i'm a semi-noob looking at Eclipse GST tuesday, please help give opinions

Okay i saw this 1997 Eclipse GST with 71k miles on auto trader the other day. I talked to the owner and i'm going to look at it this tuesday, oct 26. please give me some advice on the pictures, mods, and what i should look for. thanks

auto trader listing:

http://autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?car_id=169724085&dealer_id=&car_year=1997&search_type=used&make=MIT&model=ECLIP&transmission=MAN&distance=200&address=16502&advanced=y&certified=n&max_mileage=&max_price=13000&min_price=&end_year=1999&start_year=1997&drive=&engine=&body_style=&advcd_on=y&doors=&fuel=&color=&cardist=200


Mod list and lots of pics:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesnahoj/eclipse/


he was asking $12.7k, but i talked him down to about 10-11 rage. what would be a good fair price on this car? its blue book at $7100, i car faxed it, he's the second owner and all mods he put on less than 10k miles ago, car fax proves he's owned the car and put like 8k on it. car fax came back good, no accidents or anything.

please help, give opinions on if this is a good buy and what i should look for.

thanks!!


http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesnahoj/eclipse/Dsc00026.jpg

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesnahoj/eclipse/Dsc00023.jpg

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesnahoj/eclipse/Dsc00037.jpg

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesnahoj/eclipse/Dsc00036.jpg

yeah i agree. what got me the most was the underbody. its rusted as hell. that car looks like it was driven hard. too expensive. unless you have a good mechanic then i would advise against it

I like the fact that the interior is black. It's looks like an alright car, except he is asking WAY too much for it. If blue book is $7100, I wouldn't pay more than $8100 for the car just because he did a few mods here and there.

yeah and did you see the nice size dent on the right front fender??? ugly if u look at it you maight wanna look how bad that it also b/c you may or may not have to get a new fender and paint it. (not real cheap)

yeah and did you see the nice size dent on the right front fender??? ugly! if u look at it you maight wanna look how bad that it also b/c you may or may not have to get a new fender and paint it. (not real cheap)

yeah i saw the ding, so you think even if i can get it for 10k thats too much? these cars are very hard to find, the under body of any car around here is going to be rusted. the car is from columbus oh, i've having a hard time finding any good gst like this around here.... and i think its hard to find them in good shape, with less than 80k miles

you can find better, i would wait i found mine in a small dealership lockedup in the back, it has most of the mods he does but with some that it doesnt have like a fmic, cam gears, cams, and only 70k miles on it for 9k everything on the car was great, but the oil pan had a big ass dent in it. but other than that it was a good deal. If it was me i would wait till you find the car you want, i wish i did becuase now that i fixing the car up im just replacing everything that was already on there, so maybe you should look into a stock one and do what you want to it, it will pay off in the long run trust me.

yeah i saw the ding, so you think even if i can get it for 10k thats too much? these cars are very hard to find, the under body of any car around here is going to be rusted. the car is from columbus oh, i've having a hard time finding any good gst like this around here.... and i think its hard to find them in good shape, with less than 80k miles
if you dont mind taking a trip to somewhere to get it, there are alot of gs-t's for sale everywhere up here in PA, but i got mine in cincy befor i moved up here.

lots of gst's up here in PA!!!!!!!!!!!!! where!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm up in PA as far as you go!! Erie!!! I can't find nothing!!!!!!!!! arrggg!!!!

now being serious if you see something around Erie driveable distance from here i'd be up for it.

Yes this is PA, turbo DSM's aren't a dime a dozen unlike cail and florida

And yes i know i'm clueless and i think this dude is planning on this fact. I'm a honda owner and have done tons of work on my accord, but its N/A and DSM's are a totally new thing to me. why give up hondas? cause i'm sick of them, and everyone i race beats me, lol! and i want to hear that turbo psssst sound. i know i know it hurts performace cause it don't put it back into the turbo. i don't care i want to hear it@@@@@

it was so funny i was reading the FAQ for noobs, and they said how if you are a honda owner the first thing you ask about is a CAI, and its sooooooo true!!! lol Yes i at least know now that a cai is pointless in a turbo cause its inner cooled anyways. the open air intake on a turbo is mainly for sound, doub it gives any more power, prob just lose low end torque

oh i got a noob question... do GST's have toruqe steer? cause man my accord EX-r does like you wouldn't belive!!! omg i hate it!!!

