much to this car. Without further ado I give you pictures.

PS. Dear Admins do you guys support Textile Markup?

Reserved

 

[McDizle]

Not a bad find! Good luck with your build. What are your goals for this project? I'm sure plenty of members will agree, if you don't have a plan now it'll end up costing more money and wasted time down the road. Anyway good luck

 

[Brad0615]

Well I was going to reserve a post to post my goals but I do have some. I will list them here and then Link them above.

Short Term Goals
Rear diff oil
Red Line 58204 Heavyweight Shockproof Gear Oil

Rack and Pinion (Ebay has a rebuilt one with warranty 100$ Shipped!)
MHI 16G From a friend of a friend. Gunna has JusMX Rebuild it for meh
VRSF FMIC
16G Install Kit
Boost leak tester
Timing tools
Timing Belt and Tensioner
Cam Seals
Freeze plug ( look at the videos further below)
Spare 4G63 Short Block .20 over and fresh out the machine shop ( for 500$ who could let that down)



Interior Plans

New carpet from stockinteriors.com
95-99 Mitsubishi Eclipse Carpet GSX Complete Kit 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
NOTE: I found a really good review here with pictures on the quality

Re-fab head liner and moon roof cover
Auto Headliner Replacement Kit For Car, Truck, Van, SUV - Stock Interiors

Sound Deadening
Hush mat Ultra (Gunna go a little crazy with this stuff
HushMat Ultra 10501 Bulk Kit Sound Deadening and Thermal Insulation Material

Dsm link v3 (I will socket my own ECU)
ECMTuning, Inc.

Seats
Sparco Chrono Road Seats with bolt on mounts and added slide adjusters

Battery Relocation at the time of new carpet, cause it is easy.
Might not relocate the battery at this time but I will run two 0 gauge wires for a future relocation.
Add wiring for future fuel-pump upgrades,
Wiring for security alarm, lights ect. (Will probably run 6 pairs of cheap rca's down the driver side for this use)

Audio
-Six Pairs of RCA for future sound upgrades. One pair connecting to each speaker.
-Six pairs of RCA for AMPs
-Single din radio kit and proper female pig tail.
-Alpine head nit
-Component Speakers
4" Tweeter ( cannot find any so I might go with a 1 inch tweeter and an adapter plate)
6.5" High
6.9" Mids
10-12" Lows (Trunk will have some combination of woofers and sub woofers.)
-Remove rear spare cover and create new cover from plywood and carpet it.

Panels
Find black door panels or repair existing ones
New delta cover plates for interior power side mirrors.
Shift boot idea ( dont want to spoil anything yet)

Lights
Rear tail light mod to have a back-lit "ECLIPSE" logo
Tinted rear lights
Fog light rewire
Going to rewire fog lights to come on when I press the fog light button and turn off when I un-press the button.
OEM Head Lights as I haven't seen a good quality projector set.
Purple interior lights
-Under Dash
-Around the perimeter of the moon roof
-Back lit gauges









Completed
Fix fluid leaks and replace fluids
Fix oil pressure gauge
Front transfer case oil
Red Line 58204 Heavyweight Shockproof Gear Oil
Transmission fluid
Redline MT-90
Motor oil
Royal Purple 10w-30
Royal Purple oil filter

Flush radiator
Wiper fluid
Power steering fluid
De-greaser and some loving

Oil pan gasket
Fel-Pro OS30665C

Valve cover gasket
Fel-Pro VS50434R

Power steering pump
Rebuilt using OEM Power Steering Pump Seal Kit-2G DSM MR130945 provided by JNZTuning

Spark plugs - Thanks Doubleot
NGK Copper Core BPR7ES

This Should remove oil leaks from car and make it dependable to drive daily. Plan to complete this on Late February Early March Weekend. I posted pictures of some of the leakage that was going on, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. I think by changing all of these gaskets and cleaning up where I can I have a good chance at stopping whatever is causing such a big mess.

 

[Doubleot]

Rear diff and transfer case I use redline lightweight shockproof

I always recommend using "the right stuff" gasket maker over a rubber gasket for the oil pan.

