1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX full custom street and show monster

[daklunk]

I'll admit, I've been holding out on you guys I'm a slow builder and usually when I start something new, I end up writing more about what I'll do that actually doing it and posting progress. And since this was started a year ago, I'd say I read that about right. I wanted to wait until i had the engine finished, then I'd unveil it, but I got tired of sitting on my hands...

Anyway, this will be based on the Revell kit. I had an old metal body Eclipse build I didn't like, so I scrapped it for parts. This is one of 2 I plan on building, this being the show car and the other being a sleeper. Both will recieve roughly the same engine parts, except the sleeper will have more. That's where the similarities end, as the sleeper will have a full scratchbuilt stock body kit and stock appearance. The show car will have a full custom body kit, although I might use the Blitz rear bumper.

This build sets a lot of milestones for me. I've never done extensive bodywork, never opened or hinged doors, never did extensive detailing (the glue and wires on my last Civic doesn't count ), I'll be using my own resin parts for the first time, I've never purchased aftermarket parts before, and this is by far the most kitbashing, scratchbuilding, and modifying I have ever done. Not for the faint-hearted Oh yeah, and I've never done a 2 tone paint job or used an airbrush...

OK, how about some pictures?

This is the Bomex front bumper I'm making (yes, I know it is quite different than the real bumper, but I'm liking the way this looks so far). The pieces I started with are the majority of the AMT Bomex Supra bumper and the piece of the Eclipse bumper between the headlights.


And with some styrene, glue, and several kinds of putty, here is what we have so far (still needs some finishing touches):


Resin blue anodized cam gears, the material to use for the belt is still up in the air. Maybe a strip of electrical tape, but I kinda want the cogs in the belt


Slow Boy Racing tubular turbo manifold, made from solder. It'll have a resin copy of the Fujimi Hi Mechanism 3.0 Supra turbo and a Turbonetics wategate.


Spearco bar and plate FMIC, it'll have a NOS Cobra IC spray bar.


The rear suspension with scratchbuilt coilovers and Mr. Modeler PE disk brake rotor. The caliper is not in place because of a clearance problem I have yet to tackle...


There are more pictures and descriptions in my photobucket album, here is the link:
http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...Eclipse%20GSX/

Enjoy! Questions, comments, concerns, criticsim, all welcome!

[quadzero]

Looks like you are off to a great start. Not for the faint-hearted is right, looking forward to seeing how you tackle each aspect of this project.

[bhop73]

I've already mentioned how cool your model is looking and my feelings haven't changed. I'm hoping you have a lot of time to work on it, i'm ready to see it put mine to shame.. heh, heh.

[syntax error]

That's looking very clean. Love the coil overs. Shapping up to be a great build.

[daklunk]

Thanks guys! And again, bhop, I can't say thanks enough for those pictures. They are really going to come in handy...

Right now I've been trying to make the vacuum solenoids on the firewall, but umm, it isn't going too smoothly. I might have to just tap the lines into the firewall instead of the solenoids themselves. I'm hoping to get a goo portion of the firewall detailing done today, but things don't always go as planned... especially with me.

Here's a little more that will go into this thing:

For the exterior, I think I'll try and scratch some Bomex side skirts to go with the front bumper, but I don't know what rear bumper to use, the Blitz is too common and the Bomex too ugly. The headlights had the pegs shaved and the buckets redone, I'll probably put individual lenses inside to give them more depth. The rear hatch will open up, as will the vertical doors, and I think I want to try working struts for those... any idea how to build some? A straight pin, some tiny O rings and a sleeve? And I think I might change the rims, some one said they look too much like Honda rims. But I love that wide track they have, 12 scale inches! Pair that with the AWD, who's ready to hook up off the line? I might get some VeilSide Andrew Racing Dishes... For the sleeper, I have Impul NS-GT II's, they look awesome.

Umm, for a quick walk through on the engine:
There's the K&N air filter on the air snorkel, which will have the MAF wired. The turbocharger will be resin cast from the Fujimi Hi-Mechanism 3.0 GT Supra, I'll cut up several copies to make one witht the correct shapes. I'll use the turbo header, which will have a a Turbonetics BOV. The exhaust will flow into a custom down pipe witha flex joint. The air will pass through 3/32 or 1/8 solder IC pipes into the massive Spearco FMIC (and NOS Cobra IC spray bar) and back into the solder pipes. A 1st generation Eclipse throttle body (larger) will control the airflow into a Magnus Motorsports sheetmetal intake, which will have an aftermarket fuel rail (with a large fuel filter on the firewall and an adjustable fuel pressure regulator and gauge after the rail) and a 250 shot nitrous system, complete with solenoids, lines, distribution blocks, fittings, wires, and injectors. A GReddy Type-S BOV and a TurboXS manual boost controller ride heard on the boost system, and there will be a MSD box adding spark to the relocated coil pack with 8mm plug wires. A custom made aluminum radiator with oversized fans will keep the engine cool, along with a remote mounted oil cooler.

That covers most of the performance stuff (engine wise, anyway), additionally, I'll be added details Revell forgot, like the water pump, A/C compressor, starter, alternator, oil filter/sender unit, water pipe, lower radiator hose, oil dipstick, motor mounts, etc. I'll be adding major wiring harness, lines, and hoses, as well as plenty of different size braided lines and fittings.

