Turbo Eclipse Upgrades

Ok i just bought a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse GST and I don't really know what all I can do to it just to push a little bit more horsepower out of it. I don't want to do anything really drastic because it's my daily driver. The guy that I bought it off of had a shit load of mods on it and then took them all off before selling and called it an engine rebuild. When they "rebuilt" it, they did it half assed and not everything was in its place. I went and got it looked at by a guy that i know races DSM's and he put most of it back together for me. haha the guy sold it to me with no radiator overflow bottle and a 1g blow off valve thats been punched in on the top.

I'd like to stay in the range of about $800 or less. I would love to upgrade the turbo but i just dont have the money for anything big like that.

I know that stock they run about 210-215hp and I would like to run about 250hp. A buddy of mine wants me to run it at the drag track but i dont want to do it until i've got a little more under the hood.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Before you do any modding, make sure that it has been tuned up and is in good running condition, that will make it the most reliable when it actually comes to modding. Also try find out when the last time the timing belt was changed. Obviously start with the simple mods, the better the motor flows, the more power it will produce. The stock turbo exhaust is very restrictive, and an upgrade to that will usually give you instant gains, but you are still running the t-2small, so dont' expect it to be anything significant. A good aftermarket air filter is a must also. Hard IC pipes are also a nice mod, you don't necessarily need a name brand for these, a decent ebay kit will work just fine.
Next you can start looking into turning up the boost and adding a little more fuel, but to turn up the boost correctly, you need a good boost gauge, not that shitty innacurate stocker. Get a MBC and find a good 1g BOV (preferrably crushed). You'll also need something to tune with. An SAFC is a nice part for that, although it's only good up to 650 injectors, but you say you don't plan on upgrading the turbo anytime soon. Along with the SAFC, it's also handy to have a pocket logger to see what the motor is doing.

Start with those. Depending on how good you are at price shopping and what not, you may be able to get it all for less than $800, or a bit over $800, either way, it won't be to terribly expensive.

The timing belt was changed at 100,000 miles and I do have a 1g BOV thats crushed. As soon as we bought the car my dad and I changed all of the belts (the belts started to squeal so we replaced them) and fluids in the engine (except for the timing belt).

The car has 107,000 miles on it right now and we did all the tune up stuff around 105,000. The guy that i took it to in the first place races DSM's and he gave me a good turbo gauge and I bought an A-pillar mount for it. He just hasnt had time to help me install it yet, but thats the first thing im doing.

I planned on upgrading the exhaust to 3" and doing an Apexi downpipe. I would like to upgrade the intake, what would be the best intake to go with for this car?

Is there anything that really wears down on this type of car that would be good to check? On my old car the water pump wore out about every 6 months or so but is there anything like that on this car?

I just bought this car and I dont really know too much about it so i would like to do all the mods myself in order to learn how this type of engine works. Whatever advice anyone can give would be awesome.

The Apexi N1 is a nice exhaust, I've got it on the Talon and it sounds b-e-a-utiful. As for an intake, any turbo intake pipe should do fine. Some will swear by the expensive ones, but as long as you have a good filter on the end, they all flow the same. There's nothing really that wears out that fast, but you definitely need to keep up on the maintainence on these cars to keep them in good running order. And the 4g63 is a pretty easy motor to get around and not too difficult to learn. As long as you're somewhat mechanically/motor inclined, you'll have no problem learning about DSMs.

One problem that i have with the car that scares me a little bit is the brakes. They dont ever stop as quickly as i would like. It's not the pads and ive bled the brakes about 3 times trying to see if its just air in the systsem or something like that. But I havent had any luck. It may just be the anti lock brakes or something, i dunno. But ive gotten close to rear ending quite a few people because it just doesnt stop fast enough...maybe im just used to a car with better brakes but, it just doesnt feel right. Any idea of whats wrong or what i can do to tighten it up a little bit?

For the brakes you could get new pads and some nice rotors (drilled and slotted are my fav) they work beautifuly and stop on a dime. If you want to go more advanced, you could look into some better calipers or a big brake kit and some new lines.

As far as the brakes go, mine never had a nice feel, always very spongy even after a new master cylinder, pads and rotors. It wasn't until me and a friend bled them with the car running and going in order of the caliper that was farthest from the MC to the closest (which I always did anyway). I'd say try that before spending money on upgraded brakes that won't help if there is air in your lines or master cylinder. The brake feel and performance was 100% better with a rock hard brake pedal.

Have you bled all 4, or just the front 2? They shouldn't be spongy like that, it's definitely not safe. Have you had someone step on the brakes while you're doing a visual inspection to see if you have any bubbling/leaking hoses or something along those lines. If you can't see anything, jack up the car, take off the wheels and get a big wrench/ratchet and while someone is inside the car with the brakes on, see if you can turn any of them. If you can, there's something wrong then. You could also have a frozen piston or two inside the caliper.

I bled all 4 since it has discs all around. I'm gonna try and bleed them again today after school with my friend. We did have the car up looking for bubbling and leaking, but we didnt find any leaks. I figured if it was leaking I would be losing fluid but it was still full the last time that I checked it. I guess I could upgrade to some better rotors but when we changed the pads the rotors had a lot left on them.