I must say that it is pretty ugly. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love my 97 Eclipse RS but I just looked at a pic of a turbo 420 and it's really not that exciting to look at.

The 420 engine bay is just ugly. Makes me want to just drop in a 4G63 in my RS but then I think "why not just buy a GSX"
Yeah right. That cost money. A good bit of it too. I would have to sell my RS that is not in the best shape just to fund the engine and everything else that goes into the swap and that money will be no where close to what I need to buy a GSX.

What do you think I could pick up a good GSX for these days?
Haha I have no idea what I should do!!!

Oh let em tell you about mmy situation then maybe you guys could offer a few tips.

I bought a 1997 RS about a year ago. Sparked my craze for eclipse. Bad thing is that it is an automatic. So I bought a manual RS (same year) with a dead engine so that I could either fix the engine or swap in my running engine from my automatic into the manual. (I would kill for a manual at this point!) Turns out the engine is to far gone and a swap is the next option.

So here is my delema. I realized that it's really not worth trying to tune anything that not turbo. At least that's what I feel at this point. So I guess I need advice.
Keep working on my first love or try to get a GSX or a GS-T?
Sorry this is so long and thanks in advance for any criticism or advice.

 

Get a GSX : )

 

Well if your engine is bad you can upgrade the internals on that engine, upgrade fuel, exhaust, and drop on a 16g turbo and be running decent boost with it. I mean since your engine is already gonna have to be rebuilt. Or buy a gst, but a 4g63 swap is definetly not the answer.

So its either boost 420a or buy gst. your choice

 

Don't boost the damn 420a. Get a GST/GSX

 

I searched some turbo 420a's on google images last night and there are some good looking ones out there. I might want to turbo it. Only of course after I build the engine. I will probably do a few bolt-on stuff like intake exhaust and headers. Not expecting to see crazy HP gains. Just to make it a more reliable daily driver.

Sebba, why not turbo it?

 

Why not turbo it? Because you need to spend about $5,000 just to get to the power of a stock GST/GSX. Not to mention it has much less potential. If you want more power than a GST/GSX, then you need to spend another 5k on engine internals.

Screw that.

 

You make a good point. I'm probably better off just saving my money for a GSX. I still want to get my RS looking nice as possible. That way my daily driver will be amazing! At least it will look amazing.

 

If you want it to look amazing, then invest in a rotary buffer, and many different pads. Google search and learn how to effectively do it without damaging the paint, and start!

 

In case you haven't noticed, Sebba hates 420a's.

Theirs not much you can do performance wise. Just an intake and exhaust for the most part. But if your paint is in good condition, you can cut into your clear coat with some 1000 grit paper, you can get it looking like glass......BUT!! before you attempt anything, research and understand fully what you are doing because you can mess up your paint and it wont look so pretty.

 

I have a 420a myself, auto as well, and is a good car to learn how to restore paint, interiors and stuff, it is not more than a really good looking daily driver. Really good for taking girls out on the weekend, but if you're looking into performance get a gst/gsx, the 420a can only do so much under boost before boom.