GSX

[951zilla]

Hello, all my name is DJ.



I am new to the world of DSM’s, I am not new to modifying cars. I sort of stumbled onto this build with a little extra time on my hands from Covid. I thought it could be a good way to practice some things I suck at. Currently I need help and often have to get cars worked on at shops or places that end up screwing up my car anyways. I want to be more capable, so I decided to build something less expensive than my other cars for experience.



So, I got this car from a local community page where a young kid owned it and just finished his turbo 420a setup when it was broken into by a perspective buyer and everything of value stolen. Here is the add at the time.











Uninterested in the car any longer he was going to scrap it. I jokingly offered him 300$ for it thinking it was a4g63 car. The car was in rough shape. It did not start because the turbo was stolen and all the lines/wiring cut. One side did not have a window the other side the door did not open/close right. I had an idea that this car was in rough shape but I figured I’d grab some paint and see what I could do with it just for fun then I would scrap it after or sell it.



This is day 1.











This is the car parked on the street in front of his apartments. It had a notice to be moved within 72 hours and it was a leaking mess. In retrospect I don’t know what I was thinking, this car was a pile of trash. I initially walked away from it because he said that pick a part would give him 800$ I told him that was a solid deal and to take it. His mom called me back at the end of the week and said they would take my 300$ and to come get it. I always wanted an eclipse in my teens and 20’s but they were just unattainable in my life situation at that time. So this car sort of hit the right nostalgia nerve and it was just cheap enough it to find yet another home. In retrospect I could have gotten a cleaner n/a car for the money with less problems.



So, I get it home and I am uneasy about the whole thing. I got this car to build something I am not fully invested in. To take some risks and learn. However for some reason I am low key freaking out about ruining this car which was already destined for the salvage yard… Weird.. Anyways here it is.







This thing immediately grows on me. It hits the nostalgia strings every time I look at it. A couple of good friends owned these things back in the day. It reminds me of those good times.



Anyways it was time to come up with a plan for this car. It already has some mods. But many things were destroyed both by the robbery and the f***ery of the past owners. It seems like they touched EVERYTHING. This thing is pretty much a shell to me.











At this point I am thinking of doing a turbo swap I pick up another cheap car but this one is a 4g63 spyder. I decided I want to fix this one up and keep it too.















I discovered this car has some pretty bad frame damage and I decided not to keep it. Sorry I don’t have a photo of it. The frame rail had been cut and replaced by someone who was less than an amateur welder. It was unsafe and I just wasn’t interested in dealing with frame damage. I decided to part out this car and do a turbo swap. (yeah, I know, I know, keep reading…)



So, it’s about this point that it dawns on me to do some actual research and get on Dsm tuners to find out whats involved with the swap. I discovered shortly after I got the 420a home what it is and how that differs from a GST. What I didn’t look for, was how to do a GST swap, whoops. In my defense, the add said “Turbo” eclipse and it had been at least a decade since I’ve seen one, so put simply I forgot what the 4g63 should look like. I noticed something was up though just not sure what it was. Getting online confirmed how dumb of a decision it was to jump into this car with no knowledge of them let alone buying a second one. I didn’t spend much on both cars and the second car came from looking for body panels. It was just cheaper to buy the whole car vs just the hood, doors and interior.



So anyways what to do? I decided to use what I could and sell the rest from the spyder.







I sold the 4g63 ands trans which made my parts cost free.







At this point Ive got everything swapped over onto the blue car.







Stripped the interior.





It was time to start on the body work.















I decided I wanted to paint it a Nostalgia color for me. 1999 Honda SI electron pearl blue. I’ve always love that color/car and it was another one that got away from me. It took me FOREVER to paint this car. I kept screwing stuff up. I went through almost 1k in materials and painted it about 3 times. This was over the course of a few months.















I get it painted, find rookie stuff then tried to fix it. This repeats a coupe of times.













Found problems, tried to fix them. Rinse repeat.























And more rookie fixing.











Getting there..













Starting the clear..



















Umm, Wait a minute… Now we are talking baby…







In love..







It was around this time I started thinking about what to do with the motor so I cleaned up a bay and started a game plan. The car came with a 420a that had a recent build and BC cams but I opted not to stick with it. The purpose of this car is to do some things I normally wouldn’t try and take some risk in the name of learning.







At this point I was watching the Miguel Dsm videos and I got the idea that I wanted to do an evo swap. I started looking at prices and I wasn’t all that into the costs involved. I want to do more of a budget build. I have big $$ tied up with my other build so I don’t want this one to be too expensive.



After passing on the Miguel Dsm idea I came across this thread.

https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/99-gs-srt4-engine-swap.405716/

I also came across this.







It’s a shame NWHTank never finished it. That was really demotivating for me. I don't want to get that far and have everyone see me never finish it too. Scary, however I owned an srt4 for over 15 years. I know them like the back of my hand. I think could maybe pull it off.
We will see.









Unfortunately, I got scammed locally on this motor. It was trashed and the guy sold it to me as a good motor. Long story short, he let me hear another motor run then switched them when I came to pick it up.

This motor has been overheated and they never changed the oil. Its done, if I put this in the car it will be a waste. I took it apart and kept whats good then I tossed the rest.



I eventually traded the 420a for a 4g63, by this time I had also acquired a Gsx shell. The 4g is for that car. You may notice it in the background of some of the photos. That build is for next year.



