what are you currently doing to your car?

[longerlegs11]

I drive a 330ci BMW Coupe, quite chuffed as i'm only 22.

1st car - MK 4 Golf GTI
2nd - BMW 320ci
3rd - BMW 330ci
On way for Birthday - M3 Convertible, Yippe!!

[niki22]

I drive a 1997 non-turbo Mitsubishi Eclipse.

Since I have the slow version of the Eclipse, I go for looks and reliability. I'm also on local area auto team so I have many connections.

What I have done so far to the car:

1. Motor rebuilt and polished due to bad piston rings. All rings, seals, gaskets, bearings, and bolts were replaced. Injectors were cleaned, motor was obviously taken apart and cleaned. Cylinder walls were polished....like a brand new motor almost. That was at 100k miles.

2. Cold air intake. So annoying cuz every time a mechanic sees it for inspection or something, they give me a speech about the dangers of cold air intake, as if I didn't know about it. I know more about my car than they do. So I finish their sentence for them.....goes like this....
"ma'am, your air filter is very low, near the ground.....and that is dangerous cuz it has a bigger chance of sucking up something and damaging your engine. If water gets in there, your motor willl...."
ME- .....it will hydrolock. I know, sir, thankyou. But it has been on for two years and done just fine. Plus, that is what the filter is for and that's why I dont drive through flooded areas.

3. Much suspension work. Lowering springs, aftermarket shocks, adjustable camber kit in front & rear, struts bars in front & rear.

4. Sound system: two 10in subs, 4 channel amp, 2 channel amp, 1 farad capacitor, custom sub box with neon light inside that is hooked to switch near my steering wheel.

Upcoming Mods:

1. Tranny mods- transmission oil cooler, shift kit, trans. temp gauge
2. HID headlight conversion
3. My rear brakes are drums. I will upgrade front rotors to bigger size, convert rear drums to rotors, and all new calipers.
4. volt gauge to check sound system and battery performance
5. 2nd set of rims: black or gunmetal with polished lip
6. Paint job: custom pearl white
7. Keep up with maintence: new weather stripping, radiator, etc etc etc.

[Exodus]

Why don't you put the money into it and make it faster? I believe the GS/GS-T had the same engine, except that the GST had the turbo. They sell a lot of turbo kits for that car, you should look into them.

The mods sound cool though. I haven't done anything sound-wise to my car. The CAI is nothing really special. You could put on a short-ram CAI and have 0 danger of sucking in anything, and it'd still put out the same HP gain. Thats why I never really understood the "true" CAI with the filter all the way to the ground.

[niki22]

In the GS and RS models, the engine is the 420a. In some first generation eclipses (i believe '89-94), they have the same motor as the turbo, but not for my body style. 95-99 non turbos had the 420a, and the turbos had the 4g63 motor. Then still, in the 3rd & 4th generations (year 2000 and up), they have different motors yet again....and no more turbo models which sucks.

Putting a turbo kit on mine is not worth the hassle. If I just slap one on, I couldn't run much boost and the performance wouldn't be worth the money. To make it worth it, I'd have to build up the motor internals and I dont feel like dumping money into that.

As far as the CAI, I know it's nothing huge, but it kinda helps with the non turbos. When it's further down, it has a chance to get cooler air, hence "cold air" intake. The turbo cars do not want these types of intakes.....they just need short ram intakes, because thats why they have intercoolers for.

[Exodus]

How isn't the turbo kit worth the hassle or money? For about $2000, you could give your car a 100hp gain right off the bat. Adjust the boost to whatever you want, or just keep it average or whatever and still get the 100 gain.

[niki22]

$2000 for 100hp that's not even all to the wheels is not worth it for me personally. if i'm gonna spend lots of money on the car, it's gonna be on a car with the right powerplant to start with. I could only run about 9 pounds of boost tops by just slapping on a turbo kit with my motor the way it is now. Saying this, i go back again to my statement of starting with the right power plant so that it could handle much more boost. the second generation of non turbo eclipses just doest have the motor for it unless you have LOTS of money to spend. the turbo model's motor is much better.

