Still trying to see whether the 420a motor is worth building?

[MyProject2G]

I just bought my 96 Eclipse RS with the 420a (5 Speed) but i keep reading on this forum and people are making it sound like the 420a is hard to get power out of unless you boost it. What are some other options? Could an Srt-4 motor fit and bolt up to the stock transmission. What are some options.. i would like to build my motor but im worried it will be a waste of money?? let me know thanks

 

[96 420a-t]

Yes its hard to get good power.

No it doesnt bolt up. You can do a cloud car 2.4 swap then build that.

A built 420 is more than capable of creating plenty of traction issues.

 

[Turbotsiawd]

Not that some people dont care but for me
My biggest problom with the 420a is the lack of AWD capabilities.
My advice is to keep that car stock and buy a turbo edition because with all
The money your going to have in a turbo kit and the engine
Management you could have just bought the turbo...just my .2
Cents there are ways to build up the 420a but it takes a little
More money.

 

[SoCalK61000]

I'm building a low boost 420A right now and so far so good, should have the car up and running within a week. BUT! Like was alrwady said the lack of awd capeability SUCKS!

Its a decent engine tho when you use the right parts the rods are trash that's for sure

 

[NWHTanK]

I have a build thread. In thier suspoedly some one posted a srt swap while using the 420a trans.

 

[MyProject2G]

Yeah but i dont have 5k to drop on a gst or gsx. When you say cloud car.. i read little bit about it. What kind of engines will fit ?. I just got my car but i just wanted to get atleast 175hp out of it. I have also read if you really wanted to you can make an RS a GSX with major modification. Its possible

A GST is basically a GSX without the AWD... right? I spent all the money i had to get this car and i only wanted to build one right and make it fast and make it turn but it sounds like my engine is sh!t unless you have $$$$

 

[necrotopsy]

a cloud car is a car like a Cirus (cirus is a type of cloud ) they had a 2.4L I4 engine.
you take the block of the 2.4L, put the head of the 420a on it, and out the 420a 5 speed to it.

you can build the 2.4L block with srt-4 internals (pistons etc.)

 

[MyProject2G]

this will fit in my car?? WTF

I been on this forum for the last 3 days trying to learn as much as i can .. im kinda burnt out. Why couldnt i just find a crashed srt4 and grab the engine??

 

[SoCalK61000]

I looked into the cloud car swap and seams like quite a bit of work and you have to modify the oil pan and the oil pan you use depends on the pump you use and the good pump is the srt4 one but its a couple hundred bucks then to make the hp you want you stil gotta build the bottem ond up, the only good thing is that you can use srt internals so they help keep the cost down but it will still turn out to be more $$ then a forged intrenal 420A

 

[MyProject2G]

yeah just for some reason people are making it sound like the 420a is sh!t and costs $$ to get power

 

[NWHTanK]

<==== avatar srt 2G

 

[MyProject2G]

<==== avatar srt 2G

????

could you post a link on your srt build?? i saw the pics looks nice

 

[jcart953]

it sounds like my engine is sh!t unless you have $$$$

welcome to my world but at least people make products for your car

 

[Turbotsiawd]

I'm really sorry to say this but you have to pay to play. Maby mommy and daddy will give you a loan? My buddy's mom did

 

[jrohner]

I just bought my 96 Eclipse RS with the 420a (5 Speed) but i keep reading on this forum and people are making it sound like the 420a is hard to get power out of unless you boost it. What are some other options? Could an Srt-4 motor fit and bolt up to the stock transmission. What are some options.. i would like to build my motor but im worried it will be a waste of money?? let me know thanks

It's a 2.0L 4 cylinder, obviously it's not going to be too wicked without boost.

 

[MyProject2G]

@turbo tsi dont be a d!ick man im just trying to learn. its bad enough this forum barely says anything about the 420a or what kind of builds people have done. im saying for starts i was hoping to get maybe a 50hp increase off of simple bolt ons. i dont need 300 or 400hp right now plus with fwd its pretty stupid without an lsd. hp isnt everything but im trying to see what my options are for a build

^

not everyone is lucky enough to get a gsx or gst but it would be nice to build a car that would kill it

 

[Airsign89]

No your engine isn't shit, its just that chrysler and mitsubishi had a deal where there would be so many parts they would share in the "cousin" cars(IE talon/eclipse, 3000gt/stealth etc), meaning that chrysler would provide x amount of parts and mitsubishi x amount. This resulted in the then new neon engine, the 420a you speak of, to be used in a mitsubishi product, while the venerable 4g63 was used in a chrysler product. What I am getting at is that the 420a is a decent motor in a 2300lb(neon) car but when saddled with nearly 500lbs(eclipse) more, it feels a bit more sluggish. If you have an automatic in either car, stock, it will feel downright slow. In the lightweight, with a higher(numerically speaking) final drive, neon acr, a few mods like a CAI, header, muffler(the stock exhaust is mandrel bent), underdrive pulley and afx ecu, the car is actually pretty quick. My opinion of course.

