Street Build Manny The Mistake: A Lesson In The Dangers Of Nostalgia

While checking out the exhaust situation I noticed that the left rear half shaft inner CV boot was leaking. After confirmation that my local axle shop can have it rebuilt this week I pulled it today.

I pulled it out through the knuckle opening. It probably would have been easier to pull it through just enough to clear the differential then slide it back out, but whatever. It is done now. It's a REALLY good thing that I replaced this whole hub last year because it came apart very easily. Also I pulled off way more than I needed to. Ignore the disconnected trailing (?) arm.

Missing the CV boot clamp. Surprisingly there is still grease inside in spite of how much clearly leaked onto the differential and subframe.

But this is no bueno. The c clip is completely missing, and the shaft has slipped out of the differential at some point in the past and damaged the threads as a result. God, the previous owner of this car was a real piece of shit.

This all needs to be back together because I've got help coming this weekend to install the sway bars with me.

In unrelated news, I am rebuilding my first turbo! This was the celebratory picture when I finally got the turbine housing off. It's a 60hp turbo from my van and it's so tiny! Unfortunately that only makes it more difficult to rebuild. I bought the ONLY RHB3 rebuild kit in the entirety of the US according to GPopShop. And I accidentally destroyed one of the components so they're drop shipping me a ~10mm "piston ring" from the manufacturer today. I'm bad at this.


EDIT: Also, STM STILL hasn't responded to my email or answered the phone.

 

When you're paying someone to rebuild things for you, you're not paying for the parts or their time but all of their expertise. And it's a good thing that I sent it in to be rebuilt because they just got back to me telling me that the inner axle cup and tripod don't match. It can be rebuilt and it will handle the power but there will (continue to) be a bunch of play and I'm likely to get vibration and noise from it. I don't know which part is incorrect or if the other side is the same, but now I get to keep an eye out for LSD rear axles. Cool.

EDIT: After 30 seconds of researching, it looks like I might have non-LSD axles with LSD inner cups, hence them not matching. And also possibly explaining why the boot clamp is missing in the first place. What I don't know is why (allegedly LSD was standard on 98+ Eclipses) or if the passenger side is also using a non-LSD axle.

 

I had a huge long post typed out but yet again, the cat closed the tab before I finished.

This smug asshole. He's so smug.

 

A lot has happened this week. The axle came back from the shop. It is confirmed to be a non-LSD axle with an LSD inner cup. It has a fair amount of play, but it works. For now. I will, in the future, either buy a set of used non-LSD axles or buy a set of these (https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=5468055) and then toss in an EVO clutched LSD.

I ordered the STM catback Sunday. It arrived Thursday. I will post a review of it once I get some videos of it. Until then, I'll start with the pictures.

This thing is beautiful. The quality is absolutely amazing. I can't believe that this went for only $500 two years ago. I went with the catback option because I already have a decent 3" downpipe, and I had a cat welded into said downpipe less than two years ago. Of course, I installed this same day.

I probably don't need to add a description to this picture, but I will anyway. At least part of this started off life as a 2g catback, but it has been cut up and rewelded so many times since then that I have no idea what it was. And it is heavy! It has to weigh at least 35 lbs. It is a lot heavier than the OEM GSX catback that I have laying around my garage. It used all of the factory hangers and it needed to, because it stretched that rubber a lot under its weight.

Here are some close ups of the spots of interest on the old catback, starting at the cat flange and moving rearward.

If it looks like a perforation, it is. Some of this is corrosion. A lot of this is an incompetent welder burning through the mild steel. At least now I know why it was so loud and sounded so bad. Also!

This is the inside of my catalytic converter. It is just under two years old and has less than 1000 miles on it.....and it's gone. So, another reason why it was so loud and sounded so bad. Now I get to decide if I want to have another cat welded to my current downpipe or if I want to buy the STM downpipe, have a cat welded into that removable test pipe, and risk the fitment with my current O2 housing, which is a common complaint with that downpipe.

