Eclipse Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Mitsubishi Eclipse tuning guide."

The Mistubishi Eclipse is a stunning car from both an appearance and performance point of view ever since its debut in 1990.

It is arguably one of the nicest looking cars to come out of Mitsubishi.

The Eclipse is a good car modification project to do. If you do your research then you can create an awesome Eclipse but don't be fooled there are lots of high performance upgrades out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Engine tuning mods.

MK1 Eclipse Engines

• 1.8 L 92 hp (69 kW) 4G37 I4
• 2.0 L 135 hp (101 kW) 4G63 I4
• 2.0 L 180 hp (130 kW) 4G63T I4 turbo
• 2.0 L 195 hp (145 kW) 4G63T I4 turbo

Mk2

• 2.0 L 140 hp (104 kW) 420A I4
• 2.4 L 141 hp (105 kW) 4G64 I4
• 2.0 L 210 hp (157 kW) 4G63T I4

Mk3

• 2.4 L 150 hp (110 kW) 4G64 I4
• 3.0 L 200 hp (150 kW) 6G72 V6
• 3.0 L 210 hp (160 kW) 6G72 V6

These are the tuning upgrades are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get going.

Getting the right tuning upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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Stages of Tune

Stage 1 mods: Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Remap, Panel air filter.

Stage 2 mods: high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam, Ported and polished head, Power/Sport clutch, fuel pump upgrades.

Stage 3 mods: Competition cam, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing.

You need to keep as much low end torque as you can and aim for a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power spike.

The aim of our tips is to give a starting base of car tuning mods and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your car tuning project, the best modified upgrades and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a solitary uprated mods goes on a NASP engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a reflashed ECU. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a competition cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

When pushing up the power you will need to increase to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Mitsubishi project after fitting other sports upgrades. To get sufficient fuel you may need to increase the injectors on your engine.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Contrary to popular belief there is often very little if any power gain reached by fitting an induction kit, they only become beneficial and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for Eclipse engines you should just fit a performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow out of the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

A good triple plate fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never make false economies or ask a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods we would do for your Eclipse are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

Remaps offer large power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a remapped ECU on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

We've also seen some tuners toying with twincharging applications and making some seriously high power gains.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. Turbos are generally harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.

Superchargers however will give a boost which is proportional to engine speed so is simpler. Adding forced induction will usually require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are top of many to do lists for the Eclipse.

If you set the toe out to 0.9 to 1.5 degrees on the front, and add a bit of negative camber then cornering will dramatically benefit.

Drop the car by as much as 27mm - 35 mm and fit modified stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are generally lighter than steel ones.

Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy soft compound performance tyres.

Large Eclipse alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Although some people have gone larger than this without issues we would restrict ourselves to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

There is a more updated version of this Mitsubishi Eclipse Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Eclipse options in more detail with our Eclipse owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Mitsubishi tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

We need your help improving this article, so please send us your feedback in the comments box below and pass on any tips, points or facts we have wrong or have not covered.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Mitsubishi. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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