Spark plugs
Bpr6es (close to stock mods)
Bpr7es (after mods and higher boost)

 

[Brad0615]

Rear diff and transfer case I use redline lightweight shockproof

I always recommend using "the right stuff" gasket maker over a rubber gasket for the oil pan.

Spark plugs
Bpr6es (close to stock mods)
Bpr7es (after mods and higher boost)

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any weights for the Redline? Or Product numbers?
Thanks in advance.

Just to recap The car is new to me and I'm just trying to do the easy and quick maintenance on it right now. In my field of work we call this "stopping the bleeding" and then we will go from there and mend the wounds. (aka belts and such.)

 

[talontsiawd08]

Good luck with your project friend in the redline I recommend this web site
Oil – Jacks Transmissions LLC
Greetings

 

[Brad0615]

Good luck with your project friend in the redline I recommend this web site
Oil – Jacks Transmissions LLC
Greetings

Choose Heavy.

Alright parts are ordered and I will be updating my post with what VFAQ's I used to help me with this information.
I do have some more pictures, one of them is my Front Bumper badge from my old Talon. Not sure what I want to do with it yet. Also I found a power steering pump! Gunna clean it up and bolt it up in replacement for my leaking one.

Pictures.
Talon Badge

Timing Belt (Not to bad)

Trunk floor pan no rust =

Picture of Oil leakage 1

Picture of Oil Leakage 2

Unidentified Object but I dislike it.

Another shot of engine bay compression test showed 154,152,150,148

 

[Brad0615]

Big update coming this weekend! All of my maintenance parts should be here by Saturday. I will be doing a lot of work on her this weekend. In other news I found my power steering pump from my 95 talon and took it apart, cleaned it, and have a seal kit coming in from JNZTuning. Great price on the Kit but the shipping rates seemed too high. 14$ shipping on a few O-rings and a metal gasket? However it will be nice to know that I rebuilt it. I will probably paint the pulley and paint the housing as well.

After all of the maintenance is finished I plan on cleaning the interior of the car up and getting it where I want it to be before I do any engine or drive train work that is outside of normal maintenance. I am afraid that I will be border line ricing with the things I want to do with the car but I could care less because I have a GSX and I am keeping a factory exterior look because that year is absolutely beautiful.

Updated roadmap.

 

[Alex Trebek]

Rear diff and transfer case I use redline lightweight shockproof

^^^ This

Good luck with your build!

 

[Doubleot]

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any weights for the Redline? Or Product numbers?
Thanks in advance.

Just to recap The car is new to me and I'm just trying to do the easy and quick maintenance on it right now. In my field of work we call this "stopping the bleeding" and then we will go from there and mend the wounds. (aka belts and such.)

They aren't weights they are sold exactly as I described them.

Lightweight shockproof
MT-90 for the transmission

 

[Brad0615]

Thanks guys. Yeah I have updated my road map reply found here

I decided to use heavyweight because of the higher mileage that is on the car.
I also have MT-90 on it's way. Like i said earlier I will be working on the car this weekend so expect a huge update.

Thanks again guys!

 

[Brad0615]

Yay time for big update. I'm not sure how to post all of this in one post so Im just going to type a little bit first.

Well last weekend I was able to do all of the maintenance on the car. I replaced all of the fluids except the rear differential fluids. I replaced the oil pan, valve cover, exhaust, turbo drain gaskets to stop an oil leak that had caked the block of the years. I am a little upset at the amount of money I bought the car for to have it need all of this work I am finding out as I start to do maintenance on it. 4800 dollars is what I paid for her and I regret it. I wish I could have paid 3000 for it and used the other 2000 in repairs cause thats about what she needs. (Well about 1000 in repairs now) Anyways I was able to accomplish most of the stuff found in my road map above. I haven't gotten rid of all of the oil leaks but I am at a good start now that I can actually see where oil is leaking from. It appears they are leaking from the cam seals and until I get the tools to do a timing belt job I am not even going to try and touch them. I was able to use mineral spirits and a few minutes with a brush and clean most of the gunk. I also rebuilt my power steering pump. I had to cut the belt though because my rack and pinon is all busted up and leaking an ass ton of fluid. In the process of dropping the oil pan I found pieces of my turbo shitted into the oil pan so with that being left for me to pick up the car isn't going to be driven a lot until I spend some money on those repairs. I didn't want to jump into a lot of engine work but I guess I will have too to get it right.

