So I will give you some background as to why I bought the car, some issues I had, and what I will be doing in the next little while.

So just to start you guys off I knew very little, compared to what I know now, about cars when I bought this. I knew turbos made cars go fast and that bigger horse power meant faster car.

How she started:


The plan when I bought the car was not to spend too much money, that didn't happen, and to learn a lot about cars by doing the work on my own, wasn't happening at the beginning but is happening now. Even though mechanics were doing the work I was following along and asking question so that I could understand what they were doing, but I never truly learn until I do things. I went to mitsubishi in orangeville to get the car safetied, I didn't know much about AWD back then and neither did they, they replaced one of my tires so I spent a good amount of time with alignment issues. The car idled like sh!t, at first I had no idea what was up, the guys at mitsubishi just loosened the idle screw to "fix" it. I had spoken with them and they said it was the TPS being bad, except I know the TPS was relatively new. After doing some research on tuners, and finally listening to a buddy of mine I checked the cam marks to see how they lined up. Turns out my marks were off, and they were off by two teeth. Knowing nothing about interference engines and dual cams and such I decided to take it to Chrysler (Mitsubishi in Orangeville and Brampton were useless) in Brampton and get them to fix the timing. They fixed the timing and the car still ran a bit funny but was running better than before. A few weeks later I was on my way to the physio and I tried to get into first gear and I couldn’t get the clutch to engage, eventually I got it into first and got myself into first and got myself there. I had passed another mechanic on the way home and decided to drop in, as I would rather use the clutch instead of rev matching so I didn’t have to. Turns out the guy had worked on the lines when the car was being built and knew a lot, one of the springs in the clutch had come loose so they had to replace that, and restep the flywheel, which they facked up on. So we scrambled to find a solution and were able to locate a fidanza flywheel and put that in. After that I was an idiot and didn’t keep an eye on the oil level and overheated the car a few times, the first time I did it the car overheated and I stopped the car and let it cool off. The second and third time it happened (I know I should have figured it out) the coolant lines blew before the car could over heat. By this time I was looking for another car, and was on the edge of just getting rid of this thing. I also had my parents in my ear telling me I needed to get something reliable and stop spending money on this lemon. The second time I was on my way to get a banner on my car, one of the car sports I loved the most is WRC, so anything cosmetic to the exterior of my car has been inspired by that. I had been at the AutoShow and saw a company called ShizoWerks do a big vinyl on a car and decided to go with them.



So the third time it happened the mechanic told me the Oring on the CAS was leaking oil onto the coolant lines and eating them away, so got that fixed and kept an eye on oil from then on and the car has never over heated since then. The last time that happened was the beginning of last summer.
In April I moved into my brand new house and now had a garage that I could work on the car and not have to rush to have it done that day because my mom “needed” to park on the garage. Since the house I have only had one issue with something failing on the car and that was the brakes, and the lines were replaced an all is good.

Before I continue I would like to let this board know that since I have moved into my new place I have counted on this board for knowledge in assistance for fixing and now upgrading my car. The community has been there when I have needed knowledge and I have also had the pleasure of meeting a good amount of you and the greatest pleasure of working with some of you! So enough with the lovey dovey and on with the upgrades!

On Tuesday I will be having Chris and Jeremy helping me with doing a head swap and getting the timing done. I have done the compression on my engine and one of the cylinders is much lower than the rest. Jeremy believes that the valves in that cylinder are bent so I picked up a new head a good time back and am putting that on. I have been doing some reading and have decided to do the Oil port mod before I put it on. My goal has always been to get the car running correctly before doing any big work and this I am hoping will get me there.

So for big upgrades I will wait until I do them and will give some pictures and a summary of how it went, but for now it will be a secret. The one thing I will tell all of you is that my goal for the end of the summer is to have 300hp, at this pace it may happen earlier.

Awesome! Car looks good!

I should have added that the car looks a bit different now. The side skirts have been removed and the rear bumper replaced with a stock black one, oh and the hatch replaced with a stock black one as well. I will take some pictures when I head out today.

Interesting story! Mine was somewhat similar. Having your own garage and other daily runner makes all the difference.

Oh man all these build threads are killing me. This is the most dsm action we have had on this site since I been on here lol. Keep it up.

Agreed own garage has been a life saver! As for daily runner, don't have one, the house is right near the train station for work, and the girlfriend is with me during the weekend so we have her car.

Yeah, your own garage is everthing. Since losing the garage I rented last spring things have been difficult. Now I just sheared the teeth off the timing belt of my Laser and without a work place will have to scrap it.

Yeah I am loving working at a dealership I get to use a hoist every night I wish to and any saturday I am not working. So I am always making some changes as things go along. I just wish I had the people that Ont group seems to have. In NS we have 3 people that I am aware of Scott myself and Troy all of us are distant apart.
This sites been amazing, people on here are very good the sites well run and RTM has made this car more fun to be around.

5-6 years back,I used to always see this car on my way to and from work. I always thought it looked interesting.

Just a little onfo on those body panels you had on your car.

The rear bumper lip and side skirts are from a rare body kit that was a certain dealer option applied to the Lasers up here in Canada. Was made by A&A Specialties.

There is actually a door panel piece that completes the skirts appearance.

And there was a front lip attached to a laser bumper aswell...

LOL, Mike that would explain why it sold so fast!

Here is what she looks like now:

It's coming along Bryan! Glad to see that hatch from my old '90 still kickin'!

