mcanterbury

i have a 2000 mitsubishi eclipse rs the only thing done to it is aem cool air intake and upgraded cam gear and has 18 inch low pro axis rims and viper alarm i need some advise i want to get my car to be pushing around 450 to 600 hp i need to know if i can do that of the engine i have or start building one from scratch or rebuild mine i will take any advise greatly appreciate it all my buddy drive hondas and are talking about how they are goin to smoke my eclipse n i just wanna kno the right way to build it...... who ever replys thank you very much for ur advise time and help.......

ryu

Oh boy, where to start. This is going to be a long response so feel free to grab a drink and some nom nom's. Will start with your minimum 450whp goal first. Here are the most common problems you are going to run into.

1. The factory SOHC head/cam combo will run out of flow right around 300whp on a manual transmission and around 275whp with an automatic transmission. At that point you can keep turning up the wick on any turbo setup you would like and the only thing that will keep increasing is torque figures. At this point you will need to do a complete Evo 4-8 head swap with sensors. This will obviously not be cheap.

2. Transmission issues will start to arrise around high 200's to low 300's on the factory transmissions, both auto and manual. The first thing that will let go on the manual, which is stronger then the auto, will be the differential and axles. The spider gears are very weak and will break off sooner then later no matter how careful you are. Once you replace that weak link, your next weak link is the rest of the transmission itself. The gears themselves are not very large or thick at all as they were designed for an economy "sports car", not a performance vehicle. The gears will start to chip the teeth straight off in the low to mid 400whp range. At this point your only option is to have custom forged gears made, or do an Evo drivetrain swap which will require major fabrication to your front subframe.

3. Tuning solutions. Unfortunately the 2000 Eclipse Ecu is not flashable like the 2001-2005 Eclipse Ecu's. Your best bet would be to purchase an Evo ecu or a 2001-2005 Eclipse ecu so it can be used for the most reliable tuning options (Evo stock ecu tuning) Mitsubishi has to offer. You can either rewire your engine harness or swap in a new Eclipse harness.

4. The bottom end. From what I know, the factory 4g64 internals in the 3g Eclipse/8g Galant are good for somewhere around 400wtq. The rods are definitely weaker then the Evo rods which have proven to be able to hold over 500wtq, so the 400wtq figure I am giving you is a very good educated guess.

These are the folly's you will be facing with just attempting 450whp. For 600whp, you will basically need to turn your Eclipse into a "GSX" with a mix of Evo and DSM drivetrain components. There are many other small things that will give you issues as well, but I believe the 4 major points that I have given you above will help you weigh the options of taking on such a large project. If you should choose to want to undertake this project, Judge Racing would be more then happy to help you. If you have any other questions feel free to pm me, Thanks.

mcanterbury

thanks for all the info bro but with ur honest opinion do u think i should even take that project on or move to second gen or what kind of car would u recomend for me to get a a project that wont be as much as a head ache to do

ryu

Replied to your pm.