Mitsubishi 'Itsabitshiti' Eclipse

[patman]

patman submitted a new DSM Profile :

Mitsubishi 'Itsabitshiti' Eclipse


Read more about this vehicle here...

 

[patman]

So I have started this build Sunday by pulling some parts out, just to see it clear what I will have to do, well I will have to do a lot I have gathered many parts to support the T25 turbo ( I know it's a small turbo, but I'm running N/A pistons, I don't wanna blow up anything). I'm planning on ending up with minor updated GST in the end, but it's gonna be a long road. The parts list I'm going to fit over time:

- T25 (OEM, freshly rebuilt)
- Stock GST exhaust housing (OEM)
- Dejon intake pipe (special thanks to pboglio for the part )
- Big air filter (sadly in blue color, wanted red, I misclicked )
- Custom FMIC setup (would be happier with stock intercooler, but it is much harder to find, then putting an aftermarket IC on)
- Forge style Epman BOV
- Depo racing mechanical boost gauge
- OMP racing wheel (not shown in picture)
- Walbro 190 LPh Fuel pump
- Ebay open dump O2 housing
- Custom 2,5' downpipe (again stock would be good to, but I'll build my own)
- OEM GST ECU
- OEM black top GST injectors (450 cc, with resistor pack of course)
- DSMperformance short shifter (with custom shift knob, and shifter cable stiffeners)
- Outlander Front brake upgrade ( huge thanks to Kryndon with the help with the parts )

Well I tried to go for performance on a budget, still have many unsolved problems, but well at least I hope I won't need any more parts, I ran out of money for a while now My biggest problem at the moment I can't figure out how the Intercooler and the pipes will fit, guess I will have to build a custom bracket for it.

 

[patman]

Progress update: Turbo is on!
I stripped down the exhaust manifold, cleaned the side of of engine a bit, and now the turbo is on the car! Its only temporary, I'll have to pull it off again if I find a way to do the oil and water lines, I have nothing to start with, but I'll constuct something part by part. I sold my FMIC, and managed to get my hands on a stock one ( thanks to Kryndon), It's much easier to work with had to remove tue windshield washer water tank, but I'm only driving this car in good weather anyways so I'll manage to live without it. I also had to buy a Gs-t throttle body, the OEM N/A TB can't connect with the intercooler piping.
All in all, I took the car apart even more, found more problems but I'm slowly ticking those boxes to get a fully functional turbo car

 

[patman]

Oh, and I found out one weird thing: my OEM thorttle body has three nipples on top P, E and A. Well the Gs-t one I got had only one: in P. I found out that the E comes from teh EGR which I wanted to block anyways, but I can only hope A is not something important, then I'll have to put a nipple in it

 

[patman]

Haven't posted in a while, but I've been working on the car. So much It's almost ready to go now
I had to make some custom parts, welded the piping, and my downpipe is welded together from pieces of an A45 AMG also, the turbo oil and water lines were tricky, the oil return line will be put together from pieces, and the feed line is Mambatek. Other parts are mostly OEM Gst parts, that's the best for the T25, I don't want to push that small turbo too much. Putting the Gst injectors were funny too, I had to cut the harness and solder the resistor pack to each of the injectors, but as I finished I covered everything up, so it looks like factory work.

At the same time, I upgraded the brake system too with the most bargain upgrade I could think of, changing for Outlander brakes, after a week of grinding and cleaning, and after two layers of paint it looks pretty nice, and it cost like 150dollars so I am satistfied with that 100% would recommend, it fits perfectly.

