[Eclipse-GT]

Hi all,

I've been lurking these forums for quite some time now. Mostly researching, reading and enjoying other member's cars. While I still don't think my car is anywhere near ready to have it's own thread I figured I might as well start one. So here is a bit of info on the car.

Bought and paid in full for $3,000 in June of 09' Car had 160,xxx miles on it, no cancer on the frame or under body at all, slight surface cancer in the engine bay here and there, lots of nicks, chips and dents, busted bumper, lights filled with water and or hazing, bent stock wheels, cracked rear hatch glass, trim and molding all faded and ripping, a ton of SES codes which I could care less to remember, AEM short ram intake installed wrong and filter soaked in oil and grime, front glass had a huge crack in it and of course the great cracked dash! Needless to say I had my work cut out for me. Why did I pick this car when there was plenty more in better shape? Well at the time money was an issue, I needed a car and the price was in my range. Even knowing what was ahead I just saw this car the way it should be in my head.

It's been a VERY long run and I'm in no way about to stop. Everything listed above minus the dash has been fixed, repaired or replaced. All maintenance has been done as well. I'm no where near being finished and soon this car will be retired to a weekend/fun car. I've literally put the blood, sweat and tears into this car!

00' Eclipse GT V6 Sportronic Auto Mods List:

Exterior mods:
03-05' Front end swap
03-05' Sonar black housing projectors with single CCFL Halo
03-05' Black housing front turn signals
03-05' Grillcraft 5 piece grill powdercoated black
03-05' Depo fog lights
Night shaded reverse lights
Depo black housing LED 3rd. brake light
Night shaded LED 3rd. brake light
TYC black housing tail lights (Skyline mod underway)
Debadged emblems V6 and GT
Chrome Mitsubishi diamond emblems
Vis Racing Extreme GT carbon fiber hood
Aero Catch carbon fiber flush mount hood pins

Engine/Performance mods:
Invidia N1 cat-back exhaust
B&M transmission cooler
Ingalls engine torque damper
Prothane motor/transmission mount inserts
AEM V2 Cold Air Intake
Flowmaster hushpower II resonator

Suspension mods:
Tein S. Tech lowering springs
KYB AGX gas adjustable shocks
KYB mounts
KYB coil spring insulators
KYB boots
Moog in & out front tie rods
Moog sway bar end links
Suspension Techniques rear sway bar
D.C. Sports rear strut tower bar
Ingalls front camber kit
Home made rear camber kit
Master Prothane bushing kit

Brakes/Wheels/Tires mods:
R1Concepts Premium crossed drilled & slotted brake rotors
Hawk HPS
Goodridge stainless steel brake lines
Powdercoated gloss black calipers & brackets
Removed front dust plates
Evolution 8 Enkei wheels powdercoated anodized candy blue
Hankook Ventus V4 235/45/17

Audio mods:
Stock

Engine bay mods:
Powdercoated blue:
Radiator cap
Powdercoated black:
Front bumper clip
Battery tray
Battery bracket
Hood stand
Front strut bar
Wiper arms
Painted high gloss black:
Wiper cowl
Radiator brackets
ECU box
ECU cover
Hose Techniques blue hose kit
Optima red top battery
Custom billet aluminum battery tie down

Interior mods:
Color matched sterling silver metallic/black interior
02' gauge cluster swap
Blue LED swap:
Gauge cluster
Clock pod
HVAC controls
Cubby hole
Fog light switch
Ignition ring
White LED swap:
Rear view mirror
License plate
Hatch interior
Glowshift black triple pillar pod
Glowshift 7 series tinted vacuum, volt, oil pressure gauges

The last and future mods:
RPW V6 long tube headers
Respray sterling silver metallic (unsure)
"OR"
Custom two tone ultra black pearl with ultra red pearl (unsure but hoping)
Black/silver racing seats & rails (depends on paint)
"OR"
Black/red racing seats & rails (depends on paint)
New black carpet
Powdercoated black fuel door
03-05' door inserts
03-05' CCFL Halo fog lights
6k HID kit
Simple audio system with blue LED color
Evo shift boot mod
The big 3 upgrade

Thank you for looking and hope you enjoyed! Any comments, advice and words of wisdom both good or bad are welcomed!

