Category Archives: Autos

1974 Dodge Colt, 1978 Plymouth Arrow, 1990 Ford F-350 7.3L IDI, 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX

All the updates

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Here’s some updates;

One day, on my way to pick up the turbine wheels you’ll see below, the Eclipse started to overheat. I was running ~70mph for an hour, messing with fuel trims, seeing how lean it would run cruising. It didn’t have a problem until about 15:1, just surging a little, so I dialed it to about 14.5. When I got to the dudes place, it was burping a lot. Temperature looked fine though, so I headed home. About 45 minutes into it, temperature started jumping up, so I pulled off. A dude in a lancer stopped and asked if I needed any help, it looked like I was low on coolant. He gave me some coolant he had. I got back on the road. About 5 minutes in, it started overheating again. I pulled into a Gas Station, bought a couple jugs of coolant, let it cool off and had some lunch, then headed home. On my way home it ran cool, until I got close to home and decided to see what happens under boost. Whala.. Increase in temperature with boost. No good. I got home, check some stuff, seemed like a bad radiator cap, but I knew what it really was, just didn’t want to admit it. Headgasket, right? Yep. Next week, did a full boost run, 21psi, blew the lower radiator hose off, overheated bad, smelled like burnt oil, nasty. Real nasty. Trailered it home, with the help of my girlfriend Jamie. Compression wound up being 0-40-80-20, something like that. No good. Bad news. So I put it on the trailer, and parked it in the back yard. I’ll get back to it later.

These are the turbine wheels I picked up.

15×10 and 15×7. 5×4.75 Bolt pattern Mag lugs. These are for the colt. Which, are 4×100, sooo…. It needs some stuff changed. Like the rear-end and front spindles.

In the meantime, I started checking out the trucks hard starting issues. Looks like there’s a short directly to ground off both batteries.

I just put a piece of hose around it and taped it up, now it starts pretty easy.

The colt is getting the 4G61T that I was planning to put in the Arrow. The Arrow is getting the g52b that was in the colt last season. This simplifies the Arrow a little bit. It should make for a fun daily driver again.

It does however, make the Colt more complex. But, for a race car, that’s ok I think. It only races once a month or so. We’ll see anyways.

I found the transmission leak.

So now the Colt will be:

4G61T, itbs, 5 speed, Chevy 10 Bolt 3.73 w/lsd, 15×10 rear 15×7 front, conquest spindles, s10 front rotors, 2g twin piston calipers. At least that’s the plan at the moment.

1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, Uncategorized

Laying pipe

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The Eclipse got some intercooler pipes this weekend. I dug through the piping bin and came up with some decent piping. There’s a few more couplers than I’d like, but it’ll work.

Disregard the yellow in the headlight, that’s from the garage lighting. I went with the crushed 1g blow off valve. It goes 1.75″ turbo outlet, 2.25″ intercooler inlet, 2.5″ intercooler outlet, to 2.25″ bend in the wheel well, up to 2.75″ throttle body.

I’m waiting on the GM maf and translator to come in before I can go any farther with that.

1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX

Progress

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So after a trip to Kentucky over the weekend, I came home to a few parts that I was waiting for. Timing belt set, water pump, injectors, cam sensor, and other little bits. So I had to get started. I got started around 8 or 9pm, and quit around 12:30. I didn’t make as much progress as I hoped, because I got sidetracked swapping wheels from the cr-z to the eclipse, and cleaning some parts.

1990 Ford F-350 7.3L IDI, 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, Uncategorized

La llama azul

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I picked up a winter beater. It’s a 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX automatic. It’s got about 160k on it, but the trans was rebuilt in 2012 according to the receipts.

When I picked it up, it had no timing belt on it. I like it’s ridiculous paint job. I got it cheap, and it needs quite a bit of work. But it’s pretty straight. The strut towers have a couple spots of rust starting, but I’m planning to get in there before winter. It came with a 16g and 3inch exhaust. I put a front mount on it already, it’s just a generic 2.5 in/out, but it fits well.

From the looks of the pistons, I think it crashed the valves at some point. I had a spare 2g head, for the cam sensor mount, but it needed cleaned.

It looks like the stock 2g auto cams are a little lame, so I put some 1g manual cams in it. The previous owner did a bit of spray painting under the hood, so that will need cleaned up a bit. I started with the intake manifold, I had a spare 2g intake manifold and 1g na throttle body (2.75″), so that’ll go on it.

So far the build sheet is:

•7 Bolt block

•7 Bolt head with stainless valves

•1g manual cams

•1g na throttle body

•2.5″ ic piping

• front mount ic 2.5 in/out

•1g crushed bov

•Apexi SAFC

•550cc fuel injectors

• adjustable fuel pressure regulator

•450lph walbro fuel pump

If I have any trans problems, I’ve got a fully built IPT trans with torque converter and 6bolt adapter, if I need to go that route.