But anyway, I got the catback installed without further issue and went on a quick test drive. People claim that catbacks will "mellow out" as they break in, but here are my initial impressions.

Aesthetics: this review doesn't get off to a good start. The tip looks dumb. I'm very glad that it's not bigger, but it looks really out of place in the wide, rectangular factory cutout. It needs to be maybe a half inch bigger or, preferably, a dual tip. I spoke to STM before ordering about making a dual tip version for me. They said they absolutely could but it would be at least 8 weeks before they could take on any new projects. Since I needed the old catback off ASAP, I made do with the single tip. For now. I'm shopping for dual offset rolled tips to fix this.


Sound quality: I'm very impressed. My car went from sounding like a pathetic SOHC Honda to half of a V8, if that makes sense. The few videos online that exist of this catback capture the quality of the sound well enough, but it does sound a little better in person. On startup it has a certain quality that's almost to a growl, and at WOT it has a nice deep scream. The sound of this car is no longer embarrassing!

Volume: It's bad. Like, really bad. This is by far the worst part of this exhaust. On cold start, this unit is exactly as loud as the swiss cheese abomination dump-after-the-cat that I took off. It does quiet down as the engine warms up and the revs get more stable, but at that point I've already woken the entire block. Cruising around town it's ever so slightly quieter than the previous unit but I still get just as many angry stares from pedestrians angry about the ridiculous noise coming from my car. Under load and WOT this exhaust is WAY louder than the old unit to the point that it's unbearable. The sound quality can be amazing all it wants but if I can't handle how loud it is, I'm still just as unhappy with it. This car is a DD and the volume of this exhaust without a cat is absolutely unacceptable to the point where I don't consider it an overall improvement over the pile of rust and holes that it replaced.

Performance: Wow. The old exhaust was a straight through setup with holes everywhere and yet there is a significant torque jump with the STM catback. Off-boost torque is FINALLY what I remember from my three previous DSMs. I guess this somehow explains why a 9:1 compression build didn't improve things. Somehow, it was the exhaust. The 16g still hits 500RPM later than it did on my Spyder and Talon, but at least now it hits just as hard and keeps pulling. I've already confirmed that there wasn't anything clogging the old exhaust, but it really does feel like I just removed a massive exhaust restriction and the engine/turbo can finally breathe properly. Note to self to confirm that the boost controller is still set at 21 psi. I'm no longer looking forward to imminently upgrading the turbo to 68HTA spec, although that will happen eventually.

The top priority at this point is to get a cat installed. If it's still too loud I guess I'll start installing mufflers and/or resonators into the catback as necessary, which would be really disappointing since I haven't found any competent welders in Indy yet. I just keep finding places to which I will not return, and I really don't want to mess up the excellent build quality of this unit. Also, as previously mentioned, it really is time to have this tune touched by a professional. I have taken it as far as I can.

 

Winter tires are back on and car is back to DD status. Now that it is mechanically reliable, it's time for some quality of life improvements.

I ordered a second Magnaflow 99009HM cat and replaced the burnt out one. It is quieter, yes, and thankfully the smells are gone, but it's still too loud. Driving a rear engined car behind my Eclipse and sticking my head out the window, it doesn't seem that loud to other cars on the road. But driving through empty streets it reverberates off the houses a lot, and unpleasantly loud inside the car. I'm looking at a Vibrant 1119 to put somewhere in the exhaust. And if I'm going down that route then I might as well have twin tips installed at the same time.

My brand new dealer key is super stiff in the locks. I was planning to buy a new lock and key set from Mitsu but apparently those have been gone for a full decade now. Now I'm thinking a disassembly and deep clean and maybe some pin filing if I find that they stick out. I've got a stash of factory blanks and have been waiting for a resolution to my key issues before I cut them. I guess now's the time. I ordered a new OEM door lock sensor since I'm missing one completely on the passenger side and I managed to set off the alarm this weekend from the driver side. They only had one in stock or I would have ordered 2.

