Hello Everyone,

I traded a sportbike for this Eclipse with the intention of letting the boy drive it to and from school and work when it gets cold outside- he's 18, driving a scooter right now. I was expecting an Eclipse RS or GS though, not a GS-T. I'm thinking it's not such a great idea now...

It's got 120K miles, engine looked clean with no visable leaks, seemed like it ran and drove alright and the timing belt looked good. That's about all I can tell. It's obviously had more done to it and I'm hoping you guys can help me out and provide some info by looking at the pics.

I'm reading everything I can here to learn more, but it can get a little overwhelming. So while I continue to read on, I'd welcome anything you can tell me about it.

This is pretty much a whole new world to me, as I'm used to driving and working on american V8's.















The Boost gauge on the pillar reads 12 vac while idling...
The Oil Pressure gauge above it doesn't work & needs replaced,
what would be a benifical gauge to put in the third spot?


Also, I got an E test on it today- it failed, badly:

HC Reading 5.4774 ~ Limit 1.2000 FAIL
CO Reading 147.1079 ~ Limit 15.0000 FAIL
CO2 Reading 161.0602
NOx Reading 0.1978 ~ Limit 1.5000 PASS


Anything you could tell me about it would be much appreciated!!

Thanks for your help!!

 

im not surprised it failed considered what is into it. It probably doesnt even have a CAT on the car with that exhaust. From the pics this is what i am getting from it but its hard to say without actually going through it what is actually done.

- AEM Fuel Rail (which means prob. upgraded injectors as well)
- Exhaust (obviously)
- Greddy type blow off valve (the purple thing on the left in the engine bay)
- the turbo looks slightly larger than stock (could be a 16g)
- Adjustable cam gears (may indicate upgraded cams)
- oil catch can (on the back left of the engine bay)

Some of my concerns would be that i dont see any way to control or monitor air/fuel ratio with these mods (especially upgraded turbo and fuel) Also i cant see the boost controller unless its in that metal bracket below the CD Player. But its hard to tell. But there are some mods into this thing that IMO i would say are too much for a younger first time driver. But for someone with some expierence its fine. I would say correctly tuned this car would probably run anywhere from 250-300 whp. But again its really hard to say without seeing all of the mods in person such as the electrical components and some other internal stuff.

Let me know if you have any other questions. There is alot of info out there on these cars as they are extremely common. Oh another thing, i would make sure you get a cover on that timing belt.

 

Thank you very much! Exactly the kind of information I'm seeking...

I'm feeling the same way about handing this over to a young driver- it's pretty much decided that we need to explore other options for getting him around. But I am planning on keeping this car for now, as a spare Why not, right?


I did see a cat underneath, but only noticed it and havn't really looked at it closely- it could be hollow for all I know. When you say "monitor air/fuel ratio" this means a gauge, yes? Sounds like an appropriate gauge to put in that empty pod then? There is nothing in the metal bracket under the CD player- and honestly, I don't even know what a boost controller looks like or how it operates... yet

Sounds like it's quite a ways away from passing emissions by getting a new air filter or O2 sensor then, eh? Haha- I'm just trying to figure out where to start...

A couple of things I forgot to add: Something was mentioned about an aftermarket fuel pump installed on it, and there's a MSD box on the passenger side floor.


The Boost gauge wasn't working originally either. When I got it home I found a four-way tee under the hood that had a couple inches of just open ended hose on it. I plugged it and the gauge worked after that.
From reading other threads, idling with vacuum @ 12 sounds a little low, I think..? I don't know, I got a lot of information to get acquainted with.

I'll start with learning more about everything you just listed for me, picking up a service manual from somewhere, find a cover for the timing belt and seeing what can be done about emissions- I need plates at some point, right! And of course, any suggestions are welcome-

If interested in pictures of something or other information I've not mentioned I'd be more than happy to do what I can to provide it. Damn, I'm wishing you were right down the street now... Heh

Thanks again for your help!! Very Nice

 

yea i mean a guage as far as A/F ratio which would be a wideband 02 guage. My vacuum used to run around 18mmhg with my car but yours may vary. As long as it sounds ok it should be fine. Is there any lopy sound at idle like agressive cams would make? With that MSD and these mods i would be really surprised if there is no tune in this car as far as an aftermarket management system or is the ECU itself has been modified. My guess is that since i dont see any modulator in the cockpit then its probably either been socketed for a laptop with a cable hanging from the ecu somewhere (look around at it under the pass. glove compartment, or they sent the ecu out to be re-programmed. But i just dont see this car running on these mods without that having been done. The one part that is confusing me (it may be part of the MSD) is that box on the firewall top just to the right of the battery. Its tough to see in the pic exactly what it is.

But like i said with these mods it could really vary as far as HP output right now. This is something fairly common however (these mods). Alot of people go this route with these cars doing the basic "bolt-on" type mods.

As far as the emmissions, its really hard to say exactly what is giving the problems. With these mods sometimes its even difficult to get it to pass simply because of the extra fuel, ect.

