Wood's my last name, cause I know someone was wondering.

I have been a Prelude guy for the past about 3-4 years now. I'm about to turn 19 and I will be leaving in Sept. to go to BCT and AIT. When I get back around March of 08, I'm looking to purchase my very own first car.
I've been doing the wrench work on my brothers Prelude and driving + building it for the last couple years now while he's overseas in the war. I've also been helping various friends build their Prelude's since I was 16. But for my first car I think it's time to step away from the Prelude, and I'm in love with the 2g Eclipse body style.

I've done some hard research on the 2g Eclipse however and found some disturbing stuff, but I don't want it to stop me from having what I truely want for my first college car.

The 4g63 7-bolt obviously has some major problems(i'm refering to crankwalk). Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to be that the 4g63 6-bolt would be a stronger platform to start building on. So here's a few questions:

On the 7-bolt, IS crankwalk permanently correctable, or is it something that you would always have to consistantly check for even after correction? Can you eliminate it by upgrading the stock parts in your motor associated with crankwalk?

Not asking to promote any websites, but does anyone know of a reliable used Mitsubishi motor store? I've seen a couple on eBay and such but they are personal sales and shady companies, saying that you may get one motor or you may not, condition varies, etc, no guarantees and no warranties. I'm in the market for a 4g63 6-bolt motor and transmission but cannot seem to find a good vendor. Can anyone enlighten me?

 

On 7 bolts there is no way you can eliminate crankwalk. It happens to all of them. Its a question of when. Some have had it after 200k... some after 50k. Nobody knows. Its all about the oil changes, what oil is used.. and if they like to sit on the clutch at red lights(dont ask).

I say F uck you to any Mitsubishi dealership for parts. Get them from people with warehouse connections. There are a few on here.

As for correcting the crankwalk issue. You can swap in a 6 bolt that does not suffer from the problem.

The vendor: www.amsperformance.com www.buschurracing.com www.slowboyracing.com www.extremepsi.com www.dsmparts.com the list goes on.

Just as a heads up, try and get a GSX. Its worth the wait.. and be willing to go the distance to get it. Being someone from the Honda background (pun intended), you have obviously learned that FWD is a bitch. AWD is something you will never want to be without as soon as you get used to it.

If you are not bothered about doing the work yourself,try and get one withas many mods as possible. My advice is post a link on here asking peoples opinions on the car.. .that way you wont end up with a POS. Some mods are done by retards that have no idea what they are doing. Try and find one with a forged 6 bolt motor. That is your safest bet. Recently a fully built GSX's have been going for as little as 4k (yes boys i did see one). So the deals are out there.

Any questions?

 

I need wherever I can find that GSX for $k, Sebb... thats a badass price.

 

That information was very useful, thanks. Yes that's what I would like to go for - a 6-bolt that is. Yes I know exactly how much of a bitch putting high horsepower to the front wheels can be. In fact I believe I vowed never to build another FWD car again some time ago, but the gas prices' never ending accend has led me to question whether or not I want to be AWD either, but I'd much rather pay a little more at the pump, as I always do, than think about living with tire hop for another 4-5 years.

On the contrary however, I am looking for as close to bone stock as possible. I fully intend to build the car from the ground up, all my own work.
My ideal situation would be to find a '99 GSX shell with semi-low mileage(just as long as it's in good condition) and dropping a 6-bolt 4g63 in after reinforcing so that I may custom build it to the 280-320 WHP range.

I know exactly what is and is not tasteful, I'm not new around this block.
This is my current project car: 1996 Prelude BA8 with a JDM H22A motor swap. N/A, never been dyno'd, still being built, but pulled on both S2000's that I've raced so far.

http://img338.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ludesnc2.jpg
http://img338.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hoodpopfq0.jpg

I have my own garage that I do all my work in so you see I fully intend on completely building whatever car I choose next by myself. No shop ever touched the Prelude, none would touch my Eclipse.

Thanks for the information though, at least I now know that crankwalk isn't correctable and never to touch the 7-bolt. This helped alot.

 

Dude thats bad ***. Props.

Well expect to pay a premium for that car. It is a lot more expensive to buy parts rather than have them bought with the car... i dont need to tell you that.

320whp is not something you actually need to build the internals for. As a matter of fact its pretty basic.