-Dave

 

[Mattt]

Looks like you've been busy, I'm diggin it. Very nice :yesway:

 

[grfft3r]

Awesome work man! Really looks like your car has come a long way. I like the wheels.

Why not the 3.8 engine swap?

 

[finesse49ers]

:lol: Ahhh, so this is the car we've been PM'ing over. Great job on the restoration. I have an extra Glowshift Black Triple Gauge Pod, let me know when you're ready to purchase one.

 

[ccarrillo717]

Special thanks to those who've greatly help me along the way:
EZT - for part suggestions, advice and inspiration
finesse49ers - for part suggestions, advice and inspiration
scarr - for advice and part suggestions
04MOJOGT - for part suggestions and inspiration
HIJACKER - for advice and inspiration
CrimsonGT - for advice and inspiration
skinnyGT - for advice
Special_K - for advice and part suggestions
ShineStreet3g - for parts and advice
-Dave

What does this mean? You just copied ideas from their rides or actually PM'd them asking what to do?

 

[ClOsEr15]

lovin the car man, like that you went wth the 03-05 bumper conversion (same thing im in the process of doing), love the wheels/drop/ and how you did the door panels.. definitely different.

Where did you get your grille? Been lookin on ebay and found some precut ones that i can get powdercoated for like $47 and some were like $150.

 

[Chad]

Nice indeed :yesway:. Good job learning from the lurking

 

[Chad]

What does this mean? You just copied ideas from their rides or actually PM'd them asking what to do?

Dude, there's not much to copy. Especially if you want quality parts. Lay off him a little. He was just giving a shout out to the people that helped him with questions and advice.

 

[ccarrillo717]

Dude, there's not much to copy. Especially if you want quality parts. Lay off him a little. He was just giving a shout out to the people that helped him with questions and advice.

I'm not ragging on him I was just curious... His car is nice

 

[Drewski0523]

I really like what you did with it, great job man :yesway:

 

[rsingh12]

Car is looking really good man. I see you switched your headlights to sonars, what are you doing with your old depos?

 

[KidKobe210]

Very nice! Great job on all the maintenance. I think a little window tint will add to the beauty of it

 

[NetMatrix]

Your car is really nice looking. I love the 2-tone colors on the instide of it. The wheels are pretty nice as well. Keep up the great work.

 

[mitsu3g01]

looks very good. Always have liked those motegi's. :yesway:

 

[Eclipse-GT]

What does this mean? You just copied ideas from their rides or actually PM'd them asking what to do?

I've talked to them through pm a lot as finesse49ers stated.

Ahhh, so this is the car we've been PM'ing over. Great job on the restoration. I have an extra Glowshift Black Triple Gauge Pod, let me know when you're ready to purchase one.

Hey bro! Yeah hahaha this is the car alright. I'll definetly hit you up when that time comes.

lovin the car man, like that you went wth the 03-05 bumper conversion (same thing im in the process of doing), love the wheels/drop/ and how you did the door panels.. definitely different.

Where did you get your grille? Been lookin on ebay and found some precut ones that i can get powdercoated for like $47 and some were like $150.

Thank you! I actually had a hell of a time with a rusted out screw which broke in half in the front clip portion. Tried everything but nothing worked. Ended up torching it out, fixing the area, boring a new screw hole and then it worked, lol! The grill I bought can be purchased through a numerous amount of places. I went through a reputable source I knew of at the time. Eclipse.Nopi.com

Dude, there's not much to copy. Especially if you want quality parts. Lay off him a little. He was just giving a shout out to the people that helped him with questions and advice.

