Street Build Project Precious:My new car/project

[mitsubishikid]

Nice find mitsubishikid! I love the hatchback. We came across a similar vehicle last summer. 56,000 mile, one owner. This one was for the lady to learn to drive a manual. I enjoy driving the car more than she does I think. However, she is now requesting that we swap a 4g63 in it so she can have a toy. I will be following your progress as we start the research process. Keep up the good work!

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I like your 2 door coupe man, it looks rather well taken care of, The very first owner of my car called it precious, I decided to keep it hence the thread name, I already have the 4G63T wire harness figured out, but thats my future plan, I figure the brakes, suspension, and the rest of the car, likely won't handle the extra power right for too long stock, thats why I'm starting with all the parts that I can mod without adding the legendary motor yet, its really hard stopping myself from going turbo motor crazy, but it'll get there eventually.

 

[mitsubishikid]

Got some more rare goodies in the mail, they came from our good friends overseas.

They were the very last set that the wreckers had, they shipped from the U.K , it's all about the James bond effect , they need a little cleaning, but for the most part pretty good shape [First image: my U.S spec ones are pictured on the left second Image: U.S spec on bottom].

I'm still working on prototype mounting brackets for the steering column, but it needs a little more work, more updates soon.

 

[mitsubishikid]

Made some progress on mounting the electrical steering column over the weekend, I made some brackets out of L angle steel stock that I happened to have lying around, pictures tell the tail better .

All these welds are not my final ones, these are for mock up purposes.

I marked where I needed to drill the hole for the long mounting bolt and used my drill press to help make sure it was centered.

Mock mounted in place I took the upper column shaft tube off to modify the Saturns mounting bracket, I might need to custom make some sort of hanger bracket out of steel stock but we'll see.

I carefully removed the upper mounting bracket bolts, springs, and I used the angle grinder on the welds to remove it all... I eventually ended up with the image below [Albeit after some sanding and what not]

I'm now currently working on making the upper bracket, or seeing if I can salvage any of the leftover Saturn metal stock, and make something with it more updates soon.

 

[mitsubishikid]

I also ended up making my stock csm steering wheel center hole bigger to clear the threads on the saturn steering shaft

 

[mitsubishikid]

E-bay seller returned my money for the brand new 1994 Elantra control arms .
My guess is they never even really had the parts to begin with.

Yep, used control arms, off a 1993 Hyundai Elantra ...
Honestly I was trying to avoid having to do this, oh well more work for me I guess, I spent a few hours wrenching, and digging, these out of a nearby wrecking yard.

It seems like age has done the rubber on these no favors, time to remove all the old worn out parts and prepare the control arms for painting or powder coating, one of the bushings needed a 2 jaw puller, and the other I just used a large channel lock and twisted them off.

 

[mitsubishikid]

Today I made some progress on the electric steering mounts, it turns out I had to make a whole new upper column mount out of steel stock, here is some more pictures of the progress.

I recently ported my 1g dsm 14b turbo, and I happened to leave the exhaust inlet ring near my angle grinder, and It is the exact size and shape, that I needed for the column shaft [about 2 inches], I then put it on one of my bench vise jaws, along with some straight steel stock in the other and then I used a propane torch, and I slowly bent the metal into the right shape to make the upper mount.

After much test fitting I marked the Saturn upper steering column shaft and the hanger bracket that I made...

A few tack welds later.

Mocked up with a spare 1g steering wheel that I happened to have laying around looks stealthy .
I still need to make a mount to hold my wiper/turn signal/headlights/horn switches and then I have to wire in the rest of the unit but so far so good .

 

[mitsubishikid]

Update: I pulled off all 4 upper plastic wiper cowl vents from the mirage, I cleaned them up with soap a sponge and some worm water, after letting them dry, then I applied some black plastic spray paint.

I managed to mount some steel brackets to the column for the turn indicator switch and the wiper switch.

looks good but there is bad news... unfortunately the dsm steering wheel will need further modifications to fit on my particular column setup... oh well the csm steering wheel still fits at least for now.

 

[mitsubishikid]

A lot of project updates.

Trimming the steering shaft u joint bolt excess off.

Thats much better, it was contacting my gas pedal.

Installing my E.P.S assist switch, I decided to mount it next to the illumination switch, I like the way it turned out looks vary stealthy.

