Building Project Turbo Mirage Part 1

SCCA Pro/Club Rally Project Group 5 Mirage

Co-driver Matt Gabler

• Project 1989 Mitsubishi Mirage Turbo

History: I got the Mirage shell from "Grandpa Bob Hummingbird" in North Carolina. He generously gave it to me! This guy holds the 1/4 mile record for the fastest 2^nd gen. automatic transmission AWD GSX, "the Batmobile," with a run of 12.7.

  Grandpa's "Batmobile."

He is also quite the cool character; talking to him on the phone is always an experience. In addition to the Eclipse he has another turbo Mirage that he is planning to drag race. Now the only problem I had was how do I get the Mirage to Southern California. I was going to have a shipping company do it for around a eleven hundred, but a buddy of mine, Gerry, was interested in going on a road trip. I would have gone, but I couldn't get the time off from work. He took my truck and some spending cash and off he went. He did a marathon drive to NC, met up with Bob, loaded the car on a dolly, and drove straight back; almost nonstop.

.... The Mirage in So Cal :)

'89 turbo Mirages came with the 1.6L turbo (4G-61T) motors and a less beefy than Eclipse 5 speed tranny. The first order of business was to track down a 2.0L Eclipse/Galant turbo motor, the 4G-63T. This bolts right on to the Mirage tranny, but with all this extra power (pushing 300 hp) we decided to use a 4G-63 turbo tranny instead of getting a Mirage 5 speed. There are a lot of used engine importers in the LA area, but it still took me a few weeks to track down the motor and tranny. Most places had plenty of inexpensive 4G-61 turbos, but it was difficult to find the 4G-63 T's. The demand for these 4G63T is relatively high as is the cost. I found a decent one and bought it.

Now for the tranny. Interestingly, the fwd 4G-63 turbo tranny came in at least two models. A stronger one with a web-like pattern on the housing and a weaker one with a fin pattern on the housing. Obviously the stronger one was the way to go; unfortunately they are hard to find and I settled for one with the fins. While I was at it I picked up a 4G-63 turbo AWD tranny too. Mike at Road/Race said he can modify these AWD trannies for use as 2wd trannies.

Luck of the draw. The motor came off a Galant Evo model in Japan. Galant EVOs came stock with BIG 16-g turbos and "no porting needed" gigantic O2 housings. And here I was thinking I would be perfectly content with the stock 14B turbo and a mere mid-200 hp.

Another exciting development was that I was able to trade Mike my AWD tranny for a Galant EVO close ratio 5 speed gear box. Check out the ratios. The limited slip differential (viscous) that came with this tranny requires different axles (diameter) than the US models. The axles will probably have to be ordered directly from Japan; alternatively, I could use a different LSD in which we could use Eclipse axles, but the money really could be better used on other parts.

Prep of the motor involved external cleaning, new timing belt, balance shaft belt, and all pulleys. Mike also did some minor porting. Being relatively low budget, I wanted to replace the clutch but really couldn't afford it at the moment so we left the clutch that came with the motor in. It still looks okay. Prep of the tranny involved lots of welding. Mike welded the center diff and John Mueller welded a plug in for the rear wheel shaft output. When we mounted the tranny to the motor, we found out that one of the bell housing threads was stripped. A quick Helicoil job by Mike fixed that.

Now it was time to see how the motor and tranny would bolt into the Mirage engine bay. I got the shell with no motor mounts, so we tried using Eclipse motor mounts. The top left one seemed to work. The bottom one didn't - since the 4G-61 and the 4G-63 share the same block, the Mirage one should work here. The right motor mount (Mirage and Eclipse) that bolts to the top of the tranny will not work. This one will have to be fabricated. The AWD tranny has larger dimensions than the stock Mirage tranny. Moreover, part of the fender well had to be cut away to make the tranny fit.

I'm currently looking into axles and motor mounts. More updates later…

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