All in all, not much work left, need to put together the vacuum lines, some parts I still need to connect, figure out how am I going to wash my whinshields, plug in the Gst Ecu and the new fuelpump, and in theory I'm good to go, hopefuly next week I can even go for a testdrive

 

[patman]

MAJOR UPDATE: started up today, many problems occured.
Yesterday I finished off with putting the turbo oil return line together, and putting the exhaust downpipe on, finishing with the vacuum lines, and some small bits that remained. Today I started her up, I knew I will have issues, because at the moment I stayed with the N/A ECU (the GST ecu doesn't send signal to the fuel pump, I'll look after it). So the old ecu and the old N/A fuel pump was still in, but the engine started. It was smoking like hell and ran very rich but that got better after some minutes. I started giving it some revs, and it had no problems with it, Sometimes I had no idle, but I think it is somehow because of the ECU.
So I was stupid enough to go for a test drive, now this is where things started going weird. The car was okay till around the 3000rpm range. When I had the change a hit the boost to about 11psi, it had waay too lean (what I did excpect from the old fuel pump), but the oil pressure started to go away, and after a time it made weird noises, the idling dissapeard and it died on me all the time. Then the car made small black smoke puffs, so I went home as fast as I could, it took me like 2 minutes so I don't think I haven't done any big damage to the engine.
I'm okay with the fuel mixture problems, the ECU and the Fuel pump will sort those out, but I don't yet know what to do with the Oil pressure being low, the only thing I can think of is that I changed the Oil pressure switch too, to a new one and it opens at 0,3bar (~4,3psi) and I don't know what the factory figure is.
Well that's some progress I made, next weekend I'll try putting in the Gst Ecu and the fuel pump, and see If anything changes. Anyway, here are some pictures I made before driving, So you can see my neat oil return line, and the engine bay

 

[patman]

IT IS DONE
Long time not posting, but now, after I'm done with the ECU and the Fuel Pump, the car is stable around any RPMs. So I guess I can say It's a working car now
I did an Engine flush just in case, now I'm constantly checking the screws if any loosens, or if anything leaks, but no problems yet (after 30 miles). First bigger trip will be next Sunday, around 300 miles, but I'm confident, these are mostly factory parts, so nothing can possibly go wrong.
I was thinking about posting some pictures, but no new parts were added to the engine bay so it'll stay visually the same now.

 

[DSM_15_2G]

Greetings from Serbia,

I am also in the process of swapping the GS to GST just like you did here.. I have acquired all the parts and after I rebuild the GST throttle body I will start the swap

How's the car behaving now? I am going to use 95 gsx eprom ECU with 2.7 from turbo to back custom exhaust with also an intake like yours, but the IC is stock side mount.. I am also replacing Intake Manifold gasket (maintenance, no boost leaks hehe)

I already have a GST transmission on my car installed, and It was a good upgrade, worth the money

Any difficulties, any advices?

Good luck on your future works!

 

[patman]

Hi, I've heard about you Always happy to see a fellow DSMer from Europe!

Transmission change will comes handy, now I'm having issues with the clucth, it just slips all the time. but other than that the car is mechanically good, runs very stable, so I can say I'm done with the engine.

There are many small things I didn't think I'll need like the fuel pressure regulator, or boost control solenoid, so make sure to think through your vacuum lines, and fuel line, that's where you will need to change the most parts (apart from the turbo ). Wiring the injectors in are tricky but I followed a guide I found here for the spyder, and it actually worked. The ECU is not plug and play either, you'll need to swap PIN 8 and PIN 22 (not like in the spyder guide, ours is much easier). You'll also need to change the fuel pump, but that will be simple. on the exhaust side, we have the O2 sensor right before the Catalysator, I kept it there, and put a blank screw on the turbo outlet, it works, but the check engine light is constatly on now (it has many reasons to be on, anyways ). One more thing you'll need to do, is drill a few holes in the engine, sadly. the vacuum line for the turbo comes off at the left side bump of the intake manifold (which is blank for us). You'll need to drill a hole in there and connect the bov there, and you can connect the boost pressure meter there too. Maybe it's visible in some of my pictures.

That's all I could gather right now, have fun with the build, and good luck If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I have tons of pics. Oh, and here is that injecto wiring guide I was talking about:
https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/turbo-ecu-in-a-spyder-gs.424084/

 

[DSM_15_2G]

That is awesome!

I have a FPR, but I will not be running the solenoid, I'll just connect the wastegate so it runs at stock psi all the time (or Manual Boost Controller). As far as the Resistor Box for the injectors, I saw the wiring diagram and I'm familiar with the process. The ECU has 4 connectors and since my car is 99' year facelift it also has 4 connectors, so I think It should be plug and play.

