Mitsu Mirage (I love the '80s)

[cheaptalon]

I've been lurking for a bit, but I want you guys to love me so I'm starting a build thread. DSM/Mitsu guys are all aboard the **** train because I spent more than 250 bucks on XXR wheels off Craigslist and I want my car to be low enough to look nice. This car will go fast one day, but I would rather not drive a total bucket in the meantime. I've been building on-and-off for a few years now so this log will start off hot and cool down as we catch up to present time.

We start off with a 1989 Mitsubishi Mirage Turbo. 1500 of these little fellas came to America from overseas way back when as either a Mitsu Mirage or a Dodge Colt GT. Car came equipped with a 1.6 DOHC 16-valve 4g61 turbo motor and a 5 spd trans. Lots of other good '80s Mitsu technology, but the motor is the most important part. It is the exact same dimensionally as its well-known, race-proven big brother the 4g63t from an early '90s DSM. The car I bought already had a 4g63 transplanted into it with some other standard bolt-ons like 550cc injectors, walbro 255, 16g turbo, etc, etc. I purchased it from a buddy in Cali because Michigan cars suck. He daily drove it for a couple years so it was rough around the edges.

Too much talking, time for pictures!

Here she is all loaded up ready for her trip across the country.





Some better pics from her old home on the west coast.














Here she is fresh off the truck and nestled away for her winter slumber.



Once spring hit I drove it a lot and took it out to a few local meets. Man this thing looked and rode like a dump truck.







Then my girl backed into it.



Here it is with a close buddy's sedan. I actually owned the white car and sold it to him, and now it makes upwards of 450whp on an hx35 and a stock 2.0 block.





Shortly after this pic was taken I brought the car to the next house I was renting and parked it in the garage to do some "work" to it. Plans were to sell most of the current mods and upgrade to stuff that made the car more fun to drive and gave it more of my personality. Unfortunately things worked out nothing like I had planned and the build of this car quickly went into a downward spiral.

I'll continue the backstory shortly. I am getting sick of typing all this crap and just want to post the car now, but good things come to those who wait.

Now bring on the ****!

[rice4life]

LOL GIT OUT OV HERE CUZ U HAV FAK WEELZ ND RUIN CLASIC. I ** U!

Is that what you want? Nice colt, was that a carb legal swap? Hurry and get low.

[cheaptalon]

LOL GIT OUT OV HERE CUZ U HAV FAK WEELZ ND RUIN CLASIC. I ** U!

Is that what you want? Nice colt, was that a carb legal swap? Hurry and get low.

I believe it was, he retained all the emissions crap and the car only made like stock hp levels (~170hp) even though the setup was capable of about 350. The wheels take a turn for the better eventually though, I promise.

[aeok18109]

please keep typing lol. intrigued to see where this is going.

[SnazzyQ]

Very interesting

Subbed

[DeltaAlpha9]

I love this so far. I had a '89 Dodge Colt 100 as my first car and always wanted the turbo motor out of one of these. Sub'd for updates

[mike-81-240d]

Ugh I want that pre merger amg badge.

Most people don't know that AMG played with mitsu's back in the day...

[cheaptalon]

I love this so far. I had a '89 Dodge Colt 100 as my first car and always wanted the turbo motor out of one of these. Sub'd for updates

My first one of these things was an '89 Colt GT that I got from a guy that owned it for a long time and let it sit in his garage for 7-8 years. It had a 16g build and made like 320ish wheel.

Unfortunately, that car had a good amount of rust coming through and was also in an accident earlier in its life and suffered from a very poor repair job. I can't stand owning a car that was repaired poorly or has been in an accident ::foreshadowing::

Ugh I want that pre merger amg badge.

Most people don't know that AMG played with mitsu's back in the day...

That plug cover is from an AMG Galant. Those things are crazy rare and only available overseas. The style didn't fit my build so I unloaded it for a nice little chunk of change.

[j3wman]

AMG Valve cover sick! I'm sooo jealous!

[cheaptalon]

Starting where I left off. The silver Mirage was now parked in the garage at my new house. She was running and driving, but it was cobbled together and didn't fit the way I build cars. The suspension was ebay coil sleeves with hypercoil springs on koni yellows and rode like a total dump truck. Tires were completely bald, leaked a ton of oil, gauges were garbage Prosport, trans ground 2nd gear, yada yada yada. It was time to sell it all and upgrade.

Parked her in my new clean (empty) garage.



Some of the parts stash.



Then things start to get a little hairy. Tore it apart to see what I could sell and what needed replacing.



Removed her heart.



Cleaned up and organized the garage.



Then my heart sank. Upon inspection of the engine bay I found out my second CSM (Colt/Summit/Mirage) had been in a front end accident. This explained a lot with small things I had noticed earlier with panel gaps and other small things. The idea to tube the front end was thrown out there, but with my income dropping nearly in half the car would now sit on the back burner for about a year.

[cheaptalon]

In the middle of all this I acquired some parts and subsequently traded them for other things while I went back-and-forth with my goals for the build.

