Project Ebay

[kspharris]

Hey all! First I am sure this has been done but I am doing it again. Also for the haters out there, please please don't waste forum space by posting things like "your car will blow up" etc. With that said I am going to build a car using ONLY eBay parts.

I have a 91 eclipse 2.0l non turbo automatic: I am going to use as much ebay stuff as possible to test and see if it really is crap or not. I am swapping the car to turbo. I currently have purchased from ebay a complete gasket rebuild kit, timing belt, water pump, AFPR, 50 trim, t3/t4 tubular manifold, 35mm external wastegate. I am going to purchase a ebay 255lph fuel pump and a FMIC. The things I can make I will, like IC piping and exhaust etc.. The things that can not come from ebay I will have to purchase elsewhere, like injectors etc... I will take photos of the items and car and progress and post up as it goes along. I will be rebuilding the motor soon and putting in stock 1g turbo pistons and at the time converting it to a turbo. If anyone would like to see a ebay "item" installed and checked out just let me know and I'll see what I can do. Also MODS if this isn't in the correct section please move it. Thanks all and I'll get up some photos as soon as I can.

 

[LandoAWD]

My life is just fine, but thanks for your digression to personal shots since you have no talking points on your asinine topic.

I'm here, posting on topic, about a subject on the forum; same as everyone else. The difference is that I can see the forest for the trees and you're still flummoxed by simple concepts that nearly everyone else gets.

Tell me all about how good your DSMs were; even THAT isn't on YOUR topic.

Nice edit. If you want to keep calling names, make sure you under stand the proper use of "you're" vs "your" in front of the word "ignorant". Keep leaving the door open for us to get a glimpse at real ignorance.

Now, if you can post about the points made, without showing your chapped ass, that would be swell.

 

[99GS_Turbo]

Ladies ladies....calm down and lets just enjoy the day

 

[LandoAWD]

Ladies ladies....calm down and lets just enjoy the day

I find this kid HILARIOUS. This is enjoyable. I'll continue making sure the other side of the discussion is heard, and he can just run around flapping his arms calling me mean.

Edit: Apparently he's my age. Now I'm just sad.

 

[gusu]

I'm actually very interested in seeing how long the thing would run or if it would even start.

The idea reminds me of that show Junkward Wars. Trying to take pieces of junk, throw them together and see if it can accomplish it's goal with out falling apart first.

I'm kind of expecting it to blow up on or shortly after the dyno tbh.




All I really see this thread doing is hurting ebay sellers by showing how unreliable their parts are.

Truthfully, I see a lot of new kids not being able to justify spending a 1/4 or more of their cars value on single parts. However, a lot of us older members find it hard to want to move on and are willing to spend out big bucks to keep our cars competitive

Plus the kids who buy parts off Ebay probably will grow tired of their car in a few years and sell/trade it to someone who actually wants to take car of it and modify it with quality parts.

I've been in love with the Eagle Talon since a guy I knew bought one in the late 90s (It was a used 1gb). When I finally got a chance to get one I couldn't pass it up. I don't put cheap shit on my car because I love it, simple as that.

 

[LandoAWD]

I bet it would start and run. Would it do anything worth mentioning beyond that? Doubtful.

In any case "v1" of the build was abandoned, and based on how long it took to get there, "v2" isn't promising.

 

[LandSpeed-DSM]

I find this kid HILARIOUS. This is enjoyable. I'll continue making sure the other side of the discussion is heard, and he can just run around flapping his arms calling me mean.

Edit: Apparently he's my age. Now I'm just sad.

We are approaching "Dr. Turbo" levels of sad.

Though Aaron's car is actually very nice, to be honest. Teal monstrosity that it is.

 

[LandoAWD]

If his personality matched the level of his ride, he'd not be banned (from almost all forums).

 

[LandSpeed-DSM]

Agreed. I'm hearing he may be more normal in person, internet douchebaggery aside.

 

[chinola69]

If anything dont but knock off ebay parts just to bring jobs back to the states. If you buy quality parts ,vendors aside, you most likely are going to be buying Made in the USA parts.