Also the driver side door sensor/switch doesn't work anymore, which is unpleasant given how dark it is now. They're cheap enough that I bought two.

Also the passenger side door handle only works ~25% of the time. The husband is now regularly getting locked out of the car while we're out and about and we are both not amused. The previous owner superglued a bolt inside the linkage I guess to take up some slack and resolve this issue. That was even more of a disaster, but I need to try something. I wonder if it's a poorly-fitting aftermarket door handle. I guess now is the time to invest in those metal door handles.

Also the car has an ISC problem. It previously threw a CEL which has not returned after I cleared it, but the car dies immediately after starting and I have to start it two or three times before it's finally stable enough to drive. Rock Auto had them on clearance so I bought two.

In unrelated news, I have an EVO 3 clutched LSD waiting to get installed. I need a set of non-LSD axles to run it. Rock Auto sells them for $57 each if I can't find a decent OE set.

In other unrelated news, I have a coilover set on the way. I got in on Flatout Suspension's offer for a review set and am very excited to replace these OE-replacement struts. Handling is quite disappointing at the moment. And related to that, I still have the RM sway bars to install. I'm getting a new impact for Christmas and that's what I have been waiting for.

In other unrelated news, I am still unable to connect to my ECU with ECUFlash. I can log all that I want with EVOScan but connecting to the ECU to read or write a tune times out. I'm debating whether I want to fool around with the current setup or switch back to ECMLink. I'd really like to stop throwing money at this car...

 

Teasers:




Boy did Flatout deliver!

 

The Eclipse has been down for two weeks now. I started on the sway bar and steering rack install and it has been a disaster. An impact couldn't get the end links off and I had to use an angle grinder. Not terribly surprising, but inconvenient. In my removal I found that the steering rack boots were torn so I decided to order new inner tie rods and boots. The outer tie rods are brand new.

My box arrives from RockAuto and I discover that I had only ordered one boot instead of two. But that didn't matter because one of the tie rods that I got was defective and completely missing threads.

So I initiated a return but since they estimated that a new order for the missing boot would arrive a week after the replacement tie rod, I picked one up at the O'Reilly distribution center in town, which is a story of its own. I took the truck and the fuel gauge hit empty as I arrived there, so I stopped for gas. But the fuel door was stuck closed. It has a lock that opens with the key and the lock was not accepting my key. No amount of impact or jiggling could get it to open, so I called the husband and told him that I would be running out of gas on the way home and he should be ready to come pick me up with his own truck key. I made it the 45 minutes back on fumes but haven't bothered to look into the fuel door lock because.

The replacement tie rod arrived today and I sat down to install it. The new one went on just fine. No defects. No problems. But then I installed the second old one only to have the included nut seize on the shaft maybe 1/4" on. It was seized so intensely that I had to use my impact to remove it and I am baffled as to how that could possibly happen. But some of the threads are mangled, and when comparing the two tie rods I found that this damaged one is also missing 1 1/4" of thread down the shaft so it might not have worked anyway.

I initiated a warranty return (again) and this time it gave me the option to order a part and they would issue a refund when they receive my returned unit. I placed the order, noticing but not thinking about how it was more expensive than it should have been. Then I go to start uninstalling the tie rod from this steering rack and realize that the boot clamp is one time use and I will damage it by removing it, so I need a new clamp. I go back to RockAuto and find that I had still had one of the boot kits in my cart that managed to get included in my RMA purchase so at least I will be getting a new clamp, but I don't need (and didn't intend to order) a whole new boot kit. RockAuto doesn't have phone numbers for customer service so Idk what I'm going to do about it but I should probably wait until tomorrow because right now I am just pissed off.