So whats next on my list? Well I have to push the interior plans further down and insert these items.
Rack and Pinion
MHI 16G
VRSF FMIC
16G Install Kit
Boost leak tester
Timing tools
Timing Belt and Tensioner
Cam Seals
Freeze plug ( look at the videos further below)
Spare 4G63 Short Block .20 over and fresh out the machine shop ( for 500$ who could let that down)

I am excited for what this car will become but I'd really like to bi*** slap the dude who sold it to me for being a ####ing liar. (Odo was rolled back 100k)

Any how pics (with more text with them)

I started my day off by going to the Junkyard and grabbing all the little tiny parts I wanted to fix my car up. I grabbed two locks from the doors, some door panel plastic clips, ect. Just small nick naks you loose during projects.
No pictures of nick naks but you get the point.

Next I rebuilt my power steering pump from my old talon cause my current one was leaking like snowden. Painted the pulley purple and used stainless steel bolts. ( I hate abbreviations on a informative post)

I took a few pictures of pcv hoses and connectors

I was pretty much auto pilot from here. It was dark and I was oily so no time for many pics. I got the exausht manifold off and discovered some broken studs, also oil. This stuff was pretty gross.

Some air and mineral spirits quickly did the trick in about 30 minutes. BTW I like to stuff holes.

Dropped the transfer case to drop the oil pan. This thing isn't as heavy as the one I had in my talon?

Now it's morning time and I pretty much decided to go to bed after i kinked an oil line going to the turbo and found 4 cracks in my manifold but I woke up that morning went straight to work. Ill get a picture of how I fixed the kink in my line. While the exhaust was off and I discovered all of the room there was (compared to a Firebird Formula my DD) I decided to replace all of the cooling hoses with some left over fuel line I had.

I welded the cracks up on the mani (First time welding)

Got everything bolted back up and drove her a little bit.

Had a few coolant leaks that were soon repaired and I was burning some oil. It is probably due to the turbo shitting in my oil pan.

While I was dropping the pan I noticed some disturbing rust
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdV99H3bts4]Rust Close to the AC Compressor - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Brad0615]

So the car is parked until I can get the parts to do all of the repairs the right way.
While she was parked I decided to fix the driver and passenger doors. The driver side key didnt unlock the door because the metal arm that comes off of the lock inside the door broke off when the guy changed the handle (Guess) so I took my junkyard lock apart and replaced all of the chamber
I cleaned the chambers using rubbing alcohol and basically taught my self how they work. Driver side door works 100% now.

The passenger unlocked the car but could not open the door. So yeah I had to unlock at the passenger then go to the driver side to get into my own car. The passenger door had it's handle replaced too, and I guess it was a defect in the handle as it wasn't engaging the hinge release far enough. I took the handle off the door and bent the metal retaining plat for the rod that put down-force onto the hinge release. So both door work 100% now.

Got some stainless steel bolts for the vale cover before

After

Stainless when various other places

In my curiosity I think I found where that rust was coming from

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D01n0tJdhDs[/ame]
Not sure how to change freeze plugs but it doesn't appear to be leaking anymore.

This is a very useful tool and worth every damn penny I spent on it. Its a cooling system pressure tester. My car held 10PSI all night long without a single drop so I am satisfied. This tester has helped me since they day I bought it finding leaks off all sorts that would have went unnoticed. Do your self a huge favor and get one.

Also below is a video of my turbo's shaft play and a huge Holset H2 Turbo.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlVQhkgIa1k[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVHRCQoUoDA[/ame]

 

[952g63t]

Nice attention to detail. Where did you pick up the coolant pressure tester?

 

[Brad0615]

I got the tester from harbor freight. It has about 8 different caps that plug into the hand pump. It costs 85 dollars and it is made by Pittsburhg. It's well worth the money for your car and you can help you friend and family find leaks they have that they cannot find.

Harbor Freight
Radiator Pressure Tester Kit

Amazon
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001U788FG]Radiator Pressure Tester Kit:Amazon:Automotive[/ame]

 

[ChiefMunga]

Your post is still helping years later ! Many thanks.