I am in the custom cabinet business and my bread and butter is kitchens. But god bless to the chinese making kitchens at 1/3 of what I can make them has destroyed my business. I make all my cabinets out of USA/Canadian plywood so again the less kitchens I make the less plywood I buy.

 

[99ECLIPSEGSXDSM]

I don't get this thread. How can anyone give positive feed back on these parts when they are hit and miss? Buying eBay parts and putting them on a Dsm is adding to the dsms are crap and are unreliable but I guess "I'm missing the point" just like land and lando are apparently

 

[LandoAWD]

No wai dawg, I had like eleventy DSMs so my ish is tight. Deez foolz be hatin.

 

[99ECLIPSEGSXDSM]

No wai dawg, I had like eleventy DSMs so my ish is tight. Deez foolz be hatin.

I've had blah blah blah many dsms so I know what I'm doing.

 

[92PandaTalonTSI]

This is how I see this thread for both sides. You "Vendor Supporters" should like the idea of this thread. If you truly believe cheap eBay vendors like Godspeed and CXRacing make crappy parts then let him spend the money (and break like you think they will) to prove that you should only purchase parts through shops like my favorite eXtremePSI. To the one who started the thread. Thank you for starting this thread. I really would like to see how these things turn out. I don't mind purchasing exhausts and radiators through these companies. My exhaust, downpipe, and radiator are through CXRacing. The parts are really nice, but I will upgrade the fans that came with the radiator because they don't have great flow. But I agree with both sides. Thanks for supporting the vendors and thanks for doing this thread. I really hope the results come out great for you to help out people with a little less of a budget. I'm not worried about what people think of our community. The 4G63 is a proven engine and I know that we will never be thrown in with those god awful bagged, rusted, gauge wearing stupid hat VW owners and the hideous civics that drive around. I respect all car communities if they are done the right way. Good luck to both sides builds!

 

[Zack Huffman]

Wasnt sure if it would be cheating since this is supposed to be a eBay china build only.

This sentence says everything I needed to know.

FWIW, it's possible to put together a relatively decent build frugally, without resorting to chinese made knock-offs. Quality used parts, a little knowledge on how to recondition or rebuild them and a little bit of your own sweat to fabricate the other stuff you need will get you a lot further than buying inferior copycat parts.

 

[T is for TURBO]

The idea reminds me of that show Junkward Wars. Trying to take pieces of junk, throw them together and see if it can accomplish it's goal with out falling apart first.

Haha, so true, but ironically, I'd put junk yard parts on my DSM before I put knock off branded shit found on e-bay any day of the week. I could go to a junk yard and find a 20 year old 14b with 100,000 miles on it, and it would likely be more reliable, take more abuse, and last longer than most knock off shit on found on E-bay.

 

[LandoAWD]

I'm not worried about what people think of our community.

You really should be.

We still haven't lived down "crankwalk" after all these years, people are blowing these up left and right, and less and less is being made for our little corner of the world.

 

[Ludachris]

Land, go jump off a cliff. You and everyone else that's complaining about this thread leave please. Your completely missing the point of this build that I might not even be able to do. I've supported the vendors enough and I'm an adult so I can spend my money where I want. You call yourself a moderator, your biased opinion should get you booted from being a mod. Have your opinion, don't you and others come into my thread talking trash. I've spent plenty with the vendors of this site had more dsms than you. I'm sure you'll ban or flag me and that would be the reason this community dwindles. The purpose of this is to see if a full eBay build can survive and for how long....what breaks and why etc. Trying to help our more poor members make better decisions on something they can afford that will keep their car running and that makes better community.

First off, having a biased opinion about buying from vendors who support our community/market, instead of those who copy the parts and undercut the vendors who did all the R&D, has nothing to do with being a moderator - nor should it get any moderators from any site like ours removed from the moderating group because of his opinions. Now, if he were to violate the rules and ignore the spirit of the site (and in turn, the moderating group) with his actions that would be different. Now if the moderator has posted some flame bait and indirect insults, or other things we don't allow from the users, it could be seen as unbecoming of a moderator, and well... our moderating team would go over that privately to make sure we're all on the same page. It can be a little difficult to not lose your cool at times when you've been moderating the same situations for almost a decade.

