Building a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX - Part 11 - NEW PARTS!

In this episode of Throtl, we take you through the process of building a modern-day Mitsubishi Eclipse, which you might have seen driven by Brian O'Conner in Fast & Furious. Although we have already completed most of the build, this episode focuses on installing an aftermarket radiator from Mishimoto and dialing in the interior of the car.

Before we detail the development process, it’s time to pick the winner of Throtl Dream Build 1. We received many entries and spent some days whittling through them, reading all the fantastic stories, and seeing cool builds. Out of the bunch, we picked around 15 finalists. The winner would have their car picked, shipped out to our facility, and transformed on the throtl YouTube channel in a video. Our team went through finalists one by one and discussed each project. 

The winner is Josh Graham, seeking us to complete the modification of his Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS coupe. Remember, we have started the Throtl Dream Build 1 for our VIP members. Besides this program, we have other great stuff coming up for throtl VIP members, including a GearWrench giveaway.

Josh was super excited to find out he is the winner! We look forward to building his car. 

We busted the wiring harness out, unwrapped it, and laid it on the ground. We decided not to use a few things from this harness, such as the keyless entry, washer fluid system in the back, etc. Since we wanted to run a semi-clean gutted rear end, we are sure you would not like to see a ton of extra unused harness connections laying around. We simplified the harness, making everything tucked to look nice so that you do not see a whole bunch of factory harness clips hanging out everywhere. 

We chose the Mishimoto Radiator for the Eclipse and ran this through the bandsaw. We had to lop the mountings off, sand down the welds, and get -16AN bungs welded onto this radiator to connect our hoses from the engine to the radiator. We also worked on the upper and lower side of the engine’s cooling system because we had to convert it to AN-style fittings.

Before installing the carpet, we vacuumed the car interior, set the rubber plugs, and removed a few things like the center console unit, shifter, hand brake, etc., to fix the carpet properly. Mind, we used the ACC carpet kit, laid it in, and trimmed it at various places for a perfect fit. We had to make holes in the carpet to put the roll cage on top of the carpet so that we could sandwich the carpet between the roll cage—that way, we didn’t have to cut around. After installing the carpet, the final part was to put panels together, including back and side panels as well as pillar moldings and door panel board.

While Quinn was buttoning up the interior, Mickey assembled the seat brackets, rails, and side mounts that go with our Sparco seats. While Sparco makes parts for many makes and models, assembling the seat brackets is a bit of a chore. 

The seats we picked are black QRT, boasting full leather and suede inserts, with a gray stitch on the sides. We installed the driver seat, but Mickey wasn’t happy with it because the GSX car seat sat very high, cramping the driver. We have to come down at least two inches, and we need to think of a way to this. However, that will be a project for the next video.

That’s all for this episode! Make sure to check out the entire video below to see all the progress we made to our 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX.

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