[Warning: somewhat long story skip to next image if bored easily]
I was all giddy and wanted to test the EPS, but fate had other plans for the project . Oh well I ultimately was planing on tackling what caused the underlaying issue anyway... upon attempting to start mirage to test it all the car would not even rotate, I turn on the head lights, no lights yeah I know what it was, the battery was dead, I pulled the alternator and battery and went to my auto-parts store [the same one where I had bought the battery from... because it was still under warranty]
The alternator tested bad ... so every time I had the car idling it was not charging the car, also had them try to charge my battery, but unfortunately 2 cells in the battery were completely dead, vary likely as a result of the alternator, but thankfully the parts store honored my warranty and exchanged the battery.

Here is my fiendish plan [From right to left 2nd image: 1g dsm 65 amp alternator, mirage stock 75 amp unit, and my awesome 130amp unit I've been holding onto]

I was initially planing on devising a way to mount it on my 1g dsm, and obviously it would need more modifications to work on a dsm motor, but less on a mirage seeing as how the lower 2 legs on the alternator are closer together like on a mirage.

[I hope this will work] I got my hands on a voltage regulator and wire pigtail connector, for a 1985 dodge d150 pickup, made a bracket out of some spare steel stock and tapped it for 6MMx1.00 threaded bolts.

More updates soon.

 

[mitsubishikid]

I mounted the voltage regulator to where my old power steering reservoir used to sit... Yeah I know the wall needs some cleaning, and the bracket needs some paint or powder coating, but I was unsure if this would work at this point.

The stock alternator tensioner bracket was a close fit, but not close enough, so I got creative and used a spare nut from my spare nuts/bolts bin, I also had to get a bunch of belts from the auto-parts store to find a belt that would fit right... I eventually found one.

With everything, wired,mounted,and fused, I tested the whole setup, I got 15 volts at idle not too bad, it looks like the Mitsubishi external regulated alternators can be controlled in this manor, I will update if any issues arise.

I also swapped in a gt gauge cluster w tachometer.

Because the stock key style Ignition switch would be more work to mount in, I decided to convert to push start, so I pulled out the stock cigarette lighter assembly, and I mounted a push start switch in it's place, it fit perfectly, and as you can see I now have a place to mount my voltage gauge
more updates soon.

 

[lasershark]

Looks like you are really giving that car some love! Good work looking good so far!

 

[mitsubishikid]

Thanks, and yeah I hope to get this car ready for my future 4g63t swap, but I want it to be a real sleeper, I can't wait to try out the E.P.S setup

 

[mitsubishikid]

Update: Today I finally decided to install the new exhaust manifold and o2 sensor that I bought a while ago, and afterwards I drove car... With the electric steering installed, to give it a good review I drove the car a few hundred miles to get used to it, I got to say it's really amazing stuff, I can't believe how effective it is, really cool setup I went around some super tight turns in a hilly area, and everything feels a lot more direct, the steering effort is vary responsive, even more so then stock hydraulic setup, with the effort adjustment knob cranked all the way up, I can change the cars direction vary fast without much effort on my part, all things being equal, I feel it's a great improvement over stock, mind you the test drive was with the stock power rack still installed, but I removed the p/s belt, to make it easier to turn, I should have removed the p/s fluid, but I was eager to try the whole setup first.

I still have to drop in the manual rack...but first it needs a rebuild, below is an image of my progress rebuilding it, so far.

For now my plan is to get the manual rack all cleaned up, painted,rebuilt, and ready for the install, but I figured why not kill two talons with one stone ... while the rack is out of the car, I will have better access to the front sway bar, so I'm going to clean the 20mm sway bar, and then get it ready for installation.

More updates to come.

 

[mitsubishikid]

I'm still waiting on some parts to finish rebuilding the steering rack, but in the meantime I decided to go and find some future 4g63t swap goodies at a nearby salvage yard.

I found a Center Crossmember Bar from a 1993 Hyundai Elantra with the Dohc 1.6 motor...speaking of the 1.6 motor...

I got lucky and found a 2.0 dohc, G4CP 1996 Hyundai sonata, valve cover at the same salvage yard, and I stuck it on the 1.6 G4CR [ G4CR is Hyundai's clone of the Mitsubishi 4G61 motor] Elantra cylinder head, because I'm not a big fan of the weaker elantra red and silver version, this cylinder head should give me a small bump in compression, thanks in part to the 43cc combustion chamber volume of the G4CR, I figure it's a little extra free HP for my future build.

More updates to come.

