Street Build Munky's Street/Track GVR-4

[MunkyV]

Hey Everyone!!


My name is Miguel, I lost my Miata after building for a year and it being only registered 27 days. Shit sucks but life moves one and this found me. I am now the proud owner of a 1991 Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 badge number 520/2000. The car in its current state is completely bone stock with the exception of a newer radio. A/C is frosty and windows all operate under their own power. The car right now is a hair over 174k. I have put around 500 miles on it so far and have enjoyed every minute. I am not unfamiliar to these cars as i used to own 1027/2000 but she is long gone and I have no record of what happened to her, but that is for another day.


I am the third owner of this car. First being a military guy and second being a Mitsubishi Part Manager. Long story short behind the car is that the original owner had the car for a while until one day the timing belt came off after come maintenance in traffic and caused alot of money worth of damage. Car sat for a little but was later sold to owner two. From then he decided to repair everything with OEM parts for the water pump, timing belt, and different amounts of head work and refreshing. The head was installed using only OE parts and fired right up after all the damaged was assessed, sorted, and repaired. Thus brings the car into my ownership.


I have not done much to the car other than enjoy it. I just put in a nice order with David from HeelToeAuto and sometime soon we should get some surprises for #520.




Here are some pictures of my gal:






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[MunkyV]

I have played with many evo 8 and 9's. Have three under my belt that have made over 700hp each. I am new to the "DSM" world. Its different. Trying to distinguish what 1G parts are interchangable and will fit the GVR4. Looking up standalone options, we are kind of left behind. Thankfully ECMLink is still around but for some reason, I am very unsatisfied with how their OS is. Yes, they work. However, something inside has been telling me to stay away because they seem so outdated. EPROM chipping works but I am back to feeling like a honda. If I were to do it right, I would only want full standalone. This is where I have been leaning towards MegaSquirt.

I will be giving Josh (JNZtuning) a call soon to place an order as well for some parts that need some replacing. I am also just trying to find out what is left for us. Downpipes or exhaust are nonexistent. As well as some little things here and there.

Curious to learn as much as I can again and hopefully shoot for some serious power down the line.

Goals are to add some coilovers, run some corn and a upgrade to the turbo and manifold. I will enjoy this car alot I can already for see. I am not interested in the JDM game for this car and honestly it take away from the Nostalgic look of the 90's. So only thing left to upgrade is drivetrain. My goals are to make atleast 400wtq which shouldnt be bad. It is just a matter of me ever wanting to stop driving it so I can drop it off at the shop to have the exhaust and downpipe made.

 

[MunkyV]

Was out driving for dinner with my girlfriend and on the way home, we cross over a set of rail road tracks and the car jumps around as it goes over the rails and I suddenly notice a loss of power. I'm not building boost and my car dies. No power, no lights, hell couldn't even use my hazards. Pushed to the side of the road, took a look at things, everything was fine. Fuses good, no pinched or chewed wires. I do not know. I call a buddy and get a ride to the local auto parts store. I praying I can at least just the battery for a long time and get it home 2 miles away. The battery was 0% charged but was still good. This leads me to think about the alternator. So plan now is to pull it off and take it to get tested to see if I need a new one or need to make some coffee to figure out these gremlins.

 

[MunkyV]

So to follow up with the incident. Turns out the alternator took a crap on me and stopped charging my battery. So simple fix was to replace the alternator right?

WRONG!

turns out you have to disassemble the entire front driver side of the bay. The power steering pump, reservoir, lines, upper IC pipe, SOMETIMES THE OIL FILTER(if you don't have the right tool handy), some belts and then finally the damn alternator!

Not bad though honestly. It was my first time. I was *****ing.

-So here's some extra info. Manual cars run 75W alternators and automatic cars run 90W alternators. Well there was a TSB that stated if the cars would suddenly shut off or run rough and it was alternator related, it would be okay to upgrade to a 90W. Well me being that I'll be putting in a bunch of electronics soon, I went with a factory Bosch AL4008X 90W Alternator. Was much less than $150 dollars.



All in all, took me about 4 hours of learning the car and also cleaning it up as I went along wiping the frame rails and inside where PS pump was leaking over the years.

I've put around 600 miles on it and I've loved every bit. Time to hook up my Evo 8 factory gauges so I can watch my boost, voltages and oil temp.

All smiles here.