well i think they are asking way to much for that car in the first place!! i just bought my eclipse gst for $6,500 and my car looks way better then that and is lowered with coil overs and 18"s on it i mean if u look around more u should find a better car then that~!!~ the way my car sits now it would smoke that thing with out pressing nos~!~ i wouldn't pay more then $7,500 for it personally~!~ So if i was u i would keep on looking~!~

theres only like 3 gst's around in pa where i'm from i'm down by gettysburg yea and my car can smoke almost everycar i go up against~!~ so i'm def. lovin it haha its fun spanking cars that think they can take a 4 banger~!~ holla at your boi~!~

I see that he has an SAFC-II with no injector upgrade and no logger. I hope he wasn't trying to tune with no logger. You might want to check into that. It does look a little beat up. I am in PA also (harrisburg) and it took me about 4 months to find my Spyder GS-T. It was cherry!! Had 49,000 miles and all of the maintence records since the car was new (2 owner vehicle). I ended up paying $14,100 for it. So it is up to you. I am sure that a lot of people would say that I paid too much for my car, but it makes me happy and it was exactly what I was looking for. I was willing to pay that much and could afford it. It is all about what makes you happy!!!

Oh, and as far as the "lots of GS-T's in PA".....I haven't seen very many. There are only 2 Spyder GS-T's around (including mine) and only a handful of GS-T coupes. Only 3 GSX's. I wouldn't define that as a lot!!

I paid $8500 for mine. Guy listed it at 10k, but I talked him down. It wasn't in the greatest condition dents (some big some small), curbed up rims, sunroof shade discintigrating, ect... All minor little things to me though. Its all about how bad you want it, and what you want to spend.

Please explain the effect the "~!!~" adds to your sentences...I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that :p.

Are you running nitrous on your car? DSMs can really fly with a little nitrous :naughty:! What kind of setup are you running for it? Also, what turbo?


All i got engine wise in my Accord ex-r is an AEM CAI, and a apex n1 cat-back but i have lots of stuff to make it look fast! and it sounds 5x faster than it is. I just want a car thats already fast, then i can make it look good. i'm sick and tired of dressing up slow hondas to make them look fast.

thanks for all the help, i'm looking at it tomorrow after noon. wish me luck and any last min tips would be good. what should i look for when i see the car? what are common problems i can check for?

All i got engine wise in my Accord ex-r is an AEM CAI, and a apex n1 cat-back but i have lots of stuff to make it look fast! and it sounds 5x faster than it is. I just want a car thats already fast, then i can make it look good. i'm sick and tired of dressing up slow hondas to make them look fast.

thanks for all the help, i'm looking at it tomorrow after noon. wish me luck and any last min tips would be good. what should i look for when i see the car? what are common problems i can check for?

If only the rest of the Honda community felt the way you did.

But wait. If there weren't people to pimp their hondas, dsmers wouldn't have anyone to rag on.

Everyday i drive go to work i see a gs-t and every other day at work i see a diffrent gsx all 2g or maybe thats because i only pay attion to the 2g 97-99 eclipse only ones i like,1g's are ok but to boxy for me and then you got the 3g's :loser: , i cant stand them worse thing that ever happend to the name eclipse. Im over by the NJ side of PA, maybe its just the place im at

well todays my big day looking at the car... my girl thinks i'm crazy driving 4 hours each way to see a car. but come one it might be one bad ass car!

i'll post my results. i think its all based on he's asking too much, if i can get him down it would be a good buy.

good luck w/ that! :thumbsup:

i bought it for $9k oh lord what did i get my self into!?!?! This car is suped up real good, and i'm so clueless i don't know what most of it is.