 

[mitsubishikid]

Okay I have put about 3000 miles on the car, and so far no issues with the power steering or the alternator swap, the car passed smog. did a mileage test and the car returned 32mpg hwy not bad, now I can focus on restoring the other used bits I've collected.

More updates soon.

 

[dsmrestorator]

Looks good! It's going to be a mean little sleeper when it's done.

 

[mitsubishikid]

Some more updates on the project...

After getting my manual rack cleaned up, and all the inner grease, and outer components, removed [or masked with tape] I applied 3 coats of rust proof primer then 3 coats of vht black rust proof paint.

I packed the rack with new grease finally got the new inner and outer tie rods installed, along with the new boots all Moog parts I can finally say this rack is rebuilt, but I still have to track down some urethane rack bushing mounts.

During the rack rebuild, I decided to also treat my sway bar to the same 3 coats of primer and paint operation, also the urethane sway bar bushings, that I special ordered, decided to show up, along with the end links from Moog [more pictures of it all in the small boxes below].

Another trip to the wreckers I found some more 92-95 Hyundai Elantra goodies for the 4g63t future swap...yeah yeah they need cleaning .

DOHC 1.6 1995 Hyundai Elantra -manual trans- timing mount [the dusty one pictured above on top] VS DOHC dsm mount [less dusty one pictured bottom] notice the Elantra mount pulls the motor back some.

While I was out there I pulled the manual trans mount off of the Elantra... I noticed the mount was not stepped like the awd dsm trans mount.

Got another set of the Elantra lcas, but this time I also took the lower control arm cross mount as well, not sure if it will work on the precious...Gollum Gollum ... but oh well worth a try.

More updates when I get the chance, till then keep on tunning fellow tuners.

 

[mitsubishikid]

I'll let you all guess whats happening here...

Hint: its not a 4g63t swap.

 

[dsmrestorator]

Coming a long nicely, looks like you've done quite a bit of fabricating, makes it all that much better though.

 

[mitsubishikid]

Coming a long nicely, looks like you've done quite a bit of fabricating, makes it all that much better though.

Thanks man, yep the car is amazing when I get all the old p/s fluid out of the p/s rack, and loop the line, or maybe miata mod the rack, it should be even better then it is now but I have no real complaints.

Well no one could have guessed what happened here, so this is what happened ...
the engine in the image above I got for cheep... "for what?" you may ask... well heres we go again.

I was looking on CL for a set of oz racing rims [in order to swap on the big brakes on project precious]... well I found em... albeit attached to another csm .
The colt runs but the motor has 1 cylinder with low compression, so I pulled one from a local wrecker for a vary reasonable price, and now I have another project car, I might make another thread for this car its the RED ROCKET it already has some mods done to it already, but I intend to clean it up a lil and make it ready as well, at the vary least I have another backup car , and it came with a lot of nice extras... more on that soon.
also the colt is an auto trans might go 4g63t auto here, and manual on my precious gollum gollum .

 

[dsmrestorator]

I always loved the colt but sadly they are very very rare in my area, I may have spotted 2 that I can remember. Now you have 2 money pits.

 

[mitsubishikid]

The real money pit is a the 4G63t motor , now I got to find and build 2 of em, if I left these cars alone they would likely give me 300,000+ miles of use... of course thats not including a timing belt and maintenance, but thats a given on any car from this era.

 

[petegsx]

Put a 4g63 in

 

[mitsubishikid]

Got to love the good old 4g63T swap, it's also a little tricky to do here in California and I'm going to do it legitimately so I don't have to worry every smog every 2 years, I got to make sure all the emissions comes over from a cali spec 4g63t I also am going to do a 4g63t wire tuck too, so I don't have a bunch of useless wires that do nothing, also I want to keep the csm stock a/c, so I got to wire it all in or figure what I'll do with it...basically lots of research reading fabricating and work, but it's not rocket science or anything[its red rocket science ] it's just time consuming plus everything has to be clean the last thing I want is a messy swap.

 

[dsmrestorator]

I have myself an old Ford Focus with the Cali standards emissions, they're a PITA. How's your luck as far as finding those speced parts around you?

 

[mitsubishikid]

I have myself an old Ford Focus with the Cali standards emissions, they're a PITA. How's your luck as far as finding those speced parts around you?

On some days I'm more lucky then I deserve, on other bad days I feel... Well this video describes the 4g63t csm swap obsession best