1974 Dodge Colt, 2011 Honda CR-Z, Electronics

Getting closer

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The Colt is getting closer, to the ground, and to being done. The rear is 3″ lower now, with about 2″ cut out of the body.

Just walking around it, it’s a significant drop.

I cut the floor out of the trunk and put in an aluminum sheet metal sump, and bought an aluminum fuel cell. The sumped gas tank wound up having multiple holes IN THE TOP of it. What the hell?!?!

So just to make my life easier, I decided now is the time to megasquirt it. With a Walbro 255, 2x 1250cc injectors, and ms1extra cpu, this should be pretty reliable. I’m using the 36-1 trigger wheel that I used on the Arrow. In fact, I’m using the non turbo tune from the arrow.

1974 Dodge Colt, 2011 Honda CR-Z

Sump it up!

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I decided to sump the tank in the Colt.

Just from sloshing around the tank, this works way better than the tapped drain plug hole. I put the sump atty the lowest point in the tank, which happens to be the stock pickup tube location, also, centered in the baffles. I tapped it for 3/8 npt, and used a 3/8 barb. That should be fine if I want to go efi later. At Gingerman, even with ~4 gallons, it was starving for fuel around the corners. This should help. With only a gallon in it, even sloshing it, it still flowed with just gravity.

Also, the cr-z axle rusted pretty bad, making it weak, and snapped.

1974 Dodge Colt, 1990 Ford F-350 7.3L IDI, going out

Gingerman TNiA racing 🏁

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On the 13th, I went to Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, MI to drive the Colt. It did pretty well with the new suspension and repairs/upgrades. For some reason my phone wasn’t picking up lap times, but I got some video with the dash camera and a GoPro inside. It was a lot of fun!

It still needs to go lower, but it’s handling a lot better.

I installed MR2 strut inserts in the front, dropping it 1.75″ in the front. I put the only shocks I could find in the rear, getting rid of the bouncy feeling. All new pads, rotors, shoes for the brakes, plus some venting for the rotors.

I also installed a pair of BMW e36 (?) camber plates in the front. I had to drill holes in the strut tower and oversize the sleeve in the hat for the mr2 struts, but they’re in and functioning.

The Colt weighs 2,180Lbs

The whole rig weighs 14,100Lbs. She’s heavy.

Here’s the video of a couple sessions.

1974 Dodge Colt, 1990 Ford F-350 7.3L IDI, going out

Tracknight in America!

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The 1974 Dodge Colt made its debut run at Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, Mi. The event was called Tracknight in America, presented by tirerack.com, koni shocks and hagerty insurance. It’s an SCCA sanctioned event. I ran in the novice group, having never driven on a track before. It was a fun experience. The car was pretty sketchy. The brakes were good for the first two rounds, but the last two rounds, they were on or off, no in between. The new southbend clutch performed excellent. The motor, the beat ass old 2.0L I swapped in the morning of, worked great. The old carburetor was a little rich, but not horrible.Here’s the wet run.I got it to the dyno in 05/19/2019

1974 Dodge Colt, going out

The Colt is alive! And one lap was fun.

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Last week was One Lap Of America. It started at the Tire Rack in South Bend, IN and ended there a week later.

After One Lap last week, I started getting things going on the Colt.

I got the rest of the engine bay wired up, and got the gauges and switch panel wired in. For some reason, the front running lights don’t work, but that’s not a huge deal. I had to switch out the fuel pump because it just randomly stopped working. But tested fine out of the car afterwards.

1974 Dodge Colt

Out with the old, in with the new!

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I finally started working on the 74 Dodge Colt. The brake master cylinder was trashed. The rear resivour was full of junk, pushing no fluid. After a new master cylinder, and bleeding all the crap out of the lines, I’ve got rear brakes! The front driver side, was the only working brake before. The front lines had so much junk in them that I’m surprised they worked at all.

Next up, the engine and clutch.

The old motor came out pretty easily, no real hassle. The clutch doesn’t look bad, but it’s easier to do it now. I took the pressure plate and clutch disk to South Bend Clutch. They built me a new disk with an eclipse center hub (heavy duty springs) with a full face copper flywheel side, and a composite pressure plate side. They rebuilt the pressure plate, it has 1070lbs of pressure now, about a 15% gain. This should be enough for road racing a 4 cylinder. The car seems pretty light weight. I’ll get it weighed soon.

The arrows old motor got all freshened up. I cleaned up the Solex carb and got the points distributor installed. I decided to see how a samurais alternator fits, and it seems to fit well. It’s smaller and lighter, with higher output, so it seems like a good idea.

The new motor didn’t put up much fight going in. It’s been a little while since I’ve aligned a clutch, so I had to shake the shit out of it to get it lined up.

With new motor and transmission mounts, it should feel pretty decent. The radiator still needs a fitting welded on, and I’ve got some electrical to sort out, but so far so good.