I will be moving the front o2 into the o2 housing as stock goes, because I will be running a custom 2.7 exhaust (downpipe too).. As far as the vacuum line, since I am taking the Intake Mani off, I will have the vacuum nipple installed for the BOV line... Should be fun haha

I am mostly worried about the oil pan to be honest haha

Get at me on Facebook if you can, and send me some photos! Appreciate it a ton man!

 

[patman]

The wastegate pressure is 0,6 bar, I'm running a Manual boost controller too, at 0,8bar thats about the maximum you will want from a T25 it's a small turbo. My ecu had 4 connectors too (mine was S/N MD334797) they just swapped the signal for the A/C pump and the Fuel pump for some reason on the turbo, so you wont get you ecu to give signal to the fuel pump if you just change the plugs. But the best to do is to try it (that can't hurt) and if it doesn't work you can still swap those cables .

Yes you will need to drill the oil pan too, thats three holes you need to make. but you can see on my pic it sounds scarier than it is, and I know you have an OEM oil return line, so it should look even more aesthetic than mine just make sure you do that around the end of the build, when most of the parts are up, so you can measure it precisely where it will connect to the oil pan.

I'll contact you on Facebook it's much easier for me to stay in touch too.

 

[DSM_15_2G]

You are right, I had no clue about these pins see

From what I saw on youtube, changing pins should be fairly easy, unclip it and clip it somewhere else (in this case 8 and 22).. Damn Mitsubishi!

As far as the oil pan, I do have oem GST oil pan with the holes, mine right now leaks and is bent (drove like a relly car on the bumpy road )

So all I need to do really is do a good rtv seal on it, I even ordered new OEM gaskets for the return line

I tried to rebuild the turbo TB today but couldn't get those 2 shaft screws out and stripped them, so I'm trying to drill them out, if not I'll leave it as is for the time being

Found your request on FB, nice to meet you and hopefully we can help each other

 

[patman]

So I've been driving the car around for like 400 miles now, and all the parts are working great, only one issue came up.. the oem clutch can't handle the increased power, so it slips if I hit full throttle (and when shifting ofc), now I always have to carefully accelerate, which for me, is taking half the fun away
So I'm looking around for clutch and flywheel around Europe, I'm thinking a good oem Gs-t one would be direct bolt-on, and it could handle the performance, as it was designed for the turbo model.
But no other issues, so I'm happy with my working Gs-t car It just attracts more work, but hey, It's that is what this site is all about

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

I have no idea who ships to Europe, but SouthBend is a great company for performance clutches and kits.

 

[patman]

Thanks for the tip, I'll look them up, but my main problem is even if they do shipping, It will double the price (Hungarian customs suck ), so I'll keep on looking after European vendors

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

https://www.clutch-shop.eu/clutch-k...bishi/eclipse-gsx/1998/2-0l-l4-1997cc-122-cid

These are expensive, but probably what you need.

 

[patman]

Wow, thanks for the help they really have some good parts for me, It's a bit expensive, I asked around some European DSMers too, we'll see how this works out

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Good luck! I like your car too

 

[patman]

Long time no writing, but I've done some work on the car in the last 4 months Now that the turbo convert is done, I'm starting to focus on the smaller frustrating little things.

First I changed the clutch, the stock N/A one always slipped. Well it's not a minor thing I know, so that was the first thing I've done with the car. I bought a stock exedy GST clutch (that was the easiest to get), and hoped the stock gst can hold up the increased torque. I also wanted a lightweight flywheel but that remains for later, I couldn't find any for a reasonable price. After I changed the clutch, I didn't give it stress, but now I'm around 1000 miles in with this clutch and I can confirm, It doesn't slip.

