Please excuse my venting:

I am starting to notice a trend with 951s that is very like DSMs If you notice, a Mitsubishi turbos' natural habitat is in a shop, on jackstands, or parked in the garage. They are fairly reliable when stock, but once you begin doing some simple upgrades (like a good clutch and an MBC), parts start failing. The life expectancy of high Horsepower DSM usually is a few months...where a catastropic failure occurs. They are also notorious for having failing thrust bearings ("crankwalk"). I dont think the 951 is much different.

So here I am, in my shop at 1am. After treating my 951 so well, spoiling it with new parts and special treatment, it turns around and leaves me in the cold without compassion, once again

About a month ago, I rebuilt the head, and installed a K26/8 turbo. Being that the exhaust system/cylinder head was out, I decided it wouldnt hurt to drop the oil pan and install some fresh rings and rod bearings. It would be a shame if I didnt, anyway. As expected, oil consumption dropped substantially (but as usual, never disappeared completely ). There were even a few critics that recommended I remove the engine and change the main bearings, mostly for the sake of the thrust bearing.

Sure enough, a month barely passes by without a major problem. I have a major loss in power at first, and a clutch that doesnt engage at the same spot.
Then, a few days later, a dull noise comes at idle that disappears at 2000rpm, and doesnt come back for a while. It sounds too low pitched to be a rod bearing, but its coming from the block. The clutch pedal disappears as well, but returns on occasion. Strange, I think to myself. The very next day, I park the car at my shop in fear of doing more damage, as there is no time for me to examine the car. I ordered the master/slave cylinder and a set of rod beaings during the week. I guess I pushed the car a bit harder than I thought and spun a rod bearing.

Sure enough, Sunday comes, and I can not drive the car into the bay. It wont start easily, and the car is backfiring/flooding when it does. I pull the oil pan down, and to my suprise, the rod bearings have zero wear. However, I can move the crankshaft back and forth about 10mm. No wonder the car barely starts, the refenece sensor doesnt read the flywheel pin properly. Great, at least I can return the parts that I ordered... as I wont be needing them. I refuse to do a butcher job and change the main bearings with the engine in the car. The only way is to remove the engine, which I apparently should have done in the first place.

Oh man, I am starting to hate this car. See that 928 in my avitar? It may be slow, ugly, and clumbsy but it doesnt require as much attention at the 951. Maybe I can convince my friend to sell it to me? ...Okay, my rant is over.

 

what they most have in common is that they are most often the victims of amatuer engine builders on cheap budgets.

 

So apparantly I'm just an average engine builder in a high end shop? I was just tired of adding two qrts of syn. oil with every tank of gas. Maybe I shouldve just left it alone....

 

Well at least the 951 has two things over the DSM...

...looks better in the garage when broken and you can say you own a Porsche.

 

^ w3rd

 

maybe. Mine runs everyday.

 

No, you're right--the 951 loves to break but even more than a DSM: it's a complete pain in the *** to work on.

For some reason I still love mine

 

Hes right. Mine had run 35,000 miles no problems no fixes except changing oil.

The engine itself has run something around 60,000 miles on just timing belt changes and oil.

 

Again, so does mine. I can go out and drive it whenever I please.

 

Just an enquiry, you say that you run a synth oil. Can I ask which brand and what viscosity?

 

My last car was a 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX. I ran 12's in my daily driver, without downtime. Don't tell me DSM's are unreliable.

I'm going to have to agree on this one. As I said in the "engine bay" thread, it's not the car that was faulty...it was the backyard mechanics who realized that all they had to do to make more power with the DSM motor (4g63) was give it a dirty look.

 

i dunno the only time mine is apart is when im upgrading or changing stuff. I had a mitsubishi that was all stock and the trans blew.

 

That's because when you 'upgrade or change stuff' you replace or rebuild everything, lol.

 

its called preventative maintenance- its 20yrs old it prob. needs replaced right! My mitsu was like two years old and driving down the street one day pow! the syncros start making noise....

 

I sold an 89 951 to a friend in LA 8 years ago. I owned this car about 6 years prior to selling it. It had many mods and would hit 330whp and 340tq at 18psi. The only things that I did to the car that required fixing RIGHT NOW was a failed clutch slave cylinder. I changed the clutch and other general wear items and kept the maintenance up in perfect order. I purchased this car with about 30K on it and sold it with about 75K.

My friend drove this car for over seven years and racked up almost 150K on this motor. He only changed the clutch and the transmission started to go last year. He also kept the maintenance up. It's now a 3.0 beast surprising the newer cars out there.

I've owned many sports cars, and found that my M3 sedan was the only better car as far as maintenance and reliability.

If you keep up on these cars, they will be very reliable for a sports car that is 20 years old. Problem is that not many owners are willing to spend the money that it takes to keep these cars reliable. Don't forget that an 89 911 Turbo or other performance car of this era also is expensive to maintain.

I've got friends that change the turbo's on their 930's almost every year. We've got it pretty good as far as 20 year old sports cars go.