The interior is going to have a fiberglassed full audio system with Kicker amps, JL Audio (?) subs and speakers, TVs, crossovers, distribution blocks, wiring, etc. This will take the entire back seat area and the whole trunk/hatch. Up front there will be a TV glassed into the pass. side airbag, with a PS2, XBOX, or XB 360 on the floor with twin controllers (not sure which, yet). The kit Sparco Torinos will be there with the addition of belts and hardware, with a laptop plugged into the AEM EMS sitting on the passenger seat. Lots of gauges, I don't know if I'll use the kit tach or an aftermarket one I bought, but there will be a 3 gauge A pillar pod grafted onto the 6 or 8 point roll cage. And then other little details like CF trim, Sparco pedals, flocked carpeting, under dash wiring, an iPod, radar detector, etc. I wanted to do LED neon glow in a few spots (under the dash, the seats, incoorperated into the sound system, maybe undercarriage) but that might be too much of a hassle. Not sure yet...

OK, I talk too much. Just wanted to get what's going into this out there. I'll cut down on the text and hopefully have more pics in future posts. Lemme know what you think!

Still open for ideas for the rear bumper wing, and paint scheme (although I kinda want to do an Arctic Blue Metallic base with a silver web like on Bossalani's purple supra... but I don't want to copy it. Something a little different?)

[daklunk]

Update. Shaved off the custom side skirts I was going to be using (looked too much like the Blitz ones, I thought) and began shaping the rear quarter panels and front fenders to look like the stock panels. After I get the correct shapes with Tamiya Quick Type and sanding sticks, I'll begin building the Bomex side skirts. Here are some pics, in the order they were taken:






Here's what i did the cowl, eliminating the gaps for the dog leg hinges.

Originally I was just going to leave the hood sitting on the body, like the AMT Eclipse, and secure it with DM hood pins. But I decided I wanted working hinges AND hood pins... I'm looking for photos of these hinges, which will be the hardest functional hardware to build aside from this:


I'm gonna try to build some working vertical door hinges, with posable struts. Aside from the fact that I'll try photoetching the hinge arm and bracket, I have no idea how I'll do the rest of the set up. It'll probably send me to the nut house at 16, but hey, who knows? Maybe I'll get them to work... any ideas are welcome.

Thanks for lookin'

[MidMazar]

Nice!!

[syntax error]

working vertical door hinges, Thats a wickedly crazy idea. Looking forward to seeing a little tutorial for it in that case :P The model is coming along nicley.

[Mean_B16]

Good luck man, it looks like it's coming along awesome. I love your cam gears, I can't believe the detail they show. can't wait to see how it turns out, keep it goin

[daklunk]

Thanks for the interest guys

@ syntax: Well, I don't know if I'd be able to do a tutorial. What I'm thinking of so far involves making some sort of stencil, photoetching, designing pivot points, and scratchbuilding the mounts, shocks, and what ever else. But I'll see what I can do

@ B16: Thanks, I was really pleased with how they turned out myself. Did you see the original ones I had compared to these new ones? A world of difference...

I almost forgot, this is the turbo I'll be resin casting, chopping up, and reassembling to look like a Mitsubishi 16g turbo (the ones from an Evo).


Think it's big enough? I figure on 450-500 scale horsepower with the supporting mods. The piece is stuck in the clay bed that was part of the first attempt to cast a mold... but something went wrong and the rubber never cured right, after 16 or so days it's still sticky and squishy. (And yes, the clay is synthetic, that wasn't the problem )

[ninemmeter]

That is amazing the things you are doin.Wish I had the talent and patience.I didn't even know people were doin these things to models.Makes me want to build some again.Of course not to the extent you are doin them.Keep up the great work.Maybe I can get some ideas from you guys on here to do to our real life street rods.

[crisjr]

Great job so far Daklunk!!.. finally you've decided to show it up!! very good!!

I want to see more!!

[erb]

Dont like Japenese cars but awsom very clean and well executed.

[daklunk]

Originally Posted by flathead_dave

Dont like Japenese cars

Well in that case, don't think of it as a Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, think of it as an Eagle Talon TSi

Cris, did ya check my photobucket? The link is in the my first post. That's about all I have to show so far, hopefully I can get more stuff done today. I'm itchin' to get to work on that turbo, but I've decided to wait for more mold catalyst to avoid problems like I had...

[daklunk]

Update:

OK, so the PE hinge idea is out the window, I didn't have a clue how difficult it would be PE .020 stainless steel. I still plan on utilizing working hinges with posable struts, I'll just have to go another route. Thanks to GTMike40 and Ferrari TR for helping me sort this out...

Cut the runners for the Magnus Motorsports sheet metal intake, nothing huge. They still need to be cut to the exact length, have the ends squared, the flange end tapered (although with a fule rail and N20 system in the way I dunno if I'll go through the trouble), and a flange built. Oh yeah, and add welding lines


Here is the throttle body I'm building for it. This is a first generation 4G63 TB instead of the 2nd gen, because the 1g was a 60mm while the 2g was a 52mm. Enough to make a difference...
Chunk of styrene rod filed down to rough shape.


This is after filing, sanding, drilling, Dremeling, and gluing Man, I hate this camera, I think I might go splurge and get something with at least 5 megapixels... You can't see anything really. The 4 black dots are for vacuum lines that will run to firewall solenoids. The blue dots are for screws (one the Base Idle Set Screw). The green square is where the coolant passage is, it will connect to the water line running underneath it. The red square is the abse of the Throttle Position Sensor, I'll add a chunk of styrene with some wiring that hooks up to the wiring harness...


This is from the other side, you can see the throttle shaft with a wire winding. I'll cut it off at the blue line and add a disk of styrene and the throttle cable:


Still needs some finishing work and a primer coat to pick up defects. It looks a tad large next to the manifold, but scaled out it's only about 2.75 inches, which seems reasonable.