92’ Eclipse, any other dsm guys on here?

[Spleen]

Since I’m getting ready to make a thread dedicated to the Ranger’s updates I figured I’d share what’s eaten up the majority of my funds for over 10 years now. I got it as a bone stock non turbo Eclipse GS in September of 2013 and it’s been through multiple phases since including a repaint with some minor rust repair, now sports a 92’-94’ Talon front bumper, and painted in the way the Plymouth Laser’s were. Last time it was on the dyno it made 454 at the wheels on 93 octane pump gas on a Borg Warner s363sxe turbo with every intention to crank it to about 600 on e85 on the 130k mile stock non turbo 4g63 bottom end, but the oil filter backing off mid pull with my buddy’s wife’s 3v 4.6 on Cosby juice cut that short and I’ve been deciding what direction to go with it since. When this was once a very cheap platform to make power with parts have dried up, working all wheel drive transmissions are bringing $1k by themselves now (mines front wheel drive but for sake of example) and many parts have become discontinued and out of stock, far cry from the common Ford stuff I mess with. The non turbo pistons lived about 20k miles and multiple seasons over 400 at the wheels through various set ups all for a stupid K&N oil filter to kill it (always used oem Denso or Wix and the one time I didn’t it bit me in the ass) but the 130k mile pistons out of it still look great even for 130k and multiple seasons throwing boost at it and beating the living bajesus out of it. Being some parts are getting insanely expensive and hard to get im highly considering dumbing it way down to a simple “bolt on” turbo set up like I’ve used in the past or even going back to na and driving it and enjoying it. I’ve got a 91’ Talon here that has a very strong running 4g63 but has rusted beyond saving, I’ll be using that engine and saving the old one for a rainy day. As of right now with the Ranger going under the knife I’ve got time to decide what I’m going to do with it and will post updates here as well.

 

[cbxer55]

How did a K & N oil filter kill it. I use them on all three of my motorcycles. I like them because of the 11/16 nut on the end, makes installing and removing them a breeze.

I has a 92 Eclipse non turbo back in those days. Also had a 3000GT VR4, twin turbo. A friend of mine still has a VR4.

 

[Spleen]

How did a K & N oil filter kill it. I use them on all three of my motorcycles. I like them because of the 11/16 nut on the end, makes installing and removing them a breeze.

I has a 92 Eclipse non turbo back in those days. Also had a 3000GT VR4, twin turbo. A friend of mine still has a VR4.

Look up “K&N oil filter backing off”. Not saying this happens to everyone, but after it happened to me I found a handful of guys in the modular Ford world ran into this as well as others. I don’t blame the filter per se and I know it was tight, but I’m saying it was just karma for not sticking with what I always do. Typically I buy OEM Denso filters in bulk Mitsubishi packaging on eBay or buy them Denso labeled from Rockauto at 2 bucks and some change or grab a Wix from Oreillys or a Napa Gold (relabeled Wix) but I was all out and didn’t want to wait and Oreillys and Napa didn’t have any stock so I tried the K&N as the shop that tunes my car uses them on everything. Really the engine didn’t owe me anything at that point and anything could’ve killed it, but I’m a creature of habit and will always tell myself that’s what I get for breaking the routine!

 

[Blmpkn]

Everyone I know who's had a (turbo) DSM graduated with high-honors from headgasket academy lol.

Ironically.. they all bought subarus when they gave up on the DSMs

I do very much like the styling of the first gen cars though. I've always wanted to paint one up to look like a big wedge of cheese.

 

[Spleen]

Everyone I know who's had a (turbo) DSM graduated with high-honors from headgasket academy lol.

Ironically.. they all bought subarus when they gave up on the DSMs

I do very much like the styling of the first gen cars though. I've always wanted to paint one up to look like a big wedge of cheese.