I don't really mind, but thank you Chad! Actually for awhile there I thought our car's looked similiar other than a few things. You've got the only carbon fiber hood I'm considering down the line when the car is retired

Awesome work man! Really looks like your car has come a long way. I like the wheels.

Why not the 3.8 engine swap?

I've strongly considered it before. Last time I checked, which has been a very long time ago, no one was able to get the Mivec portion to work properly. So idea was tossed out. However, I will check back into that thread and if it has been achieved I might bring the idea back into the fold for my car.

Thanks to everyone for their comments! I greatly appreciate them and it makes me feel like I'm doing things proper. Man I will tell you looking back at those old pics really makes me appreciate my car that much more. I've done pretty much all of the work on this car with a good friend so that always helps too. Seeing where she started at to what she is now is just great. You always get a few things done, a few more, etc. and don't realize how far you've come till you look back at the start. Just the other day I was thinking I don't think I've done much so far. Heck I didn't even remember having those pics on my photobucket account. New computer and never saved them over. So it was a surprise when I checked while uploading the new pics. Much more to come!

-Dave

 

[Eclipse-GT]

Little update

I managed to crack the inside lip of my passenger side wheel. I've been filling the tire up with air once a day for the past 4 days as it's been half flat each morning. So I jacked the car up and have a nasty little 1" crack. I don't know how it happened at all as I'm very careful with bumps and pot holes. Maybe it just gave way. At any rate I can't seem to find this wheel available anywhere anymore! I've checked where I purchased them, discounttiredirect.com, tirerack.com, wheelmax.com and a few other places. Most of them have the wheel listed as available but after ordering they resend the money back with a notice saying the wheel is no longer available.

So as of right now I'm still searching for another one and if all else fails I will try to have it repaired. I'm skeptical about this and would rather have a new one. I've seen some pretty good looking repaired wheels crack again in the same spot or cause a blow out due to a shitty repair. Main reason I would rather pay for a new one. And from pricing I've been given to have it repaired vs. buying a new one it would actually be cheaper to purchase a new one. The price on these have really dropped since I originally purchased them.

Also just ordered:
4 - Falken Ziex 912 Ultra High Performance All Seasons tires 225/40/18
I'll be picking up summer tires next year after the below has been done...

At any rate this will be the end of anything going on with this car...this year! After reading back up on the 6g75 non-mivec and mivec engine swaps and around and talking to a few people I'm just going to pile the cash up till April/May and then the game really starts! 6g75 Mivec full build and if things go as planned (I don't like getting my hopes up just to be let down) a turbo set up! I will have $14k saved by then and that should be a nice start for the above to happen :yum:

 

[rsingh12]

Cant wait to see your future mods,although it sucks what happened to your wheels. Another question do you still have your old headlights

 

[Eclipse-GT]

Cant wait to see your future mods,although it sucks what happened to your wheels. Another question do you still have your old headlights

I'm sorry I did forget to answer this before, my apologies. When I removed them off of the car I noticed one of the wires in the harness was ripped out of the plug which was one of the reasons they did not work correctly. They are very hazed and would need to be fixed. So yes I do still have them. I was going to do a retro fit but I figured forget it since they've come out with CCFL Sonars which was what I was going to do anyway. I prefer the look of the Sonars to the Depos anyway, just me I guess. They are nice but not my cup of tea.

I will let them go at a steal due to the issues with them if you really want them. I was going to wait until I purchased my new headlights and try to sell my current Sonars with the Depos that way someone who wanted to do something custom could have some parts from both sets to use. Either or let me know what you would like to do and I will do my best to come through, I've never shipped anything so far.

 

[rsingh12]

Ill take them off your hands just pm me a price man

 

[NFSEclipseGT]

There is no rhyme or reason to a number of modifications made to this car. I am not talking about things like the wheels, either. We have some more research to do.