Anyways I came across another srt4 motor from someone more trustworthy.













Ive decided to do the swap with the 420a trans then add the str4 trans as phase 2.









I am planning on powder coating the evo10 wheels so they came off.





I picked up some chromies cause I am a bling boy at heart. Falling harder..







Now its time to try this out and see how much crap I am in.

 

[951zilla]

It fits but it doesn’t fit “well” I think we are going to have to make 2 motor mounts and potentially remove or make a new support bar underneath. It fits but its touching.



So we decided to tackle this mount first to make it easier to remove the engine. The stock mount works but it’s a pain to install/remove.










Next is this side. The motor is kinda crooked so its touching. With the mount it should fit but may require some clearance we will see.






So were thinking to order this engine bracket and make and adaptor.





It would be something like this.



So this is where the project is at currently. I broke my toes 2 weeks ago and I am just waiting to get mobile again to take the car back to the fabricator for the 4th mount. I will be back with more progress.

 

[951zilla]

So here we are just about 6 months later and I am walking again. I'm pretty thankful to have a foot still. I had 3 surgeries. Anyways It's finally been cooler out and with my new working foot I've been itching to get back in action. I have so many cool cars and none of them run right now. That time off along with Covid closures has been a real mind f***. I am so glad to be able to get in the garage and forget the world is melting down. I would have never thought a 350$ car could bring me so much pleasure.

So I made some minor progress on the Gs4. I found what seemed to be the last 95 neon mount on store shelves. It took well into my recovery to show up.

Once I could walk a little (2 months ago) I just had to find out if my plan was going to work. I mean, up until this point its been just pissing money away at a junkyard build. At this point, I still don't think the car will ever run and I am sort of happy nobody read the thread about it .

Okay so it fits and it looks like it can be fabbed to work with the NA mount rather easily. I think the frame rail will need to be notched here though. You could probably make it work somehow without cutting into the rail but I want to be able to service it easily so I am thinking to notch it like 1.5"-2" on both sides. I plan to dd the srt4 transmission later at the other side will for sure need it.

This is looking down the backside of the motor at the Alternator pulley. Its very close to the frame rail and more reason to notch it.

This car is going to need some Fab work. This motor mount will need to be adapted but you can see here this will be a much nicer option VS using the srt4 engine mount. Not to mention its ALOT lighter.

The Oil pan is scary close to the lower support bar. WIth the way the mounts are going to be made I think I can remove this bar. I need room for the srt4 under pan chargepipe anyways. This car is slammed and there is almost no way around this bigass engine. I will need to run the chargepipe the same way the srt4 does through here.

The srt4 02 housing will have to mbee modified to accept a downpipe. I have a HKS gst exhaust system I want to try and adapt. I am going to keep it sane at first before adding power mods later like a 50trim and hood exit exhaust.

The turbo is super close to the brake lines. I think custom brake lines will be needed. Its going to get hot back here.

So I am kind of at a stopping point. I need Fab for the intercooler piping, exhaust downpipe and motormount adaptor. I can see this all costing me around another 600-1000$ in fab costs. I have already spent a couple hundred on that trans mount. Just a for warning. This isnt going to be cheaper than buying a GST. I think in the end I'll still spend 4-6k on it. I am not building this car to be like a gst however so I am okay with that.

So to kill some time, I decided to look at the wiring and figure out a plan. This is the area I feel the most comfortable with from a knowledge standpoint. On one end I have never built a swapped car or custom wiring, on the other end I am pretty comfortable with automotive electrical systems in general. So this part doesn't stress me out as much as the rest does. For now the plan is to crank it with the entire harness. I think I can retrofit it as is and ony need to extend a few wires. Once I confirm I know what I am doing with the security feature and the srt4 starter wont be an issue on the 420a trans, ill depin all the body lights and emergency stuff from the srt4 harness. very little will actually need to remain if I am correct in my plans.

Almost all that stuff on the right of the car isnt needed other than ignition, security and the gauge cluster. I should be able to slim that guy down bigtime. It looks like a wiring kit/ecu could easily be adapted to this situation to save time. I want to try and stay Oem PCM though in the beginning.

All of this wiring in front of the headlight area hanging will be deleted. I also have 2 fuse boxes that one on the floor also needs to be condensed down and fitted for the eclipse body functions to work if I want windows, locks and lights from the DSM body harness.

So here is where I am. I think Once I sort out the fuel system and get oil lines on the turbo I should be able to get the wiring far enough along to test start it. Then the plan is to send the car to fab and I will modify the wiring hardness while its gone.

 

[951zilla]

And so at some point recently.. it sort of it hit me that this is going to happen. I am excited for this thing!

 

[TheRippedNerd]

ive seen v8 swaps and evo swaps in DSM's but never a srt4, this will be interesting to watch and hear! i always loved how angry SRT4's sounded

 

[951zilla]

I made some progress on the main ignition wiring harnesses. The srt4 engine will require 3 harnesses to run. 2 engine bay harnesses then this dash harness below. Needless to say the car doesn't have room for that much wiring. I decided to cut out the ABS, lighting, Airbags, and other systems from the under dash wiring harness. This will help a great deal with fitment as I need very little to remain. Mainly ignition and the SKIM security system. I depinned everything I could see that I wouldn't need I also saved a few extra circuits just in case.

a little lighter.

Removed this rats nest.

Getting there

Ready for testing.