A Tale of Two All Wheel Drives

[dsm-onster]

***EDIT: In the interest of keeping all my junk about this in actually one link, I'm jsut going to update this through "comments". I've inserted my other blogs related to this with the comments option, too.***

As my (mis)-fortune would have it, I have inherited a B-E-A-utiful 1991 AWD Eclipse shell. The pictures will speak for themselves. This was my brothers a/t car that he is tired of, and can't find an affordable automatic transmission; and has since opted for another friend's also B-E-A-utiful 1997 Eagle Talon AWD. This is about my build of these two cars.

1997 Eagle Talon TSI AWD:

The 1997 has leather, 6 disk changer, A/C deleted, great body, and 6-bolt swap with a blown 18g and smallish intercooler, nice IC and intake piping, translator with 3" GM MAF. ACT 2600 clutch disk with an SBR 3600 pressure plate and ACT streetlite flywheel. 3" exhaust just after the turn down from the turbo (half the down pipe ). A big fart can muffler. The motor was "smoking". But the blown 18g probably was why it pushed blue oil smoke. And the ebay SMIM was craked to he!! so the likely reason it blew. The previous owner pulled the head off the car and left the block for the elements. So now the 6 bolt block is pitted. He's asked me to swap the rebuilt 6 bolt motor from his 1991 shell he's given me. I rebuilt a 1992 6-bolt N/T motor, fitted with turbo pistons, and his automatic head (smaller intake cam for that year). He will later swap to the better 1993-1994 exhaust cam. Since the 6 bolt swap has already been done to this car, it shouldn't bee to difficult to replace the long block.

His goal: streetable, yet extracting the most from a small 16g. He has plenty of clutch for this, plenty of bottem end for this (6-bolt), plenty of intercooler for this, I think he should AT LEAST just get a 1993-94 exhaust cam, since the cams he has are the M/T 1Ga cams where the intake is the same duration as the later 1g cams, but the exhaust is small. All a/t cars have this little cam and all 1Ga DSMs, turbo or not m/t or not have this cam. So it's likely that if you do a 6-bolt swap that you will be down grading your cams unless you swap in your 1993-1994 cams. Personally, the Talon AWD really is the best looking DSM with respect to trim and bumper skins (The silhouette). So I can't blame him for switching out when he can.

1991 Mitsubishi Eclipse Automatic AWD:

The Automatic 1G has adjustable head rests, cd player (huge perk for 1991), Emaculately complete and unabused interior, great body, Automatic, 103K (good for as old as it is). I'm going to do manual swap into it. The A/T will net better times yes. but I have a 1990 car with a m/t in it so I have all the linkage, cables, pedals, etc. for this swap and I'll just need to locate a good M/T tranny. I want fun too. Sorry the A/T is boring. If I were building a track only car, then I would stick with auto and make a goal that would shock my self. But, I've since gotten over this. It's not like the m/t can do great at the track either. I'll also need to swap in an M/T rear differential since the gear ratio is different between a/t and m/t. The car is a 6-bolt so I'm not sure what to do. I'll swap in a 4 bolt rear if the opportunity AFFORDS itself. But, if I find an LSD 3 bolt M/T rear, it's going in. They've endured low 10 second passes and more. All my parts from my other car are going into this one: Holset H1C (similar to HX35) with bolton bep housing, evo3 exhaust manifold, Clutchnet 6-puck sprung clutch disk with SBR 3500 pressureplate (excellent pedap pressure, iron grip, street friendly), full 3" exhaust (I will modify my FWD exhaust to go under an AWD car), Ebay external wastegate, DSMLink, Ebay intercooler, N/T throttlebody, cold air intake.

My goal: a consistant mid 11 second car that has decent amenities and I can drive home.

I've already pulled the engines to both these cars. I will post pictures of this tomorrow. Then the finished product, of course. Here's some pics of my "new" shell:

 

[dsm-onster]

Pray for me. I have to do a rear dif swap / manual tranny swap for one; and a semi 6-bolt swap for another. And they are DSMs. Which makes your deck lose face cards instantly!

 

[dsm-onster]

Here are some pictures of the 2g apart and 1g apart. It really is a beautiful car. I can't wait for him to get it on the road. We're going to 'push reliability', not push the car. I like to say that because, it's not worth it if you can't drive it home, right?

