I have recently acquired the Eclipse in the title of this thread. 183,xxx miles. Cooling system looks like foamy Yoohoo. I added water and the car burped and regurgitated up the foamy brown mess. As for the rest of the car, it is a disgusting mess. But that is another story. So just what are good and bad points about this car? I have always liked the curves this car has. So please feed me some info. And maybe some tips on doing a head gasket that it surely needs.
Well if it's non turbo it has a modified neon engine in it and it it is turbo it has a 4g63 one of Mitsubishi's finest engines ever produced.
On a positive not if you do have a non turbo you can throw a srt4 short block under your factory head and build a monster lol
I can tell you that they rust very badly around the front strut towers, which is why many of them suddenly disappeared from the roads in the north.
It is a non turbo.. Which engine would that be? ( i am supposed to be working...)
Sounds like it's a 420A (same engine as the 4-cylinder Dodge Avenger).
The N/A convertible 2nd-gen Eclipse came with a 2.4L 4G64.
Buddy of mine had one in high school, N/A, auto, coupe w/sunroof. I'm 6'3 and probably weighed like 175 at the time and could never find a comfortable position in the car, not enough head room or leg room regardless of which seat I sat in or how I had it adjusted. It was slow, but not horridly so.
Kinda fun to drive from what I recall, with handbrake turns being its best skill. For some reason, his seemed to have a weird propensity to swap ends if provoked, like it had a massive rear sway bar or something (which it didn't.) Don't think it had too many problems. I remember him having some electrical gremlins for a while, though I'd be more inclined to attribute that to my friend and his father's "repairs" than the car itself.
Well, the bad news is that those cars are slow when stock (i owned one). The good news is that there is huge crossover from the Neon aftermarket to fix that if you care to. A 2.4L bottom end swap is almost necessary to make it move worth a crap if you don't plan to add boost. The headflow is very good and some aggressive cams (many to choose from) and tuning that allows higher rpms will get you a pretty quick n/a car. People have run them into the 13s n/a even with the 2.0 iirc. A good gauge of their go-fast potential is that they have the same basic engine potential and weight as an SRT-4 with better suspension design. Some assembly required, of course.
The same bits in the interior always break and the passenger airbag cover always peels up. They have land barge seats in front for some reason. I guess they were planning to sell a lot of them to obese people.
Honestly, it's stupid 'apparent quality' stuff that really brings them down. The same bits in the interior always break and the passenger airbag cover always peels up. The bushings keeping the windows from rattling all fail. The exterior door handles always break. The center console armrest lid, cupholder lid, and ashtray lid are always broken. Etc etc.
Had they fixed the timing belt/tensioner issues by 98? I know the older ones had junky tensioners that liked to leak, and even when they did work they didn't work well.
Its not the end of the world, just needs very careful attention. You can't just replace belts and call it a day. Always do the tensioner and pulleys while you're in there. Also be very careful to use the correct washers and bolts for the tensioner (if applicable). The holes are blind-tapped, but depending on core shift there is about 1/32" between the bottom of the hole and the oil gallery. Going too deep punches it out and it will leak. If you want a good giggle, take the timing cover off the top and rev it to about 3000. The belt looks like a closeup of a guitar string that has just been plucked.
Ok, thanks... (Scribble, scribble scribble)
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