Next up was the steering wheel: I got a used Evo 8 wheel, and tried to hook it up. There are many guides of how to use a 1G hub to convert the Evo wheel for the 2g, but all of these cars are so rare this part of Europe that was no big help. I had an older racing wheel on my car when I bought it, so I used the hub from that. It needed a little cutting, and some new screws but that's all. I wanted to hook up the airbag too, but the connectors are very different, and I also read that It might not be the best idea, so I ditched the idea, and put a resistor in the circuit, so the computer is happy. I was also unable to hook up the horn, so now it's hooked up to a button. All in all, it looks very good, and makes a huge differnece in drive feel, so I'm happy with the convert, I'm not going to change it back

Next up, I repainted the valve cover. I searched for a new one for so long, but I just couldn't find a pristine one for the right price. Mine is cracked, but it's not big It was also glued together, I reinforced that. Than painted the cover. I bought VHT wrinkle plus, added a layer a prime, then painted it with the wrinkle paint, it looks really good, It just needs a longer time to dry, but I was not in a hurry because my exhaust was taken to parts, I was removing the cat too at the same time. So when I had the exhaust welded I put the whole thing together and it look much better now. Removing the cat didn't make much difference in the feel or the sound though, but now it's not in the way. Now the only parts I don't like it the dirty water reservior, and the exhaust manifold. I'm gonna cover the manifold with a shield, clean the reservior, and see how it looks. It's starting to look like a tidy engine bay with the colors in harmony.

Then I went to dyno test car, now I knew it was mechanically good. They measured 193 whp and 214ft-lb (290Nm), which is not bad after all, considering the size of the T25, and all the other upgrades. My future plans are an electronic boost controller, and some more cosmetic upgrades, At the moment I don't want to increase the power. This amount spins the front wheels, and does the torque steering thing, so it's enough. Maybe with better tyres, suspension, LSD and stuff I could be better, but it would sacrifice conmfort.

So at the moment, no big plans, I might just use the car for the next some months, do some really minor things.

 

[Kryndon]

Awesome progress Pat! I think you can officially change your DSM profile to show "1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS-T"

I'm guessing the power figures are the @wheels reading? If so, those look absolutely awesome for the stock setup. Roughly if we factor the ~15% drivetrain power loss that would put you around the 225 crank power!

Again, it looks really well put together. Shows how much effort and thought you've put into it. A little suggestion I want to add, something to consider, is maybe trying to get rid of some silicone couplers if you can. I think you can get away with welding the upper intercooler pipe as one whole piece!

 

[patman]

Thanks for the reply, I really appriciate it I updated the DSM profile, although I would call it Gsi-T but that wasn't an option

Yes it was measured at the wheels, at ~0.8 bar boost pressure, maybe it could get better with ECMLink, but you know hard is it to get, and to find someone to tune it.

As for the couplers, I like the way it looks, It made it through inspections too. I saw the way you did it, maybe I'll do it later too, at the moment I like this blue theme.

 

[patman]

I was a bit busy since I made my last update, but I always planned to update my build thread. Since my workplace has kind of a winter pause, now I have the time to update.

A lot has happened with the car since 2019. I had to rebuild the engine (twice), changed the suspension, restored the chassis, done a new layer of paint, and put on some new parts too, so there is a lot to cover

I'm trying to move in periodic order so the first thing I will start is Winter 2019.

Since the turbo convert was done I was happy with the results, and I started driving the car more often. I had no issues, so I used it until winter, then I put it away in my garage. I had some small things planned for 2019-2020, but boy I was wrong (but more on that later). So I took the interior apart, and started figuring out all the excess wiring the previous owners left behind, it was a mess...

This is how the interior looked when I took it apart

Sadly I have no pictures of the wiring when it was finished, but I figured everything out. The wires came some kind of a removed sound system, a not working car alarm (with a not working central lock), and some type of cheap anti-lag system. It seems like the previous owners have been busy trying to install these, but they just ripped them out when selling the car, and I got left with the wires. So I cleaned them out, I even found the box for the car alarm, but I didn't even tried to hook it up, I just removed everything I don't need.