all i know is its too fast for me, and sounds like a tractor when the turbo spools. when i was test driving it with the owner (owner driving cause i'm noob that doesn't know MT) a dodge viper tryied to race us/get our attention. he did some burn outs etc drove real fast. so we followed him to where he was going and check out this car!!! OMG! i have never been in a car and had anything like a viper even notice me or the car i was in.

he was impressed that all the eclipse had was a 4 banger. i love it!! and he was talking track times and all that stuff too! i'm such a noob!!! its so funny!! he said how some guys at the track can't control their vipers and run 1/4's in the 13-14 range. and the funny thing is that i think that eclipse would do that if the person driving knew what he was doing.

i'm getting the car from down in columbus ohio. lost of rich peeps over there. man when i bring it back to Erie, PA no one will be able to touch it. no one has fast cars around here, its just a bunch of hondas with fart cans!!! and i used to be one of them!! ha!

wish me luck with my new-to-me DSM 290hp 97 GST with a 14b turbo and a bunch of other stuff, like an external wastegate, that i don't know what it is! And i don't even know how to drive a manual!!! yeah i can hear you all laughing already.

TreeFrog

Haha man it's cool, you'll learn easy, cars are so much more forgiving than trucks... haha... i don't know what a waste gate is either i'm quite the noob as well haha! But i just keep reading these forums and learning little by little, i'm getting a GSX soon, even if i have to drive to LA or Oakland, thats like 8 hours away, haha, i live in ely nevada, you prolly never heard of it!

i bought it for $9k oh lord what did i get my self into!?!?! This car is suped up real good, and i'm so clueless i don't know what most of it is.

all i know is its too fast for me, and sounds like a tractor when the turbo spools. when i was test driving it with the owner (owner driving cause i'm noob that doesn't know MT) a dodge viper tryied to race us/get our attention. he did some burn outs etc drove real fast. so we followed him to where he was going and check out this car!!! OMG! i have never been in a car and had anything like a viper even notice me or the car i was in.

he was impressed that all the eclipse had was a 4 banger. i love it!! and he was talking track times and all that stuff too! i'm such a noob!!! its so funny!! he said how some guys at the track can't control their vipers and run 1/4's in the 13-14 range. and the funny thing is that i think that eclipse would do that if the person driving knew what he was doing.

i'm getting the car from down in columbus ohio. lost of rich peeps over there. man when i bring it back to Erie, PA no one will be able to touch it. no one has fast cars around here, its just a bunch of hondas with fart cans!!! and i used to be one of them!! ha!

wish me luck with my new-to-me DSM 290hp 97 GST with a 14b turbo and a bunch of other stuff, like an external wastegate, that i don't know what it is! And i don't even know how to drive a manual!!! yeah i can hear you all laughing already.

TreeFrog
wow your the funniest noob i noe :lol:

but good luck with your car :thumbsup: hope you dont go crazy.

lmao, good luck with you car. Sounds like a beast! Be carefull with it, you dont want to go crazy the 1st day.

Good Luck and nice buy!

i'm realy pissed off... I was unable to get a car loan because the car is going for more than the blue book value. And these cars are hard to find and no one would ever sell them for blue book. So no bank will give you a car loan for a car for more than the car is worth. so unless i can come up with the difference i'm SOL. fucking pisses me off. I don't know how i'm ever going to come up with the money to get a DSM because they will never sell for blue book.

any suggestions? I got approved for a home improvement loan for $10K @ 6%, but when we tried to close the loan i got denyied because i haven't been at my present address for over 3 months. so i guess in 2 more months i would get approved and i could look for a car then. thats's basicly my only option that i can think of. My accord i own is blue booked at $5k and i planed on sellling it on my own to get more money and put it towards the loan for the car. Its kinda stupid cause i'm like $4k off of having enough for that eclispse. the payment would be nothing, i make a lot of money and have excelent credit history.

Got my DSM for 8.5K with 51K miles driven on it by a 43 year old woman, She got tired of ppl trying to race her and such, so she just sold it. Clean record, paint looks incredibly new, and everything is/was BONE stock. Searched for 6 months straight. It still makes me feel kinda bad modding a car in such great condition...make me wanna turn down the boost...

just get one from out of state and have them ship it for you. you can get one for under 7000