Project: my 99 GSX I got for $700

[foxracing4500]

alright where to start because as of writing I have had this car for 8 months, so from the begining, I saw an ad on craigslist for a 99 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX. I wanted a car that was already AWD and turbo and the guy was asking what was in my price range at the time $2500 but I talked him down to $2300. I started talking to the guy through some emails and I saw his signature and realized "Hey I know this guy from highschool!!". It was January and just snowed 6 inches when I saw the car, I did my usual checklist,

The bad,
front bumper, primmer black
driverside fender - primmer
windshield - stretch crack on passenger side
J-pipe leaking a little oil
trunk.....rusted in fact it still had water until I took her home.
knock off RFL bov
alot of vibrations in the engine bay

during a test drive I noticed under boost it had a train whistle sound which I found out was a massive dent in the stock SMIC.

The good,
155k miles
brakes and pads new
new coolant sensor
new o2 sensor
new tps sensor
regular oil changes every 3k
there was a K&N oil filter so I guess they would use good oil also.


---------------------conclusion----------------------

yes I bought the car !!!!!!! So wait why does my title say "my 99 GSX I got for $700??????. Heres the thing, we had conflicting work scedules so we couldnt go to the notory in town but he knew a guy that would do it on the weekend. I followed him down there and we both pulled in, we saw the garage door open and a big black SUV starts backing up. Just......it DIDNT STOP! and hit my friends car/my car. I said whatever lets just do the title transfer and let the insurance company take care of it.....and they did . I got a $1,600 check from state farm for a dented fender and my passenger side door being pushed in a little. So simple math,

oringal car price = $2300
check from state Farm = $1600
= $700 car for me

if you read all that thank you now on with the pics,

can you belive after 155k they kept this engine mostly stock

when I drove it home first thing I did was empty the water that was sitting in the trunk, sanded the hell out of it til I reached metal and primmered it.

remember I said it had a train whistle sound under boost? here is the dented SMIC that they ran,

my first real upgrade, bought from another DSM'er here!

and this is why I needed new struts,

again,

and I think we have a problem,

unfortunately the seller sold me a strut that was bad/no compression, I later fixed this. He was nice and transferred me $75 for a new one, great guy!

-------soo lets skip around abit I met this site learned from the best and took care of all my maintenance....I mean all of it!! but then I saw something I couldn't pass...and I had money, but my supporting mods wernt done so it had to wait.
I bought this setup for $300, no lie!

Also wanna note that working with turbocharged cars inst new to me, I also have a 99 Audi a4 1.8t but its a pain in the ass to work on, just chipping the ECU cost $450 and where I am at now, I am already flashing my ECU and spent little under $125 to do so, but I will get to that later.
I gotta stop here I gotta go to work soon but I have plenty more to come.

************updated********************
found some time over the weekend to add to this, I like pictures better then words so here they are,

one of the first mods I did relocate my battery to the trunk, yes it still have the bov but I wasn't driving her.

bought, not shown in the photo I ended up porting the o2 housing and hotside.

goodbye small t28,

something I forgot about after installing the big 16g...heatsoak. Went and bought a VRSF FMIC, then i later forgot I needed a greddy BOV.

 

[Archer Fabrications]

With the VP? good deal man, sucks it got banged up the first day you had it. Is the turbo at least real MHI?

 

[foxracing4500]

With the VP? good deal man, sucks it got banged up the first day you had it. Is the turbo at least real MHI?

yup the turbo is legit, i later found out it was only a big 16g, should have gotten a evo 3 16g, owell.

 

[foxracing4500]

update more pics,

$1,600 of damage according to state farm, why not.

$25 fender from junkyard, already looks a little better, I later fixed the lower side skirt

pretty much what she looks like now except I was going through a color phase during this photo but all vacuum lines have been replaced with black silicone.

so thats about where I am at now, I got all my supporting mods done, got my gauges and I am tuning with ceddy mods/ecuflash/evoscan..

I really saw no point in dsmlink besides the direct memory access. With my 16g upgrade and keeping boost low I was pretty much stock anyways but if I can help the community with Ecuflash or evoscan questions I will. Took me an hour to flash my ecu with ceddy mods, do 3 WOT logs, dialed timing back where needed, flashed and did 3 more WOT runs. With link I could have shortened that but owell.

no knock on 93 octane @12psi. waiting on some FIC injectors and I will be set to raise the boost, cant wait

 

[1995gstdsm]

good deal man, congrats on how u aquired that deal haha. Is that a FP manifold?

 

[foxracing4500]

good deal man, congrats on how u aquired that deal haha. Is that a FP manifold?

no its a HAFE manifold, I see few people running these though, i think its great for o2 dumping.

 

[ed1380]

Good deal keep working on it and trust no one

 

[foxracing4500]

small update, I spontaneously bought a MAFT off a member through the classifieds but he sent me a 3.5 GM Maf, went to the junkyard ended up snagging 3, ordered some couplers and damnit.... I got Mishimoto 2.5 to 3". Sucks because I spent about $30 including shipping, bought another no name set, this time 2.5 to 3.25. Contacted VRSF about the TB elbow incase I switch to Speed Density, even on the weekend I got a response in 12 hours . Also found a non cruise cable at the junkyard and got bored and made a coolant tank out of an energy can.

now please dont hate and say YOU SHOULD HAVE WENT WITH SD. well yes I still might, I tried selling the MAFT with all 3 3" gm mafs and no one wanted it, but it does make a great failsafe in the meantime if I ever blow a coupler off. I live in the country and to get anywhere you gotta travel far and I hate lugging tools around like I use to.


so here is it,

also random but I been thinking about getting this tattoo'd, total badass!

 

[ZombieSix]

damn i wish i could pick a dsm up for 600. Keep us updated lookin forward to hearing about this build