 

[synthetek]

this forum barely says anything about the 420a or what kind of builds people have done.

This forum focuses more on the 4g63, you should check out 2gnt they have much more info on the 420a there. You are not going gain 50HP from bolts on a a 420a.

 

[MyProject2G]

Yeah i have a (96 RS 5 Speed) i love the style of my 2G. Right now im looking for a slight but noticeable hp and tq increase!!? I like for my car to be able to turn and im sure i can make my car lighter. I dont need 300 or 400 whp right now but eventally it would be a cool project to smoke a 4g63 and put him/her in their place

 

[Airsign89]

Yeah i have a (96 RS 5 Speed) i love the style of my 2G. Right now im looking for a slight but noticeable hp and tq increase!!? I like for my car to be able to turn and im sure i can make my car lighter. I dont need 300 or 400 whp right now but eventally it would be a cool project to smoke a 4g63 and put him/her in their place

A slight and noticeable upgrade would be to check that all maintenance is done, if so, an intake, exhaust, header, underdrive pulley and howell automotive afx ecu would wake the car up a bit.

 

[MyProject2G]

Ok yeah and also i have been seeing that people are using jeep throttle bodies on their intake manifolds. Basically the first mod im going to do is probably a CAI.. probably ebay piping with a nice aem or k&n filter. I wonder if the ebay piping has the water bipass system since i do not want to lock up my engine

 

[Airsign89]

As far as throttle bodies go and I am not sure this is applicable to the opposite facing eclipse motor, the 1g neon automatic throttle bodies are a few mm's bigger and with a tiny bit of boring can be a cheap and easy upgrade.

 

[MyProject2G]

thats true so if i can find one at a junkyard will it bolt right on?? i understand you said it is slightly larger but if i bore it.. wont it make it even larger?? are you saying bore your intake manifold?

 

[Airsign89]

Well the thing is, your throttle plate cannot be made to be any bigger unless you replace it and even though there will still be a bottle neck, the throttle plate, people see a little more throttle response by boring the front and back of a TB. And yes you will want to match, or port your intake manifold to match the larger TB, easiest way I would think is to gasket match it. And if the ATX throttle body is indeed an easy switch, then yes you can just pick it up at the junkyard. Check out Neons.org and Dodge/Plymouth Neon performance upgrades. They are both for the neon, which has the engine completely opposite, exhaust manifold on back intake manifold on front but you can get an idea of how people make power with the 420a. good luck.

 

[gusu]

Yeah i have a (96 RS 5 Speed) i love the style of my 2G. Right now im looking for a slight but noticeable hp and tq increase!!? I like for my car to be able to turn and im sure i can make my car lighter. I dont need 300 or 400 whp right now but eventally it would be a cool project to smoke a 4g63 and put him/her in their place

Put them in their place? You realize that if they put the same amount of time and money into their car they would have accomplished a hell of a lot more since parts are no where near as rare and things require a hell of a lot less fabrication.

Putting a SRT4 motor in isn't as straight forward as they make it sound. For one the motor is too tall and sticks through your roof.

You WILL NOT see 50hp from bolt ons on a 420a. Not to burst your bubble but read how low the guy who set the record for a NA 420a is. I don't remember the exact number but he made around 250hp with thousands of dollars, he did literally almost everything you can do to make huge numbers and spent a lot of time fine tuning his set up to accomplish the same effect you would see if you went from a T-25 to a 14b turbo on a 2g DSM.

If you got a exhaust, intake, header, high flow cat back or no cat back, underdrive pulley (which a lot of people have problems killing alternators from spinning it too fast), and tuning (which will be your biggest gain most likely) you might see a difference around 25-30hp.

Let's do the math.

Ebay intake, 25 dollars lets say.
Ebay headers lets just say 100 because that's typically the price for a good set
Exhaust, we will go with a cheap one so we will say 350 ("good" ones are around 500-650 depending on brand)
From what I have seen megasquirt costs about 500 or so with everything.
The cheapest underdrive pulley I could find was 65, although brand names were more around the 200-250 dollar range.

So the total comes to about 1050 dollars for no real noticeable gain. With cheap no name ebay parts and a tuning solution.

Oh, that price does not include the price to tune your car if you don't know how of course.

Now, if you wanted to go turbo you'd see a big difference BUT. If you want to make real power you'd need to get new internals as 8-12 PSI is all people can typically get away with.

The reason why so many people say "sell it and buy a turbo DSM" is because the majority have been there and done that and all feel as though they had wasted the money.

But, if you want to do it go ahead. Just realize you will NOT make anywhere near the same power level for the same amount of money as you would if you had stuck with a already turboed DSM.