Man that takes me back! We killed a good handful of head gaskets in the younger days but I’ve never lost one. Now that I’m older and wiser I realize when we were kids it was from cranking the boost up with no way to monitor what the hell we were doing just being dumb kids lol. I’ve actually never lost a head gasket on this one and I swear by the Felpro composite job from the parts house, but in my older more knowledgeable days even when I didn’t have ECMlink I was monitoring for knock on the data logger and keeping an eye on the wideband gauge. That’s not to defend the platform, before this one me and my buddies killed a good handful of them, but it takes me back to when these were cheap throw away fun cars. My buddy Erik currently holds the record for ET and mph for the stock bottom end 4g63 with an 8.90 at 151mph, he has lifted the head a time or two from tuning errors that were his fault but runs nothing but the Felpro composite gasket and standard ARP studs just like myself.

 

[Spleen]

Dug back for a few more photos since you guys got me started down memory lane!

 

[Ramcharger90]

I thought about doing a swap with a 4g63 in the ranger The only Trans I could find that would bolt up was from a D50 or mighty max. That would break so fast. Wonder if anyone made an adapter yet for rear wheel drive?

 

[Spleen]

There’s a guy out of Sylvania Ohio offering adapter kits, Bill Hincher at https://www.billsautofab.com/ if I recall his kits are to adapt th350’s to the 4g63 but he might offer others as well. I know there’s a handful of swapped D50/Mighty Max’s out there and they use a transmission from those trucks but I do not believe every year works as I believe the earlier trucks had what we refer to as a “wide block” sohc 4g64 and the later trucks had a “narrow block” sohc 4g64 and the trans designed for those will mate to the 4g63 out of a dsm as they’re the narrow block, but like you said I can’t attest for the reliability of them as I have no hands on with them but I do know that’s what they were using. A few years ago when I was still on Facebook there was someone who 4g63 swapped a 93-97 Ranger, had video of it idling and said all that was left was to have a driveshaft cut to size then never seen any more of it. A buddy of mine also swapped a built 4g64 bottom end with a dohc 4g63 head into an fc rx7 many moons ago (2008ish) and was good for 10s, pretty sure he used the d50/Mighty Max trans and just swapped them whenever he grenaded one, but again this was 16-17 years ago when they were still plentiful and cheap!

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I had a '90 Laser RS Turbo. It was a 5 speed, really fun car.



Got it my senior year of high school sold it after college in 2005 to get my first F-150.

 

[Spleen]

Love the Lasers, the 1ga like you had was always so much cleaner and simpler looking to me than the other turbo 1g’s. I would’ve loved to do a full 1gb Laser conversion on my car but couldn’t find a front bumper cover worth working with, let alone the rear, the tail lights, and the extra body work to fill the wholes from the wing and side skirts! Resulted in a unique look for mine however, and I do have the Plymouth horn pad and door sills!

 

[Spleen]

And please don’t mind my fart cannon! It did have a bumper exit coming off the turbo and out of the side but I didn’t want to cut another bumper cover when I had it painted and while the bumper exit surprisingly wasn’t too loud and sounded good there was annoying things about it (imagine a pipe that shoots e85 fumes right into your driver side window while it’s down as you come to an intersection). This Chinese special “CX Racing” exhaust was all that was available for the 1g fwd and one of the very last one of those, we used it more so as a template as we lobbed most of the flanges off and v banded it there and made some slight changes to make it fit better and not rattle and bang against the trunk pan like they all do, but the fart cannon style muffler from 2006 (while my inner 17 year old self digs it, 34 year old me does not) kinda just sits there obnoxiously and makes for the raspiest sounding turbo car when I’m all the way into it (sounds great cruising and idling though). I’m thinking I need to change to a Dynomax muffler to try to get it to sound like the old Buschur exhaust’s. Buschur Racing is only 20 minutes down the road from me and still has the jigs but I can’t justify paying $800 for an exhaust when this stainless 3” pipe will do the same thing as any other 3” stainless pipe.

 

[maddyn]

Used to have a '91 Talon N/A, was a fun car, put a lot of cross country miles on it. Best time had to be the one time I was heading cross country and ran into a BMW on I-90 West through Idaho, was the quickest I made it across Idaho

 

[sgtsandman]

The filter could be an engine thing. Meaning certain engines vibrate the filter loose over time. I have that issue with the 2011 and it's 4 0 SOHC engine. I have to really snug the filter down to make sure it doesn't work loose. No one else on here seems to have a similar issue or won't admit it. It also doesn't matter the brand of filter. They've all backed off on me if I don't put some extra grunt into tightening them down.