By the time the headliner also started to hang, so I took it to a shop and had it refurbished. I also found some rust spots inside so I treated them, while acknowleging that I will need to restore the chassis. But I was still in University so I didn't really have the money for that, so I planned to do it next year. After everything was done, I cleaned everything throughoutly, put everything together and called it a day. Oh, and I also installed a side mounted license plate for better airflow, and (mostly) for the looks, I think it looks cool

So this is how I started 2020. I took the car out in March and started to drive it on the weekends, and car meets. It all went well until April when shit hit the fan on the highway. One of the spark plugs melted, and the whole engine had to be taken apart. Turns out the BPR6es was a bit too hot for the setup. Next time I will do more research. You can see on the pictures where the pieces found their way out.

Luckily the cylinder wall and the pistons were in good shape, so I could keep those. But since I was there, I took out the rod bearings too, they needed a change. Interestingly the wear was not the same on the bearings #4 piston was the worst and it was gradually better from there. I went with new king racing bearings.I also changed the gaskets all around. I replaced all the exhaust valves for new OEM ones, and also installed a AEM wideband O2 to see if there is anything wrong with my afr. Later it turned out, my afr was all over the place too, but for other reasons(It was the ECU). Oh, and I changed the spark plugs for a range cooler BPR7ES of course.

All in all, I could say I was lucky it could have been much worse, and since I had the catalytic converter removed, the melted parts came out easily.

The engine rebuild took around a month, the car was running by May. In the first kilmoteres it gave me a hearth attack by running only 2 cylinders, but it was just a PTU unit issue. I changed that, and it was good again. That was when I started taking afr seriously, so I got an Eprom ecu started logging it with DSMlink, and found a friend who can tune it, by burning the chip. (ECM link is way too expensive here in Europe, and I still didn't have money, as I was a uni student going through an engine rebuild.). But I finally got everything together again, and now with the custom ECU the engine was running great again by the time of July 2020, so I still had some time left of the summer.

So that was it for 2019-2020. Since the rebuild the engine was better and better (Until the head gasket got burned through, but that's a story for later). So I took the car for longer roadtrips (constatly taking the spark plugs out to check them, while tracking the afr too), everything was good. I took it to some more meets, made some new friends and put the car away for winter, to restore the chassis and have a repaint.

So This is how 2020 ended, hope it was an interesting read, I will come back with 2021 next week, it was an eventful year too

 

[patman]

Big update #2 - 2021-2022

As I promised I am writing another bigger update. Now about 2021-2022, in the end I hope I can reach where I am now, so there will be smaller updates after this

So, I left off at the end of 2020 when I started the chassis restoration project.I was holding this job back, because the side skirts were permanently glued and painted with car. I knew if I wanted to work on the sills, I will have to cut them, but I just didn't know how they will go back after. I took a deep breath and started cutting eventually, and turns out the sills were way worse then I thought. After I took heaps of foam sealent off, I could clearly see the holes that were as big as my hand. You can see on the pictures that both sides were crap, so it clearly had to be taken to the shop.

I dropped the car off and the workshop, and in 3 weeks it came back looking good as new (or even better with all the rustproofing added), I got the whole underside treated as well. Now, for the sideskirts, I made an overlap with some leftover aluminum I had, and used rivets to hold eveything together. After the rivets, I tried to flatten them with an angle grinder as much as I could, and glued the whole thing together with windscreen sealant to top it off. It actually came out very nice and sturdy, but I was worried how it will look after everything is done.

Then came the painting. I have a lot to thank for the paintshop, they spent a month on covering up the marks I left, I also gave them a similalry repaired rear bumper, and a new, still bare front bumper to work with. After all the work they have done, and painting the car with the same color, I was so pleased with the results. They made such an amazing job, I couldn't even tell where the cutting or the rivets are.

In the meantime I spotted an amazing deal for a set of good condition 350z rays wheels (I got all 4 for 300 $). I always thought the bronze rims looked good on this green car, so I chose a goldish bronze color and had them painted too. As my car was alredy in the paint shop, they might as well have my wheels too The tyres were trash, so I bought a new set of Michelin Pilot Sports.

When all the parts came back and I had time to put everything together it was already early april, but boy It looked good. This restoration project came out so well, and in the end I can say it was worth it, the car now looks brand new, and I don't have to worry about the rust anymore.