Ever thought of shooting for something a little higher? 400awhp maybe?

 

Hello Woods, i'm glad somebody has the brains to do some research on their own these days. Thank you for that. Buying a 6 bolt is a good idea and actual one of the other Moderators on here TheEngineer (TE) has a 6 bolt for sale, i believe he's asking 150+shipping wich is a steal. You won't need to build the internals of the block to only hold 320whp because the stock internals can easily old 400-450whp. Attaining 320 will be a sinch also. All you will need is a 16g turbo and a tune along w/ the other suporting mods (fuel). With an EVO III Big 16g and a good tune you can hit the 350whp mark. Saving up and waiting for a GSX is well worth it b/c you can not transform the GS-T into AWD w/o a doner car and about 3k worth of parts. You can however transform a Spyder GS-T into AWD but again it will cost a LOT of money to do it and just simply isn't worth it. You can get a E3B16g turbo and all suporting mods for apx 1500-2000 depending on the parts you go with and i've even seen them pieced together for 1k using used and off brand parts. If you have any other questions let us know. OH and btw Buschar racing sells a 6 bolt swap kit that you may wanna get for the car if you end up getting it.

 

Jons still got that 6bolt? Time for a PM. I figured that thing was long gone.

 

Sorry man, I really don't want to be a jerk or anything. But some of that's wrong. The GST and GST spyder both have the exaxt same difficulties as far as the X swap goes. And the parts can be put together from $1k to $2k. Installing it is a different story though if you can't weld. I've considered doing the swap many times because 1) I can do it myself with the help of my Gpa 2) I can get all the parts I need for $800. Why I'm not doing it? Downtime, skeptical on efficiency, and more things to break. I'm glad I have a GST for that reason. I'm not looking to build a full out drag car, I need to make a real living for that. That'll come when I'm done with college.

Next. An EvoIII 16g is a very good turbo (I have one) but if you're familiar with engines and tuning etc, I'd go with a bigger turbo. They run a lot cooler and are better for daily driving. I would look into the PTE SCM5031e if you're looking at FWD. The powercurve is much smoother then the EIII16g as well, which would help a little with traction. Prothane motormounts and a good suspension will help a lot too. But I'm sure you knew that already.

Finally. For the 6 bolt swap. I didn't buy an install kit, just pieced the parts one at a time and saved some money.

If you need to know anything else let me know. I've been through the swap and upgraded turbo, and did it all myself (except the longblock, built by Modern Automotive Performance - www.maperformance.com), so I'm pretty familiar with it. I can get parts for really cheap around here and have a few connections with a few well known shops.

Oh, and welcome.

 

Yeah I did some more research into the actual pricing of the 4G63 and I was kinda shocked. They seem to be much more expensive in general than say what I'm used to(Honda H-series motors or 240 CA18DET). And I wasn't aware that the stock block on the 4G63 could hold that much horsepower either, definitely not what I'm used to from Honda motors either. That's pretty damn impressive, so that pleases me.

Yes I was only planning on going for the 300WHP range because I was thinking that a GS-T was an option and I would really never want to put more than that on a FWD car, that's just me, I've had to deal with that too much already in my life. But the more I go into this the more I'm starting to think "Hey, why not go for a GSX?" I'm always about doing it right and doing it big anyway, it's just that GSX's with decent miles in good condition certainly seem hard to come buy especially considering I would probably not be using the motor in the car anyway as I would be swapping in a 6-bolt. That to me just seems a bit pricey, but we will just have to see. It all just depends on the timing and waiting on a good deal.

As soon as I get back from my training around the March/April time of '08 I will have at least up to $14,000 to put into this car. After about a year's time I will have about another free $5,000 if I want to put it in the car.

I was kinda looking for a turbo that can hold up to 500HP because I know from experience that you may say that 300HP would make you happy but after a while and getting beat by 350HP cars then you want to push more boost and up the HP. It's just a natural chain of events and I know that I will want to get my hands dirtier after a while of getting used to the 300HP.
But yes if I knew for sure right now that I would be able to find a good GSX in good condition then I could definitely tell you that I would skip the 300 and go straight for something higher like 350-400HP.

 

Ive heard that the AWD swap into GSTs is an inordinate PITA... THere would NEED to be chassis/frame modifications, would there not?