first race in my new car eclipse gsx

[spy54]

so you just destroyed the tranny on a gsx?
impressive

[Self]

Originally posted by kidrocket
ill bet if i didnt know how to launch an auto id break the tranny too

It's actually not as hard as you might expect. That's the risk in buying used performance vehicles. Especially turbo-charged ones. You can almost be assured that the previous owner beat it to death. The words "turbo" and "long-lasting" DO NOT GO TOGETHER! It's hard on the engine, believe that. Even if it's at "moderate" boost, you're still asking the engine to handle conditions it WAS NOT designed for. And that's not even the half of it. When buying a used car like teh GSX yo have soo much more to worry about besides the engine. The transmission, clutch(if it's auto), axles, things like that all have to be considered because the entire vehicle is worn down when it is beat on by the driver. Basically what I'm saying is to reaaaallllyyy be careful when buying a used performance vehicle. Or you could always just buy an LT1 and have the satisfaction of knowing it's a bulletproof motor through and through

[mellowboy]

Originally posted by spy54
so you just destroyed the tranny on a gsx?
impressive

Mitsu drivetrain isn't good. Almost all mitsu have that problem.

[carrrnuttt]

Originally posted by mellowboy


Mitsu drivetrain isn't good. Almost all mitsu have that problem.

Mitsu drivetrains ARE good. When you have a very strong engine with a lot of torque, and four wheels that are gripping the ground, resisiting the engine, SOMETHING has to give.

[mellowboy]

Originally posted by carrrnuttt


Mitsu drivetrains ARE good. When you have a very strong engine with a lot of torque, and four wheels that are gripping the ground, resisiting the engine, SOMETHING has to give.

Not just on AWD man. Its on most mitsu. They have lots of problems. They did a recall on them i believe. My friends ' 98 gs-t is on his 3rd tranny already. My friends galant tranny went out also.

[liquid8]

Even in an automatic, you still should've killed that Civic. This guy down here has an automatic GS-X and he beat my friends Si, and my friend has intake, header, exhaust, crower cams and hayame cam gears. We thought he was gonna lose, and he did, but we didn't know the GSX was auto.
Yeah the Mitsubishi tranny's need a lot of work before you can beat the sh!t out of them. And when a car has an AWD drivetrain and turbo, the tranny is taking a beating.

[carrrnuttt]

Originally posted by mellowboy


Not just on AWD man. Its on most mitsu. They have lots of problems. They did a recall on them i believe. My friends ' 98 gs-t is on his 3rd tranny already. My friends galant tranny went out also.

I see what you mean. But relative to the abuse the Mitsu trannies take compared to most other compacts, they hold up pretty well to abuse...that is, without directly comparing it to the Honda trannies which racers use stock to run their 500-600HP machines.

[whprelude]

everything about the eclipse sucks(my opinion ppl!!) they look super fast but they are not. yes i drove them before and was not impressed at all.

[Self]

Originally posted by whprelude
everything about the eclipse sucks(my opinion ppl!!) they look super fast but they are not. yes i drove them before and was not impressed at all.

It's faster than what you've got. Almost as fast as a WRX(I've personally seen a stock GS-X run a 14.6 second quarter, compared to the WRXs 14.3). That's hardly in the "sucks" category. Just about able to hang with stock V8 Stangs and Z28s. I don't care what you say, a mid-14 second quarter from a stock I4 is impressive.

[ScoobySnacks]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by kidrocket
ill bet if i didnt know how to launch an auto id break the tranny too
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



It's actually not as hard as you might expect. That's the risk in buying used performance vehicles. Especially turbo-charged ones. You can almost be assured that the previous owner beat it to death. The words "turbo" and "long-lasting" DO NOT GO TOGETHER! It's hard on the engine, believe that. Even if it's at "moderate" boost, you're still asking the engine to handle conditions it WAS NOT designed for

Correct me if im wrong, but when a car manufacturer designs a turbo engine is'nt it made to withstand the turbo. If not then many turbo cars like Grandnationals, WRX Imprezas, ect ect... would crap out, and i know of many factory turbo cars that run well, eventhough they are old.


