It's build time, and I need your help.

My name's Garrett, and I live in New Orleans. Oddball ('03 3.0 Pearl White LS) is my first car, and I've been patiently waiting to upgrade a bunch of stuff. I got him after freshman year of college and joined TGC almost immediately; I've read threads here and there but nothing in depth. Well now I've graduated and have a job, so it's go time. This is both a build thread and a questions thread for me, so all help is appreciated.

A little background: I definitely know more than the average person about cars, but less than average TGC member. I'm a mechanical engineer so I have no problems taking apart/creating things. I've done the free stuff: painted the grill, smoked the tails, cleared the corners, a few others. I also have a JVC bluetooth stereo in, and some other minor stuff.

Here's what I'm interested in upgrading shorter term:
Rotors
Calipers
Brake pads
CAI or SRI
Headlights

I'd love to hear your opinions/suggestions, comments/feedback on any of it.
I'm most interested in the CAI/SRI benefits/drawbacks (yeah, I read the other threads) and a more concise list of my options for headlights.


Thanks in advance,
Garrett

For the rotors and pads you can get from one of TGC vendors, R1Concepts, PM them for a discount code, They have blank rotors or you can get the drilled and slotted ones. Plenty of brake pads too. I have their rotors and some Hawk HPS pads from them and loving them so far.

Calipers, you can upgrade to to Brembos from the EVO but I just kept my stock calipers and they work fine. Really depends on your needs/wants. Don't know much about the caliper options, someone else can chime in.

CAI or SRI, depends on your weather, if it rains alot like here in FLA I would just get a SRI, I have had a AEM SRI for 8 years now and no problems. I think the SRI is cheaper too.

Headlights you can get JDM ( a few different variances), or black projectors from ebay, or retrofit your stock ones to HID (theres a nice tutorial on it)

Just to add to that, if you plan to get Brembo calipers or a Big Brake Kit, you will need to upgrade you rims to more than 17" for clearance, if I remember right. If you want to keep your stock calipers, you can just buy a rebuild kit from the dealer (about $20 each) and replace all the seals and gaskets.

good luck with your build

On the caliper note. You have single piston calipers up front you can gor to any parts store and get 99 v6 calipers and brackets and matching rotors and pads ofcourse. They will have a better bite since they are dual piston.

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Aight,

For CAI: I'm in NOLA so it doesn't rain too much, but there can be standing water. I've heard the issue with the CAI is that sometimes water seeps into the filter if it's sitting too low. How does that happen, is there a way to prevent it?
For headlights: I've heard there's a gap with the JDM lights, and that the eBay lights can be crappy. Experience with that?

Cool, I might hold off until I switch rims a little while down the road... heeding tamim's advice.
Out of curiosity, if you get dual piston cylinders, do you have to buy/reroute an extra fluid line, or does the original line feed into a hole that pumps both pistons?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dimushor

good luck with your build

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thanks man

So I've made a few design choices about Oddball's future, but I still need some input. One at a time though.

1. From everyone's combined experience, what's the best CAI choice, and what's my best buying option?

ebay.

i had an aem for the 2003 elcipse. i could change it between sri and cai

Is there any benefit to buying the piping of a new CAI? Or is all the change in the filter?
And if I just get an aftermarket filter will the OEM plastic piping even be able to support the filter?
Lastly, who has suggestions for a MAF sensor adapter.

More holistically though, I'm mainly in this for the aesthetics (sound, then look). I'm not willing to reduce power or whathaveyou but I don't mind if it doesn't change.

There is a video on youtube where an UK tv show, I think, did the comparisions between just putting an aftermarket cone filter like an AEM on the factory pipe versus a designed new aftermarket pipe with filter. What they found was there was no horsepower gain with adding an after market filter on the stock pipe, just added sound. There was however horsepower gain on the aftermarket pipe with filter. The test was done on a nissan r33 or r32.

In all reality, the only thing you'll gain with any intake modification to a stock 3.0 is added noise. I've gone through plenty of intake setups (plenum and piping) in my years of experimenting with the N/A V6. I could list all 10 or so, but no noticeable gain was ever accomplished. Personally, because of that, I'm going to stick to my custom-pieced intake.