So here I was in 2021 april, I was looking forward to an exciting summer. I did my first ~300 km trip, and on the way back home, I lost 2 cylinders while cruising on the highway, When I was so close to having a careless year After inspecting it, I realized the headgasket burned through. The EDM N/A 4g63 pistons have a 10.1:1 Compression ratio which was a bit too much for the gaskets. I could have played a bit more with the timing, but the 13 psi boost was too much too. So I started asking around, and the most obvious thing was changing the pistons. I had a lot of options in my mind, but the easiest and cheapest way for me was to go for the EVO 9 ones, I could reach 8.5 CR with them. So I got a set of those, new rings, I found a place that makes custom steel head gaskets (ordering a cometic gasket would be way more expensive), and I ordered a set of new oem bolts too. Nothing else had to be replaced, everything else was almost brand new after last years rebuild I attached some reference pictures about the differences between the DSM and the EVO 9 pistons. The EVO pistons are plug & play, the biggest difference is the EVO 9 heads are shorter, hence the smaller CR. One picture is tricky, the diameter is the same of course, the picture turned out really bad. The old pistons used to sit flush with the block, the EVO 9 has a ~1,1 mm clearance, but I was happy with that, as my goal is to lower the CR. After putting everything together I remapped the ECU to a near stock GS-T map. And went out for a test run (again ), but now it went well, so I was confident that nothing can go wrong (again).

I finished by June, and it all went great from here. I was brave enough to go out for some meets and have some roadtrips again. On my first meet I was suprised to see a very similar but OEM 2g. I parked next to it, so I could look for the differences and see how far I've come. I think the picutres tell it all, of course it's a matter of taste, but this was one of the first moments I felt proudness.

The summer went on without any issues, and since I had the car in the best condition now, I thought I might as well have a photoshoot, by a local graffiti wall I always liked

I also organized two Eclipse meets (the first ones in Hungary since '14!) I was suprised of the high attendance, we had over 10 cars in both meets, with some later eclipses too. I saw some absolute beasts, with AWD and Holset turbos and completely custom engines. Turns out they were here all the time, but our roads just didn't cross.

For the 2021 winter project I changed to TEIN coilovers. It was an easy job compared to the previous years, but I didn't want to touch the engine this winter, it always blew up after that

Now it's starting to get a but boring. 2022 was great with no issues. This is the first year when everything is good, I went to a lot of meets and trips, but I decided not to put any photos here, there is already a lot of pictures in this post.

This winter (2022 winter) my plan is a small ducktail spoiler, and to change the plastic pieces in the boot, so nothing big again, In the meantime I'm keeping an eye out for a great deal on a 16G turbo or something similar, but I am not rushing it, I am still happy with the power, and how the car feels. (Although I might need a new Dyno run after all the work I have done since '19)

As for the future, I am planning to take the car to a small local racetrack to see how it drives on track. If I need to, I will upgrade the cooling system, and get myself some racing seats. But after these changes I cannot think of much more to do, but time will tell This car is never fully done

 

[Kryndon]

Awesome progress! Mine has the exact same rust and amount in those spots but I have been delaying it for 2 years now. I don't trust any shops to fix it properly and I can't weld myself... It's interesting that your headgasket failed like that. I don't think the 10:1 CR pistons was the only culprit. But yes, 13 psi with no real way to monitor knock and AFRs would have played a part. Still, better to burn a HG than melt valves or pistons. I ran mine with those same pistons for 2 years on the T25 without breaking a sweat, they looked great when I pulled them.

Good luck finding a true 16G. When you do, post up your T25 setup for sale here, there's guys always looking for bolt-on upgrades around my parts.

 

[patman]

Thank you! Yes, an ECMlink would be really helpful, but it impossible to find here, and getting one from the US would cost a fortune. Same goes with the 16G but I'm good with this setup now, I'm just keeping an open eye.

I think the car is reliable now with the stock GST mapping, My friend added a new feature to the ECU, now the Check engine light flashes when it notices a knock. It does flash sometimes, but it's very rare, so I was comforable with it this year, but I will have it fine tuned next year.

P.s: I don't know why it dumps some full sized pictures on the end of my post, but I just can't get rid of them, so I'll have to live wih it