Just wondering

[kidrocket]

granted

[S2Corolla]

Just like kidrocket said, if you don't know how to launch in an auto it's easy to break it. Even in a n/a car, if you don't know what the hell you're doing you can break it. Hell, if you don't know what you're doing when you're pouring milk in a bowl of cereal you can mess that up too.

It's just EASIER to break a transmission when you don't know what you're doing AND it has a forced induction motor. Mitsubishi tranny's, auto's that is, take a lot of beatings and are known to break only because the owners do stupid things to peel out or launch right, when they should just torque brake, wait for green and stomp on the gas, even torque braking isn't recommended with the stock torque converter. You need to get a shift kit and stronger clutch packs in order to RACE an automatic transmission. I had a 1968 Firebird with a 400 cubic inch 6.6 liter engine dyno'd at 375 hp at the wheels, (after mods of course). It was paired up with a turbo 400 transmission mated to a B&M ripper shifter. That transmission lasted me exactly 85 runs without maintenance other than common tune up's. I let my dad borrow the car for one day, and he called me from the shop. Why? Because he's used to 4/5 speed manual transmissions when it comes to racing, so he didn't know what the hell he was doing. Hope I've cleared up any confusion.

Oh and whprelude, Eclipse GS's and RS's are by far weaksauce in the sport compact car community IMO. But I've seen an Eclipse GSX with just a turbo upgrade and exhaust break off a Corvette in a 1/4 mile run.

[S2Corolla]

To end the story about my Firebird. What my dad did to kill everything I worked to do to that car, he revved the engine up to about 4300 rpm, and snapped it into drive, he cracked my rear driveshaft, and my tranny in half because he also didn't check the transmission oil, because he DIDN'T KNOW IT HAD ANY!!! (manual tranny's use a grease rather than transmission fluid in auto's)

[Polygon]

Originally posted by ScoobySnacks

It's actually not as hard as you might expect. That's the risk in buying used performance vehicles. Especially turbo-charged ones. You can almost be assured that the previous owner beat it to death. The words "turbo" and "long-lasting" DO NOT GO TOGETHER! It's hard on the engine, believe that. Even if it's at "moderate" boost, you're still asking the engine to handle conditions it WAS NOT designed for

Correct me if im wrong, but when a car manufacturer designs a turbo engine is'nt it made to withstand the turbo. If not then many turbo cars like Grandnationals, WRX Imprezas, ect ect... would crap out, and i know of many factory turbo cars that run well, eventhough they are old.


Just wondering

I guess I will correct you. There are reasons that some turbocharged cars don't last that long. Mostly it has very little to do with the engine quality or the turbo quality. I really matters on the driver. You can't take a car with a turbo out and drive it hard and then just turn it off. It is not the hard driving that is killing it, though it isn't good to drive that way all the time, it is the fact that they just shut off the car. In a normally aspirated car that is fine, but not for a turbocharged car. The impeller in the turbo spins at 100,000+ RPMs and they get rather hot. Now when you just shut it down after running it hard the oil in the turbo doesn't have a chance to be pumped out and the turbo doesn't get a chance to cool down. The oil builds up around the bearings and boils. Dirt builds up after time of doing this over and over again and slowly wears away at the bearings. The signs of this are during acceleration the car will hesitate like you had water in the engine, bad throttle position sensor, or burned plugs, or a cold cylinder. It does this because the impeller is keeps caching because of the worn bearing and is not pumping air like it should. This is why people think they don't last that long, it is because most people have no idea how to maintain and take care of a turbocharged car. It is a good idea to just let the car idle for about 30 seconds to let the turbo cool.

My car has close to 150,000 miles on it and the turbo still puts out 14 PSI of boost. The engines are built to take it as well. In fact I can safely run 30 PSI of boost on my stock turbo, engine, and internals the only thing I would have to change is the intercooler.

[S2Corolla]

Wow... Didn't know that. Guess we learn something new every day.

That information is highly useful to me Polygon, for that I am grateful, especially considering the guy I was gonna get a GSR off of, backed down on the deal and I was strongly considering a used 94 RX-7.

Is there anything else that might prove to be useful information about stock turbo sports cars? I know that the first thing to upgrade is recommended to be the blowoff valve.