hey, whats up guys. as you can tell, i'm new to the forum.
anyways i own a 97 eclipse GS.
i have been doing a lot of reading about mods and turbos, basiclly studying the stuff to get my knowledge up.
my plan was to add a turbo to my GS, but now i don't know what to do.
my question is would it be smarter to get a turbo kit, or should i just get a GST engine swap.
i read some other post about adding a turbo, but it looked like there had to be a lot of work done before adding a turbo.
if you guys could give me some opinons it would be great. thanks

 

Hey man, first off welcome to MF... one thing you'll learn on here is that if ya do a quick search, you'll be able to find just about any question that you can think of that's already been answered... but basically im gonna give ya the quick lowdown... if you were dead set on picking one of the two choices, i would go with adding a turbo kit to your car, although you are not going to see MAJOR hp gains from it, the 420a motor (which is what you have in there now) is not a very strong motor... the gst motor is the 4G63, which is based on the opposite side of the engine bay, in order to do this swap you would have to fabricate all mounts, swap tranny, blah blah blah ya know? it's a great deal of work that is just not worth the money... in fact with the money you'd spend swapping out the motor you could in fact buy a good condition gsx and it'd be one heck of a lot easier... so hope that helped! and remember, do a search for all your questions first, it'll be a lot faster for ya to find your answers

once again welcome!

 

thanks a lot sk8. that really helped me out.

 

Welcome to MF man!

The problem you face with the 420A (the engine in your car) is that in order to make decent power with it, you're going to be spending roughly 3-4grand to have it done right.
By the time you've done all that, you're stuck in a spot where you could have bought a GST or X for alot cheaper than the sum of the price of the car and mods.
You cant swap a 4g63 (the turbo motor) into a GS b/c the frames and mounts are different. Well... you can... with HEAVY fabrication.
Now, the 420A can make around 200-210whp, which is not bad,with some bolt ons, but thats about it.
Mine makes 128 at the wheels with just an AEM intake.
You figure if you do an intake, full exhaust from headers back, do some internal work (cams, cam gears, pistons, etc.), a wideband o2, better clutch and lighter stronger flywheel, and theres a few other nit picky things that can be done.
But even with all that, you'd still spend about $1,500 if you get the right, good quality parts.

With an RS/GS, your best bet is to just make it look good, b/c its sooo easy with these cars.

 

so... should i just forget about the GS and save up for a GST.
i mean i love my GS, but i really don't want something that is all show and no go

 

Welcome to MF!
That would probably be your best bet man. I mean I love my RS and I'll probably never sell her but reality set in and I'm buyin a Talon TSI AWD now. You just can't make any real power numbers with the 420A. Not in a reasonable budgetanyway. But if you're dead set on keeping your GS then Hahn Racecraft is the place to go. They have a couple options as far as turbo kit setups and hp numbers but it gets really expensive really fast. I think they quoted me 6700 for parts alone to make 350 at the wheels on pump gas. Then there's the labor so all in all maybe 9000. It's just not worth it when you look at it. Hope this helped.
By the way asking about the engine swap is a really touchy subject in here.

 

wow i didnt know the numbers were that high. i guess i'm going to have to upgrade to the GST.
the only problem with that is that they are really hard to find in good condition. also almost every GST i see for sale are already modded.
thanks a lot for the help guys, i'm glad i came here before dropping loads of money for nothing

 

Get a GSX if you can. Everything else i would have said has been said already. Remember... FWD sucks

 

lol. FWD is alright, but like the GST, the GSX are all modded.
its very rare to find them bone stock, and most of the time if they are stock they are getting ready to **** the bed.
if anyone knows anybody that lives in or near MASS and is trying to sell their GST or GSX tell me.
i'm defintly trying to upgrade.

 

Well you are driving a 100hp car.... and thats ok for FWD... once you start modding... it becomes a problem. With just basic mods on a GST you will find it very hard to get traction