Bloody Panda 350whp Daily Driver Build

[Bloody Panda]

My name is Jake and this is the build of my 1992 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX (6 bolt - 4 bolt). First off, I bought this car as my 2nd car at the age of 16, I didn't know much about cars then except that I wanted a first gen awd dsm. I found this car in Wisconsin for $1400 with bad front CVs, no brakes, and a bad 2nd gear synchro. I quickly fixed the brakes and CVs and daily drove it with the bad trans until I finally put the used trans in that came with the car. The car was bone stock at this point and I put a full 3in catless exhaust with ATR Pitbull Cat Back. I'll fast forward a year and get to the more interesting things. After about a year the car started leaking from the front case so I used it as an excuse to pull the motor, throw in a 2g piston 1g rod motor and clean up the engine bay.

I refer to my car as a "bloody panda" because I always loved the 1g pandas but couldn't find one so I settled for my "bloody panda"

I'm going to continue on with this right now but I want to get this first post posted so I have something to work off of. I have a lot of typing ahead of me.

Anyway, here is a picture of how my car looked at this point

To start off doing this engine swap part of my build, I picked up a lowish-mile 2g piston 1g rod motor with:
balance shaft delete
mls head gasket
arp head studs
bc valve springs
rebuilt head
and more which I can not think of right now

I also picked up a few more parts

OEM complete gasket set + OEM Exhaust Studs + Hex Head Valve Cover Bolt Kit

So at this point, my car had a mbc, walbro 255, hks hard intercooler piping, dejon intake pipe, aeromotive fuel pressure regulator, and was running 18lbs of boost on the stock 14b. Over the summer, I got the chance to go to a test and tune night at US41 and make some of my first runs down the track. I made 3 runs and my best was 13.91 @ 98mph. I was pretty happy with this number.

The white and gold wanna-be bbs are the wheels I had on the car. The other wheels are friends wheels that I tried on just to see how they would look.

Also, here are some random pictures of my car just for your viewing pleasure

I am going to continue this journal over the next couple of days as I have a loooot of posting and picture uploading to do. And right now I have a cast on my wrist and it is a lot of work to type with this thing on so I can only do so much in one day. Please stay tuned!

Here is how my engine bay looked at this point in time (Stock engine)

The day after I got home from the track, (7 months ago), I started on pulling the stock 125k mile 6 bolt.

 

[LaserRS92]

What you call those wannabe BBS whees, the gold ones with the polished lip, what are the specs on those and the tires? I really like that look actually.

 

[Bloody Panda]

What you call those wannabe BBS whees, the gold ones with the polished lip, what are the specs on those and the tires? I really like that look actually.

Which wheels are you talking about? The wanna be bbs wheels are the ones on the car in the picture at the track next to the evo. They are some sort of Infinitely oem wheel. They are 16x7 +40 with 215/55/16 tires.

Once I had the engine out, I started on cleaning up the engine bay.

Then I started on getting the bay ready to be painted

Filled in the holes at the top of the bay

 

[buhay6]

Nice work so far man. I like the stance and rims (white ones) you were rocking, it makes the 1g a little more agressive IMO. What was/is your suspension setup? Im looking for a decent set up with out the price of coilovers.

 

[90tsiawdturbo]

That's a clean dsm coming from Wisconsin...nice looking car! I agree on the white wheels, and curious what suspension, tire size your running?

 

[boosting88]

the first pick of the car with the gold wheels are advan rgII, the second and third pics of the identical wheels are work emotion cr-kai wheels

unless they have the knock offs

 

[Bloody Panda]

the first pick of the car with the gold wheels are advan rgII, the second and third pics of the identical wheels are work emotion cr-kai wheels

unless they have the knock offs

Yes, I should have posted the specs.
First wheels are Advan RgIIs - 17x8 225/45/17 unsure of offset
Second Wheels are Drag Dr-31s - 17x9 225/45/17 +32
Third Wheels are Work Emotion cr-kai - 18x9.5 225/40/18 +22

For suspention, in the RgII picture, I was running AGX with Sportline Springs. In the second and third, I was running Megan Street Coilovers.

I trimmed down the sealer beads in the bay so they would still be functional and would look nice under the paint.

Sold my old wheels:
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn3/jdeckin1296/JIGGABOO-PC/Print pictures/IMG_0376.jpg

And picked up some new 16x8 +40 BBS RZ

Threw some 245/50/16 tires on them

Pushed the car out into the driveway and gave the engine bay and subframe a good powerwashing

I then dropped the front sub-frame and suspension components, then spot painted all of the spots that I wouldn't be able to get with a brush.

Then I started the painting process. I decided to go with POR-15. I chose this paint because it is known for being very very durable and able to be painted right over rust, hence what POR stands for. I used the High Gloss Black.

 

[90tsiawdturbo]

Damn I need to find me a set of those Megan coilovers for cheaper then $1000

 

[Bloody Panda]

Damn I need to find me a set of those Megan coilovers for cheaper then $1000

I got mine with less than a 1000 miles on them for $450 they are the 32-way adjustable red track ones too!