Sold the 15 inch rotas and bought some FD wheels from a guy in Detroit. DSM guys love these things cause of how light they are, and since they are such a high offset you can run a big spacer and throw on some gnarly brakes. They had been completely refinished and had the very outer lip machined to class them up a little bit.



They actually sat in the attic of his garage for over a year because I just figured I would get them next time I was on that side of the state. Mounted a tire to see how good they would look.



Also picked up a freshly rebuilt Holset HX40 sometime around then.



As much as I liked those wheels, plans changed and I trade the turbo and FD wheels and some other junk for a 4-bolt rear end, t-case, and rebuilt TRE trans from an AWD DSM. Car was now going to be AWD. I don't have any pics of this stuff, but having a 2400lb car that is FWD and makes anything over 400whp is useless. Since I got rid of those wheels I needed something else. Rota round 2.


They are obviously 5-lug for all the DSM hub swap stuff. The build date on these wheels is something like 8 or 10 years ago but they are still BNIB. The original owner bought them for his s2k, but sold the car before he ever mounted them so they sat in his basement for a few years. He wanted them gone when he moved so he sold them to a buddy in Ann Arbor for his s2k where, you guessed it, they were never mounted and sat for another few years. He needed space and put them up for a smokin' deal so I drove a couple hours and picked them up. They have now been sitting in my basement for almost 3 years. One day they'll go in some ricer museum. The color is discontinued and actually looks pretty good in person.



Since I can't leave well enough alone, I bought some more wheels. This time some FC Rx7 wheels. Instead of 16x8 like the FD wheels, these are 15x6.5. Both sets are super light. I figured I can run these with a nice meaty 225/50 drag radial someday when the car makes power.



Oh yeah, stumbled across a set of real BBS RS on ebay from Japan and decided I had to have those too. I've never seen a CSM (or DSM) with RS's. They took like 3 months to get here, and I was like a kid on Christmas morning when they arrived.



They will need a full rebuild so they won't be on the car for quite some time. Did I mention the car was still 4-lug and had no suspension under it anyway? They are 5x114.3 and I plan on running staggered offsets but square width. They are currently 16x7 but I'm hoping for 16x8 or 8.5.

Car hadn't been touched in quite some time by now, and I had to move out of my house to a new place because of a situation with my roommates. Moving a car with no suspension sucks. That is all for today though. Time for some chinese food!

[rice4life]

Wow, this is getting good.

I want some chinese food

[cheaptalon]

Moar.

Bought this, got distracted. Told you I love the 80s.





Drove 6 hours one-way to pick it up from the original owner. Almost sold my Mirage to put a 4g63 in it and make it a rally Pajero. Ended up keeping it for a year then moving it on to the next owner. Super cool truck, but way too slow and too easy to spend money on.

Now, as I was saying earlier, moving a car with no suspension sucks. Had to move out of my place and put the Mirage in a storage unit.

Slammed.





At this point the car was receiving no attention because it was 30 minutes from my house and I had very little interest in it because of the front end/minor frame damage. I didn't really want to sell it, but I knew it was a huge project that I might have to revisit later in life. I eventually put it up for sale, but with the scope of the project no serious offers were coming my way.







During this time I did acquire some more cool stuff for the car though. I had been searching for some seats that fit the car for quite some time now. Everything I found either cost entirely way too much, or just didn't fit the style of the car. I considered at one point just stripping the complete interior because it was all sun-baked and nasty from the Cali sun, but I have a mint crack-free dash and I'm not all BECAUSE RACECAR. I actually would like to follow an OEM+ route and keep it classy. Anywho, after many failed bidding attempts on ebay I finally contacted a seller in Thailand and asked about items he hadn't listed on ebay yet. He messaged me back and we worked out a deal for these.

They took like 3 months, but actually arrive a couple weeks early which happened to be right at Christmas. YUSSS!



Cheezin





Like a glove!



Sticking with the OEM+ theme I scored a factory evo 8 Infinity CD player.



Also found a nifty pocket with spring-assisted door in a Montero at the junkyard.



I've had this crazy-mega-stupid-ultra-rare factory white-faced gauge cluster lying around for some time too.




Anyway.....back on track. So the car was just sitting. I picked up a parts car a while back to try to piece together a lot of the stuff that I sold a while back to at least get the car rolling and together again. I bought it for $300 and it threw a rod and window-ed the block on the way home. It was both hilarious and terrible. Metal was flying everywhere. I got too busy with work and my buddy just nabbed a handful of things off it for his Mirage sedan and then I sent the thing to the scrapper. My car still didn't move. I searched on Craigslist for a better donor car, or maybe a new project to start on that was more together. Time went by and I tried not to think about the car much. Then one day a close friend started linking cars for me to look at on Craigslist. This is never a good idea. I made some calls and eventually ended up driving a few hours and coming home with this.





It is a 1990 Eagle Summit sedan. I bought it from the second owner who got it from a family member. Lots of service records from the original owner, and for the most part very well taken care of. If you look hard in the photos you will see this car came with a 4g61 as well. That means a turbo motor is essentially plug-and-play. Very clean interior, pretty much zero rust, and unmolested.

Things are starting to look up.