Dope, thanks.

@M-Rod What custom pieces is your intake comprised of? And how does it sound? And more importantly, how much did it cost?

Get yourself a nice k&n drop in filter and that's it.

With the dual piston set up, you just swap the calipers. You can put SS brake lines jn, but I didn't.

They definitely add a nice bite.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by oddball

Dope, thanks.

@M-Rod What custom pieces is your intake comprised of? And how does it sound? And more importantly, how much did it cost?

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3" piping and silicone couplers. Cost me nothing since they were leftover parts from a friend's turbo build. Overall cost would be in the 30-40 dollar range plus the cost of a filter. Whatever you do, make sure you use a dry filter. By all means, do not use an oiled air filter. Our cars utilize the karman vortex maf which is a sensitive unit. Anything that runs the risk of damaging it, isn't worth the risk.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by greddy

Get yourself a nice k&n drop in filter and that's it.

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Assuming by "drop in" you mean a filter that sits in the box, how would that be different than stock? Doesn't a lot of the sound come from the openness of being free-floating in the engine bay.

So what I'm hearing is: to get the sound I want, get a fancy filter and don't worry about the piping right now. And make sure the MAF is stable.

Any dissenting opinions before I do this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/94-03-Mitsub...7339c9&vxp=mtr

Even something as simple as this will get the extra intake noise, if that's what you're after. Its as simple as removing the stock airbox and bolting the adapter to the mass air flow sensor in place of the box. For $16 you'll get the same result as somebody who spent $200+ on an Injen or K&N. The only difference is you won't have a shined up piece of pipe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by M-Rod

http://www.ebay.com/itm/94-03-Mitsub...7339c9&vxp=mtr

Even something as simple as this will get the extra intake noise, if that's what you're after. Its as simple as removing the stock airbox and bolting the adapter to the mass air flow sensor in place of the box. For $16 you'll get the same result as somebody who spent $200+ on an Injen or K&N. The only difference is you won't have a shined up piece of pipe.

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Excellent. And thanks for all your input thus far man.

Hey everyone,

I've been reading a ton of threads and just soaking up knowledge in general as to decide where the future of Oddball is headed. I've done some things here and there, and I have a lot of ideas, but with all my other interests and a wife I can't just up and do stuff. But here's the progress so far:


I put this boy in finally (eBay adapter + filter) and it's worked fine for the hour it's been in. It was an adventure making the bolts work but I ain't one to complain.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-k...no/photo+2.jpg

I cleared the corners and painted the shrouds on my lights a while back but never put any pics up. I made that custom emblem like a year ago too.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y...no/photo+3.jpg

In the pic above you can see I have the grille out. Long story short I wanna put this one in it's place but I need either a new bumper or to modify the stock one. I started trying the latter but I could tell it wasn't gonna get me what I wanted so I stopped before I ruined something. I made the grille out of an old grille from a 2001; I cut the fins, found something to make the mesh out of, fitted it, and I have yet to figure out how to adhere the mesh to the frame.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-V...no/photo+4.jpg

Let's talk about the front end for a sec though.

Most people have custom grilles in because they fit their new bumper, which they got because the normal front bumper looks retarded. The center part that I'd have to cut out to put my custom grille in is the culprit; that along with the bottom of the bumper sloping so far inward, it's just poorly designed (come on 2003 Mitsu designers, just look at it). The 2 best fixes are to either:
1. Get a new front bumper with custom grille, or
2. Get a lip and leave it as is.

To be honest I'm torn between the 2. I like some of the lip options, but I can't seem to find any consensus on which one requires the least modification (cutting is cool, but I ain't extending nothin). Obviously the new bumper would be the ideal option but that's like $400 between parts and paint, not really worth it to me. What do yall think?



Different subject, brakes/wheels.

I have a V6 LS so it comes with the 16" 6-spoke wheels, I wanna upgrade rotors and calipers down the line but I need to get some that will fit inside my current wheels until I can upgrade those too. I saw the R1CONCEPTS stuff but I don't know if they still do business with us. Any reasonably priced suggestions?



Finally, drop kit.