It's gonna look mean with that new front mount

The hood from your '90 will be going on this summer too. The car will be black and blue all over! Also going to see if I can figure out a way to get the top of the car back to black, the last guy painted on top of the black and it coming through so maybe there is a way I can get the blue off and keep the black on.

I can't wait!!

Are you planning to get the whole thing repainted?

Honestly no, my goal is not to make the car look fast. If I paint it, it will be by me and with bed liner

What about Linex???

Looking good man!

That rear bumper looks familiar...

That rear bumper is from Deep's 1ga he had sitting around, a good time ago.

Hm, I will have to look into Linex, I am not sure what brand I am using now, I just know I picked it up from crappy tire and that it is good stuff, when I took a wire wheel to it it didn't come off.

If I had your car, I would build one hell of a sleeper out of it Somedays I actually regret painting mine... I should've left it all beaten up, left the stock rims or a set of steelies.

My goal is to build a sleeper one day.

Yeah, that is exactly what she is!! I always tell people that hassle me about it being dirty or looking beat up, I don't care what it looks like as long as she goes fast and that I didn't buy the car because I wanted it to be fancy. Who wants to wash the car when there is performance things I could be doing to it!

Hmm i thought i gave you the rear bumper.

Anyhow... carry on

Well if I can find a drivers side front fender then you will see your front fender on there

So tomorrow Chris is coming over to help me with a lung transplant and then Jeremy will be there later to help me with timing.

As I had mentioned I was going to do the oil port mod, it went well and as stated in the guide it only takes maybe 5 minutes, also put the new studs in so it is ready for the exhaust manifold when we put it on. Also noticed that the guide didn't really mention precautions and such. I took a plastic bag and taped it to the head so oil the hole was showing, and stuffed the hole with a rag. It made for a super easy cleanup and was much less for me to worry about.

Some pics of the mod done, sorry no pics of before. Die grinder jumped a few times as you can probably tell from marks outside the gasket:

Head came off last night with the help of Chris. New head went on last night with the help of Jeremy. Unfortunately it seems I don't have a 1/2" to 3/8" drive adapter so I can't torque the head down. As soon as I can get it all torqued everything else will be going back on and will be ready to go. Here is what she look like now:

If the manifold is already off, you should slap that 16G on now, since half the battle is already done

I had so many issues with my exhaust manifold when I first got the car that I would consider myself an expert at putting it on so I don't mind taking it off again when we do the swap. I just hope the downpipe is not a bitch to get off the o2 housing.

Also was planning on porting the exhaust manifold but won't have time before then so going to do that probably after timing is all done.

I think i got some injectors lying around the shop, i'll try to find a plastic cap.

Thanks Jeremy!

Just so everyone is up to speed, I was in the process of putting everything back on last night and found this.

A few minutes later I found half of the cap on the intake of the head that just came off.

Glad you caught that before it cause ruckus somewhere else.

I think i have a 1/2" to 3/8" drive adapter. Have to rummage through my toolbox though.

Thanks Joe, just decided to pick one up, figured I might need it in the future.

So today I got a package from the nice post lady. (Also added a picture of the postage cause I thought it was pretty nice of him to change the value, as well as his name being enjoyable). The car is still not back up and running but should be by the end of the day tomorrow. I will probably be installing this next week in place of where my narrowband gauge is currently.

So last night I decided I would spend some time taking out the condenser. So I started by taking off all the lines that run from the condenser to the compressor on the drivers side, relatively easy task. I then decided to take out the condenser itself, at first my thought was that I was going to push back the rad and then muscle out the condenser, definitely not enough space with the stock fans, so I had to disconnect the rad and then pull it out and then take the condenser out. After getting it all out I took a look at the rad and it was not in the greatest condition, when i touched any of the lower fins they just crumbled off of the rad. Going to pick up an aluminum rad with some slim fans in the next little while.

So my next task, after getting the car running, is to get the wideband in. I have spent the last few days searching and looking at the service manual confused as to where I connect the narrow band signal to my ecu. Today I was lucky enough to find this, hopefully more will find some value. http://www.dsmlink.com/images/forums/1GECUPinout.pdf

You have a wide band.. why run a narrow band?

I am only running stock ECU for now, so there is a narrow band signal I will have to use. My other option is to wait till I get link and then just run the wideband signal with the narrowband sim.

I am running narrowband sim for mine, but I also went straight with link.

Keep in mind, if your wideband ever fails (as mine did at the Shootout last year...yay for high quality brand new sensors!) you're going to be stuck using open loop which is generally going to drain the tank a whole lot quicker.

Bryan there's a recent write up on Tuners about how to rig up an AEM UEGO to the stock ECU...the narrow band signal anyways.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/art...band-2g-turbo-place-stock-o2-sensor.html

Michael, I will be running a MTX-L (check the pictures if you want to see it) it has a wire for narrowband sim making it very easy to hook it up to the ECU for a stock setup. It also has a wideband signal that I can hook up to the ecu for link.

Salomon, I am confused as to how having SD will make it so I don't have to worry about that. Do you no longer run a o2 sensor?

Ignore that comment. I wasn't thinking (at least not about the topic at hand) when I wrote it.

/Need more sleep.

I'd keep your narrow band.. As the plug for the wideband has to heat up. those for giving crappy idle first thing in the mornning and such.

How can I keep my narrowband, do you mean I should put a 02 bung on the downpipe and run the wideband in that and keep the original narrow band?