My only request to the OP would be this - keep in mind that this type of thread (where you're essentially installing and testing knock-off parts to help DSMers learn which parts they can trust, so that they can buy them instead of the authentic parts) will be frowned upon by many because of what it represents. Most all of us have, and still do buy knock off parts on occasion. But promoting the idea of doing so will only hurt the DSM market. If you want to help our poor DSM owners, maybe you could find ways to help them get better paying jobs so they can afford the expensive hobby they've chosen - maybe help them scour Craigslist or Monster instead of eBay. I'd rather have fewer people building DSMs the right way instead of tons of people modding them the wrong way. Educate these young guys on doing things right and not cutting corners. That will be the opinion of many of the DSMers who have been around for a while. That's what I've been trying to promote for years now. It's the best way to ensure our market will be around longer. So again, just keep that in mind. DSMs have always been known as cheap cars to make fast, not because of the wide selection of knock off parts, but because they're a good platform for DIYers to get started with and the authentic aftermarket parts aren't nearly as expensive as other platforms. There isn't much need to resort to knock off parts with as cheap as these cars are to modify. But people do cut a lot of corners with these cars, and that has led to a poor reliability reputation. I can see it getting worse as more people resort to knock off parts.

I think your testing will be flawed because the build quality on the parts you will be testing is inconsistent. So just because it doesn't fail for you right away doesn't mean it won't fail for someone else. How long will you be posting results of things that break? I think it's possible to build a car using knock off parts and have it run fine at lower power levels for a long enough period of time to feel good about the idea. But many people here want to feel confident in their setups, especially when putting down bigger power. Be sure to point out what the potential failures might end up resulting in for each part. This way people know the risks.

In the end, if you really want to document this build, please create a thread in the Build Journals section. That would be the best place to post a thread like this, which someone already mentioned. Debating the worthiness of this thread by you and those with opposing opinions here in this thread is pointless. So, either do it or don't. It's your choice (and no, you won't get banned for it - we didn't get to be the biggest DSM site by banning people for no reason). But there's no reason to keep this thread going just to talk about the idea of doing it.

 

[Ludachris]

This is how I see this thread for both sides. You "Vendor Supporters" should like the idea of this thread. If you truly believe cheap eBay vendors like Godspeed and CXRacing make crappy parts then let him spend the money (and break like you think they will) to prove that you should only purchase parts through shops like my favorite eXtremePSI. To the one who started the thread. Thank you for starting this thread. I really would like to see how these things turn out. I don't mind purchasing exhausts and radiators through these companies. My exhaust, downpipe, and radiator are through CXRacing. The parts are really nice, but I will upgrade the fans that came with the radiator because they don't have great flow. But I agree with both sides. Thanks for supporting the vendors and thanks for doing this thread. I really hope the results come out great for you to help out people with a little less of a budget. I'm not worried about what people think of our community. The 4G63 is a proven engine and I know that we will never be thrown in with those god awful bagged, rusted, gauge wearing stupid hat VW owners and the hideous civics that drive around. I respect all car communities if they are done the right way. Good luck to both sides builds!

It's not so much about the idea of trying to prove that knock off parts aren't reliable, or that people are afraid that they'll be wrong about them breaking. It's the idea that a market can survive when knock off parts begin to take over the market share. If it's determined that a knock off part is just as good, great. But is that really a good thing? You must realize that the manufacturer of the part that was copied will likely stop producing parts for our cars that can be copied, knowing that our market isn't a good investment of their time. Which means eventually we'll have fewer parts available for companies like Godspeed and CX Racing to copy. Then what?

I personally don't care if those parts are found to be reliable. It doesn't change anything. If there was no R&D invested in the building of the product because the design was copied, chances are good that buying it will hurt our market. That is what you have to understand. It's the cutting corners and "save a buck at every opportunity" that I think will kill our market eventually, as well as other car markets. Markets like the Mustang and the Evo can withstand the knock off parts influx, but smaller markets like ours will see a more severe impact. I believe that if our platform is to remain relevant we need to attract and promote more innovation. Be frugal by doing things yourself and save money on labor instead of saving money by purchasing knock off parts. That's what these cars are all about.