My 1g is going to be a slower build for now. I have the time and other automobiles to drive. . .

Swapping the automatic motor over to the 2g meant that the flexplate had to come of. I put it on about a year ago. It was NOT pretty pulling it back off. Why do the flywheel/flexplate bolts have to be such a pain? No matter how fresh the build. The flexplate was literally bent to an unusable state with my breaker bar. I rounded all the bolt heads and even after using the bolt extractor, re-rounded the bolt heads. I had to take the grinder and cut new shoulders. I ground off the flange on the base of the bolt heads and this, I think, was the only reason they came off.

6bolt block:

 

[dsm-onster]

I'm not sure about the firing order. I know there's a change to the firing order since the 1g cas is being used. Nor am i sure about the timing. I haven't even started it yet, though. I still have to put in the front half-shafts and hook up the center diff.

But the motor is in and here's my blog of how I avoid hours of turbine housing and exhaust manifold porting. Don't port your 16g

 

[dsm-onster]

After forgetting to swap the 2g head goose neck (which has all the important 2g temp sensors), it finally started. And after diagnosing a bad coil pack and swapping in a 1991-1994 coil pack she idles and free-revs like a champ.

The 1997-1999 a/c bracket was lost in the shuffle of getting the pieces to the garage. Now I either need a 1995-1996 intermediate shaft bracket or a 1997-1999 a/c bracket. A good thread about this is found here.

I'm afraid to drive the car around because of several things. One being that I have the 1990-1996 a/c bracket on there and the 1997-1999 intermediate shaft is being held on by one bolt. And I'm not even sure the shaft is exactly plumb in the transmission. Second, there is a terrible fuel leak at the line going to the ebay adjustable fuel pressure regulator. Third, I've set the maft up in blow through and I don't yet have a logger. So I'm blind with an inaccurate air metering instrument.

I have the bypass valve vented to the atmosphere. It is located close to the intercooler outside the engine bay. It's an amazing should to rev the motor up to 5K or so and let off the gas. The valve can be heard and there is a modulating whistle when the rpms rest. I will get a movie clip on here to get the sound. We'll be trying to get her to perform as strong as it sounds.

Also we will be doing some comparisons. We have Road Dyno. Most on the AEM forums prefer this to a rolling dyno. It's proven to be VERY accurate. But mainly, just like a stationary dyno, this is a tuning tool. Even if it is inaccurate, it is precise. So comparisons of different mods will show their improvement if there is one. Right now we have a completely stock automatic turbo head on the block. We will be swapping the intake cam out with the better m/t turbo cam (higher duration, different lob centerline angle). The turbo m/t cam have the same duration for all the years and the 1993-1994 have SLIGHTLY more lift. After dynoing these results, we'll grab the 1993-1994 m/t exhaust cam, which has the same duration as 2g turbo exhaust cams. This will be a complete change over to 1993-1994 m/t style stock cams. After dynoing this, we'll know if they really are a worthwhile mod. . . Man! I love experimenting

If the headgasket blows , we'll look at the improvements mild porting can give to a stock cam setup.

I've also been slowly porting my 1g head that will go on my silver 1g Eclipse. Here's my blog on this: I'm bored and I have a minigrinder. Hmmm. . . . I will be doing comparison logs with the accurate 2g maf. We'll see if there are volume flow gains with a log of the raw hertz number. Some more experimenting.

 

[dsm-onster]

Well, I've compiled a few clips of the car running.

Mike's Car

Not bad for an ebay muffler. The dodge garage mod 1g bypass valve vented to the atmosphere sounds very nice, too. It's location may have something to do with that .

I found out that the previous owner drove the car around for a year plus with just ONE bolt in the jackshaft bracket like I have. When we find the 1997+ a/c bracket or when we find the 1995-1996 jackshaft bracket, I'll go in there and swap it. It's not kosher, but no dsm really is. I need to repair the leak on the water pipe coming from the water pump. And the logger will be ordered on friday. We'll be keeping the boost down to stock for now and drive it around like that. This will give the ECU time to update the fuel trims anyway. And I'll have my wideband on her so that we'll know if something is terribly awry with the MAFT tune (zeroed out for now).

Finished engine bay and exterior shot:

WOW! I can't wait to get into my car. I'm getting a shiver up my spine just thinking about it.