[levitate]

_ pharmacy - http://www.bestrxpills.com

[niki22]

umm....what??

Anyway, my Eclipse is now a 2-seater. The 2 plexi panels you see light up with a switch I installed. 2 red neons inside the box.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/gallery/data/504/5072EclipseTrunk.jpg

http://www.dsmtuners.com/gallery/data/504/5072EclipseBackSeat.jpg

[Exodus]

See, I don't understand people like that, that take out their back seats for huge speaker boxes. Given, some people love their audio systems, some people love performance, etc. I wouldn't do anything like that. If anything, I'd just get new speakers, and a different radio that sounds good. Huge pounding bass just doesn't do it for me.

[niki22]

Well, I didn't need my backseat anyway. It was too small to comfortably sit anyone.

As for "huge pounding bass", not everyone runs around playing their sound system ignorantly loud.

Some people actually know how to tune it to sound better than you could ever imagine, yet *not* shake other people's windows and mirrors because of it being played at ungodly levels. Too bad you're in IL or I could show you myself.

Don't let the stereotype get you.

[Exodus]

Hmmm, I guess you got a point. I've never really heard anyone tune it to sound really good though. Every person I've seen with a box, just uses it for insane bass. My friend custom built a speaker box in his Tiburon that sounds reallygood, but again, the bass is so loud it hurts my ears being in his car. If I wanted one, I could do it easily. My backseats fold down so I'd have instant access for a box. Like I said though, I'd rather get better speakers, and a better sterio, then go all out and get a box. Save me money too. How much did you box, amps, etc all run you?

[niki22]

Yeah, the first thing I did several years ago was get a better radio. That itself helped the sound quality A LOT. Then a year later, I got all new speakers....Infinity brand.

This past year, I got the 2 amps (one to power all my speakers, and the other to power my subs), and the 2 subs from a friend on my car team all for only $100. He had bought them and just never installed them....and had since decided to go only performance with his car rather than show. So I got a great deal of it because just one of those amps is worth more than 100 bux.

I originally bought just a cheap box and had a store install it all....which was a mistake because they did a terrible job. Then I wanted to go custom so my friend tried to build me a box but it just didn't work out.

So I got a sponsorship with a car audio shop for my team, and as a first transaction, had them do a custom set up in my car. They're the ones that made it a 2-seater and all that you see in those pics I posted before. The only time I play the system loud is when I'm at a show and even then, you can actually hear the song....not just a bunch of bass. =) For all the work (install, custom measurements, etc), and parts (wood, neons, re-wiring of system, etc), it cost me about $400 and so far, has been worth every penny.

I couldn't waste my money in a better way lol.

[Misanthrope]

I'm taking the capacity out from 3.6 litres to 3.8 litres by changing the barrels and pistons, switching to twin plug cylinder heads, going up in compression ratio from 8:1 to 9:1 and scrapping the secondary air injection, remapping using Motec (binning the Bosch Motronic 5.2 system), switching the twin K16 turbos for bigger K24s.
I may switch the catalysts from their current 600 cells per sq inch to 100 cells per sq inch but that would mean that I would also have to scrap the entire OBD emissions system.

This should boost the cars power fromi it's current 430 Bhp to close to 520-550 bhp.
Anyone guess what I drive?

[Exodus]

Well after going through your post, your just describing a lot of engine technical jibberish, and to most people, they won't understand a word of it . . .

Also, your describing an obviously modded engine, so its a tad hard to say what it was stock . . .

[Misanthrope]

Well after going through your post, your just describing a lot of engine technical jibberish, and to most people, they won't understand a word of it . . .

Also, your describing an obviously modded engine, so its a tad hard to say what it was stock . . .

Not modified at the moment actually, twin K16s, 3.6 litres air cooled
408 Bhp and 400 lb ft of torque, Boxer six cylinder.....

It's only jibberish because technical ignorance seems to be a new currency in the Western world!