The truck is out of gas. The van's battery isn't holding a charge. The Volvo went down for a simple oil change but we found a bad CV joint and in getting that replaced the tool that we used to pop out the ball joint from the knuckle ended up damaging its threads and so now I guess we get to drop $150 on a new lower control arm for that also. But the 4 car garage is occupied by two disassembled cars we now have three cars parked on the street. And the husband's EV can't be charged at home because the Volvo is blocking the charger. I am losing my mind.

In better news, I got a garage heater installed last week. I'm glad that we no longer need to use propane when working out there, but this heater kind of sucks. It's the same BTU rating as the propane unit but it doesn't seem to do much. I supplement it with an electric heater and if it's really cold I STILL have to use the propane heater. At least this one was super cheap and I won't feel bad about throwing it away in the fall when I get a nicer one.

 

They're Moog parts and the fault lies with Moog and not Rock Auto. Buying the same part numbers locally wouldn't save me from dealing with defective parts, but it's up to the end user whether the additional gas and, in this case, more than double the price is worth bypassing shipping times and being able to take it back to a physical store. If we had decent auto parts stores around here I might feel differently, but I am quickly growing my list of locations that I will never return to. At least with Rock Auto, all RMA-related shipping is free.

FWIW, this is the first time that I have ever, in my entire life, had defective parts from Rock Auto. Still a better track record than Autozone.

 

Steering rack is finally assembled and will go in the car tonight. I had a moment of panic because I went to thread the new nut onto the new tie rod and it got stuck at the exact same point as the previous defective one. Turns out that this new one is just covered in a ton of black sand and some spraying with carb cleaner fixed that.

Front sway bar is also ready for installation, then I get to tackle the rear and I am very not looking forward to figuring out how to cut the rear end links off of the lower control arms.

A new front LCA came in today for the Volvo, so I guess I'll get that sorted out tomorrow. This car is an absolute nightmare and every time I work on it the garage is filled with screams of "this is not normal" and "if this were any other car I would be done by now!" It took me two days to add transmission fluid. A full Saturday and most of a Sunday just to get the fill plug out. I had to hack up a 24mm socket as well, since Volvo decided to hide the fill plug behind THE FRONT SUBFRAME. Need to add transmission fluid? Engine mounts come off. Charge pipes come off. Raise the engine ~6 inches. I never want to see a Ford-era Volvo ever again. In the procedure for replacing the turbo oil drain gasket the manual says you will need a new headgasket. Yeah. Anything with the turbo at all involves either pulling the head or pulling the entire engine. Or you could pull the transmission and go out through the bottom. If you didn't know better, you'd think this is a bad engine swap from the way that nothing fits and you can't work on anything, but Ford designed this chassis around the Volvo modular engine. But that's enough ranting for now.

 

Steering rack has been installed. It was pretty straightforward except apparently I have forgotten how to adjust toe. It started at 1.0" toe out and at one point was 2.0" toe in, but I eventually got it to 0 toe at the front and I'll leave it there until I can have it done professionally.

The front sway bar is installed, and I never suspected the sway bar brackets would be that awful to install. I ended up threading the top bolt in a few threads, then using a jack and a block of wood to lift the car up by the bracket in order to compress the bushing enough to thread the second bolt. It was unpleasant in all senses of the word and I am very sore today, but it's done. I hope the rear will be a lot simpler, since that and the Volvo LCA are today's to-do list after work.

In unrelated news, I might have drunk impulse-bought a new turbo (sorry @JusMX141 ) and the various crush washers and gaskets were shipped today. This is to pair with my Evo exhaust manifold and O2 housing that arrived last week. And I'm excited for the HTA68, but I'm mostly looking forward to throwing my ebay tubular manifold in the trash and having shiny fresh heatshields again. The turbo/O2 heatshield hasn't shipped yet but everything else is scheduled to arrive Friday so you can guess what I'll be doing.

 

I've been avoiding this for a whole week, but today's the day that I get started on this harness and MS3X install. I guess the first step is to get this tonneau cover out of here...