 

[dsm-onster]

Well, after working aout a few bugs Mike's 2g is running VERY well. It is a very fun street car. We found out the gas gauge doesn't work proprly the hard way. It showed 1/4 tank of gas. But it shut off. We were getting no fuel pressure, so we thought the pumpw as out. I pull the pump and see there's no gas in tank. . . So we had to push the car 1.2 mile home when wecould have just put gas in it and gone our merry way.

We fixed a few electrical things here and there. One being the coil pack. It was firing on all but number one cylinder. There was no spark. So I grabbed a spare 1990 (different than 1991-1994 and 2g) coil pack and swapped the little 2g/1991-1994 coil pack harness and it runs like a top. The other issues was that the 2g alternator case cracked. . . Or it probably began cracking before we bought it. It finally went up. And we swapped in a 1g. The connector is different between years and a 2g alternator is $160 after returning the core. This one was cracked so it was entirely possible Mike would have had to spend $240 for an alternator. I I looked up how to swap in a 1g alternator and you need the 1g plug from the harness and wire in the middle 2 wires. . . Great thread: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/newbie-forum/233232-installing-1g-alternator-2g-merged-5-08-a.html#post151503949. 1g alternators are a little less expensive, too ($30 difference). So if your 2g goes out it's worth it to swap in a 1g alternator.

We had her set at 9 psi and she pulled fairly well. This was right off the wastegate actuator. This is a bit laggy, of course, since the wastegate cracks open little by little earlier than with a MBC installed. I added a cheap manual boost controller and the lowest boost I can dial her in at is 15psi. But it ramps boost up VERY fast. We have crappy automatic cams in the car still. The m/t intake cam is sitting in the trunk though. With the auto cams, it has GREAT torque at about 3500rpms, but it relaxes a little by 5500rpms.

We're waiting for EvoScan to come in. This logging software and cable is apparently fantastic with a 1997-1999 computer. The 1997-1999 ecus log very fast and the evoscan will spit out an actual knock sum. No looking for timing dips. An actual number will be output to help you get off the gas fast and dial in your tune better. The 1998-1999 ecus are reflashable via a flash port on the passenger side of the car. The 1997 does log very fast, and all you need is to wire in the 1998-1999 flash port and get a cheap 1998-1999 ecu and now you have a flashable ecu. . . Ecuflas has been used to flash different timing and fuel tables. Several are working out where the global and deadtime is in the code. Development is progressing every day right now it seams. VERY, VERY soon the 1998-1999 ecu will be capable of what dsmlink can off for the 1995 eprom. This is an exciting time for 2g owners. This means that only TWO years ecus are not editable, 1996 and 1997. BUT the 1997 ecu responds very well to EvoScan. Which is becoming the fastest and best logger available. DTCs lots of perameters and you can cut on/off the fuel pump, individual injectors, fuel pressure solenoid, wastegate solenoid set base timing without grounding, radiator fan high, radiator fan low. Eprom ecu prices will drop. 1997-1999 ecus are $50 a piece and swap right in. ECUFlash is free and the fast logger, EvoScan, is 120 and includes the hardware to use ECUFlash.

Great threads on evoscan and ecuflash:

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/newbie-forum/271955-evoscan-does-anyone-use.html
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/tuning-engine-management/307561-new-ecuflash-1-38-2g.html
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/tuning-engine-management/311214-evoscan-ecuflash-tuning.html

We'll log the before and after of the auto-to-manual stock cam swap. . .

 

[dsm-onster]

Well finally, I get the evoscan logging cable from limitless. It is a nice professional piece. Very cleanly built and not like made in china parts. Though the manufacturer is in china . The EvoScan company Limitless is based out of New Zealand, but doesn't build the cable. This is their recommended cable. Coming from china is why it took so long for us to get it.

Mikes 2g already blew a head gasket. . . I TOLD him not to run her hard until we can put a logger on it. . . Regardless, after getting most of it back together today, I couldn't wait to see if the early 1997 ecu would transfer data fast enough for this logger. So I just plugged it in and cut the ignition on and wala, I was able to record about 20 perameters at 90ish/sec at the baudrate of an EVO8 . I love technology. . .

 

[dsm-onster]

Well My brother sold the 2g car . I've got the parts to swap in a 5Speed to the 1g though. See here for the swap.