 

I didn't get much time with it today, but here's what I found..

Another MSD box under the passenger carpet




I could'nt find anything that looked like a plug-in for a laptop except this, but I'm pretty sure thats for the code reader/scan tool..


Here's a shot of the box above right of the battery, with the top off


There's a gauge at the lower rear passenger side, (kinda below that box)
Oil Pressure? It barely moves at all though...



Also found this guy just dangling, not connected to anything.



As far as for what the cams sound like, um, I don't know really. I don't have anything to compare to how it should sound normally.....

Thanks for your help!!

 

K, so that little gauge is Fuel Pressure, not oil - LoL

It reads 40psi without car running, and around 50psi when running.

I picked up a Chilton manual, not my favorite but it's enough to begin getting familar with this engine I suppose.

The person I got this car from didn't seem to know much about it. I think he was just some kind of speed seeker, someone just wanting to go fast. And decided he wanted a fast bike now, so offered to trade me for it.

There's a lot of odd wiring in this car. Is it possible someone took something out, a controller or module or something out of this car before it ended up in the hands of the person who traded me for it? Just speculating...

 

well to me that guage pod spot missing would indicate that someone took an A/F gauge out. And i would guess that someone probably had something like and SAFC in this car and removed that as well. I would check the wiring harness to the ECU for signs of splicing.

 

Definietly.
It makes sense the more I think about it and explains everything.
Somebody tuned it so it runs nice, then pulled out what they could and sold the car.



The latest...

Has the ECU been spliced you ask? Yes sir. Has it ever! Quite a lot too. Man, EVERYTHING has been spliced in this car- Seriously, there's so much oddball wiring in it, seemingly everywhere... it's crazy. And it's difficult to tell what the hell is going where and to what.

Found two battery cable that end under the back seat. The red one grounds right there and the blue one runs to the + battery post. An amp I guess?



Found this connector under the passenger carpet. It runs along the side and into the back past the rear seat. I didn't follow it further because the hatchback is jammed closed. The white wire ended at the passenger side read window though, so I'm thinking it alarm related..



Could you tell me what is supposed to be here?


I thought it was the EVAP canister maybe? The evap emissions purge soleniod is missing too, or it's been relocated. I was going to remove the battery to get a better look because there's other stuff under there I'd like to check out as well, but I'm worried about doing that and maybe clearing/losing the profile or settings or whatever it's currently running on. Could that happen? It runs fine right now, but I'm starting to think twice about keeping it because - in order to tune this and keep it running properly, it sounds like I'm going to have to drop quite a bit of cash into it. I'd really like to get it right, paint it black and keep it as an extra car. I don't know if it's worth it though, havn't decided yet.

Would you mind giving me your opinion of what I should be able to get for this car, if I decided to sell it as it is right now? 3K? 4K?

Or around how much it would cost to get whats needed to tune/maintain it? With limited knowledge I'm estimating around $600? $800?


Thanks for your help!!

 

****- I just got back from getting temporary tags and now it's trying to stall when coming to a stop /drop under 1000 rpms. Sometimes it'll stall and sometimes it'll almost stall then catch itself and not.

I'm going to hook up the oil pressure gauge since everything else is kinda pissing me off, haha. The more I learn about, the more I'm getting frustrated. And I'm afraid to mess with anything at this point...

It's a mechnical gauge, which seems kinda dumb to have in the pillar but whatever... Is this a sending unit where the nylon or copper tube connects to? [below the blue part]


Sorry for all the pictures and questions, and thanks for putting up with me.
And as always...

Thanks for your help!!

 

k, so that was kinda lame- there's plenty of threads about oil pressure gauge install. And yeah, I tapped it at the blue fitting. Also found out how to correctly run the hoses for the oil catch can.

The mystery plug-in/connetor still escapes me though. So does whatever-it-was that was mounted to the firewall.

What I'm still really needing to know and searching is:
Do I need to install a SAFC to tune/maintain this car? I need it to pass emissions. I don't want to just throw money at it to replace the air filter, pvc, O2 sensors, plugs and cat, and just cross my fingers and hope that it passes. My insurance expires about the same time as the temporary tags, so I figure I got that long to figure out what I'm going to do with this car. I like it and it's a blast to drive, but if it can't pass emissions than it's really no use to me. And I'm still afraid to mess with anything in fear of jacking something up and not being able to get it back.

I'm planning to install the wideband O2 sensor/gauge, that sounds necessary. Without getting outrageously expensive [DSMlink] what is a must have in regards to being able to properly tune and drive this car - boost controller/safc/turbo timer/datalogger ?

Also, I found a peculiar hole cut into the plastic trim that surrounds the fuel & trunk release levers. It's about an inch x inch square hole, that obviously had something there at some point. Any guesses?

The CEL isn't operational- I should have access to an OBDII code reader by this weekend, so maybe that'll tell me something, anything. Gonna compression test it too, just to see where we're sitting at

Peace!!