About This Project

A roaring engine, a clacking shifter and...

I watched in amazement as a streak of lime green and blue spun wildly across the parking lot of the big screen. The car was so fluid and beautiful that I just had to have one. I could feel the steering wheel in my hands and my foot pressing against the pedal. It was fast. And furious. And I didn't know it at the time, but it was a Mitsubishi Eclipse. 

It took a long time, but now that I have one of these dream machines, I'm tearing it apart and upgrading the trim level while sharing that journey on this blog. A man obsessed, I want to learn about every bolt, screw, and clip on this car.

A project like this is a cash-eating monster, so to satiate it, I bought a ton of parts and: 
  1. I ended up with a lot of trash
  2. I'm tired of buying trash
Aren't you?

Afterall, every dollar wasted amounts to one less that can go into our projects. So to help prevent you from buying garbage with your grocery money, pissing off your spouse, and sleeping on the couch, I'm building a parts directory. That way you can see what a part looks like, and get the part number to compare against what you are finding online or at the auto recycler.

Here are four dumb things I've done that you can avoid by using the parts directory:
  1. Buying fog lights missing adjustment screws and springs (trash)
  2. Ordered parts that aren't even for my car (trash)
  3. Buying damaged cargo covers missing parts (trash)
  4. Buying poorly modified parts and not knowing it (trash)
I'm working to take out the trash, and clear up some misconceptions.
Because I don't want your feelings to get crushed faster than an Eclipse with dissolved strut towers. 

I know what that feels like. I have learned some things the hard way. For example, I assumed that an RS and GS were basically the same car, minus some easy-to-add parts. Nope. It's not that simple. But you probably wouldn't know that if you are active on social media, where purple-faced debates about standard and optional equipment help to perpetuate myths. 

To prevent your enthusiasm from dropping faster than Paul Walker's passenger side floor pan, I buried myself in sales brochures and parts catalogs to create easy-to-follow comparisons between the Eclipse RS and GS, and the Eagle Talon (base) and ESi. You are welcome. 😃

So whether you are white-knuckling the steering wheel and experiencing the underwhelming acceleration of your first non-turbo Eclipse or Talon, or you are a seasoned veteran searching for a part more elusive than a 10mm socket, this blog was designed to help you.

Although my build will be geared toward the Non-Turbo (N/T) Eclipse models (the GS is my passion afterall), there will also be some overlapping content relevant to the turbo cars and Talons in the parts directory.

I hope you enjoy the resources I'm working to build, and that you will join me as I build my dream. If you do enjoy this project, be sure to follow me on DSM Tuners and YouTube. 

Also feel free to drop a comment, and don't be afraid to contribute to the growing knowledgebase I'm building either on here, or over at DSM Tuners, where I also share my writeups. 🙂


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