Since like 16 I've had dreams of droppin and puttin rims on whatever luxury sedan I bought. Responsibility has prevented that thus far but it's getting close now so I'm asking for ideas. I've read I need new coilovers or my new springs will be shot within a year. True? If so, how intensive and expensive is changing coilovers and springs? I don't really need advice on rims, I've been planning those for 6 years, but feel free to drop your 2¢.



Yo,
Garrett

-On the bumper, it's your choice, everybody is different.
-I would get chrome bulbs for the turn signals or even better get "switchback" turn signals, light is white and when you want to use it as a turn signal it switches to amber.
-R1 Concepts still does business, they send me xx% off coupons in my email, just send them a PM.
-I installed D2 coilovers in august or september. It was easy, hardest part was breaking the big nuts loose. Smooth ride, better than my stock eclipse. Just have to watch how you park since now I can destroy my bumper on the concrete if I pull up too far, BIG bumps on the interstate suck, go slow over speed bumps, gotta pull in cockeyed to sloped driveways. Coilovers make the galant look great, coilovers are easier to install than new struts and lowering springs. My endlinks were shot so I put some MOOG endlinks in at the same time.

I might look into switchbacks, that's a cool concept. As long as they're not led, I went through a whole thing with them.

I got in touch with R1C a bit ago, I'll prob get rotors from them sometime in the nearish future.

Coilovers sound like the way to go, but it might be further down the road than I thought. If you've ever driven in New Orleans, you'll understand why.

A cheap/effective alternative to switchback is to just LIGHTLY paint your bulb silver so the dim running light doesn't come out, while the brighter blinker light does.

Real quick: are they Performance rotors worth the extra $hundo from R1?

not really, unless you plan on tracking her hard...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oddball

Real quick: are they Performance rotors worth the extra $hundo from R1?

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Take a look at this, might provide you a little additional information to the rust resistance of them -

https://www.thegalantcenter.org/show...ght=r1concepts

Don't bother with fancy rotors, there's literally zero need.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blue8g

Don't bother with fancy rotors, there's literally zero need.

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Whoa! We can actually agree on something?

On my Eclipse, I bought premium ceramic pads and rotors from Carquest and they are perfectly fine. No reason to do much otherwise.

Thanks, E-line it is

So the rotors are on, calipers are painted, the new pads are in, and the brakes have been flushed.
...Unfortunately we only got the front half done in a day, and it took some doing. Not having a shop will really take your productivity down.
OG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-v...1025-no/14+-+1

It took some muscle even with a 5' cheater bar to unscrew the hub bolt that we didn't need to touch.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-J...1025-no/14+-+2

New rotors on, shoutout R1
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B...1025-no/14+-+3

Everything all together
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L...1025-no/14+-+5

Now for the I need your help part.

We tried taking the rear rotors off later in the day and decided it wasn't worth it (racing the sun) after we ran into a snafu. We couldn't brake the rotor free even after putting 2 screws in the release holes, it seems like its stuck on one side. It could just be rusted on that one side because the rotors are so deep in the back but can anyone confirm that it's just the 4 bolts holding the 2 halves of the caliper on that keep the rotor in place? No extra bolt somewhere we can't see?

Also, unrelated to the work, it feels like my first gear is struggling, that's the best way I can describe it. I feel a resistance in it and hear a belt-like noise, then when it switches to 2nd it all clears up. Anyone had this? If I make a video of it I'll make it a separate thread but maybe someone knows what I mean and has a suggestion.

And to finish off the trifecta of inquiries, gimme your opinions on these:
XXR 522
http://www.carid.com/images/xxr/wheels/xxr-522-gold.jpg

Make sure the e brake is not on when tryig to pull the rotors, 2 12mm bolts through there will do it every time unless the brake is on.

I've seen those on an rsx, to me the spokes come out too far, beging for some curb rash imo.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by oakrdrs187

Make sure the e brake is not on when tryig to pull the rotors, 2 12mm bolts through there will do it every time unless the brake is on.

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Thanks, I think it was on. I'll find out if that does it this weekend.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oakrdrs187

I've seen those on an rsx, to me the spokes come out too far, beging for some curb rash

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That was my first concern, especially since my wife drives it sometime, bless her heart. But I really want a decent offset, and they're the right price, color, and general style. We'll see what happens...