Dave’s 1994 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 came standard with the following boy toys:- Full time all-wheel drive (not 4-wheel drive!)
- 4-wheel steering. That’s right, all 4 wheels turn!
- Twin turbos with twin intercoolers
- An “active-aero” system
- An “active-exhaust” system
- Driver adjustable electronically controlled suspension
- 6-speed manual transmission
This exotic beauty has better traction than SUVs, laughs at sharp turns, and has curves that would make Marilyn Monroe jealous.
- Plugs & Wires:
- I replaced the standard-issue NGK plugs and spark-plug wires with SplitFire’s Triple Platinum tipped plugs and Accel’s 300Plus Thundersport racing wires. The wires deliver more power to the plugs with significantly less energy loss. The plugs, with the V-shaped design, allow a bigger and longer lasting spark, burn longer and more efficiently. The results are more power, less work for the engine, lower emissions, greater mileage, and less carbon buildup.Changing the plugs and wires can be done by yourself, but it requires some patience about approximately 4-5 hours (or more depending on your patience levels). It took me close to 5 hours. The operation isn’t painfully difficult, just tedious. If you’re changing the plugs for the first time, all you should need is the plenum intake gasket. My throttle body gasket was fine, so I left it alone (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. :] ). For my 3000GT, I installed Accel 300Plus Thundersport racing wires and Splitfire Triple Platinum spark plugs. The engine runs as smooth as ever, and is just taunting you to give it some gas to make it go. Go ahead… make its day. 🙂
Step by Step
1) Change the front 3 cylinder plugs and wires. It’s real easy to do, and will boost your confidence levels. There are 8 screws to unscrew to remove the plug cover. Change one plug and wire at a time so you don’t get them mixed up.
2) I installed Accel 300plus ThunderSport racing wires in my car. Unfortunately, the wires are thicker than the stock wires, so in order to get them to fit in the plastic wire-holders, I had to remove the holders and file them down (took about 30 minutes for all of them). The Accel made their wires to fit perfectly — that is, the lengths were all correct, were one piece, and fit over the plugs snugly.3) Now for the real work. Get some plastic dishes to put bolts in so you don’t lose them. Also, go find yourself an old cover to drape over the side of the car, because you will be leaning over it, and we wouldn’t want to scratch that paint job. 🙂
4) Remove the 3 bolts in the front of the plenum that also holds down the plastic cover for some wires.5) Behind these you should see two more bolts. Remove these.
6) Remove the 2 nuts and washers that are on the sides near the front.
7) Remove the two small bolts that hold the throttle cable down.
8) Remove the 3 bolts in the back which hold the plenum to the brackets in the rear.
9) Hard part — there is a pip that flxes on the driver’s side back of the intake plenum. There is a small metal gasket between the pipe and the plenum. Don’t drop or lose it! This little piece of metal was my biggest headache when trying to reassemble everything. You can see the goldish colored flexible pipe in the pictures right next to the rear plug closest to you in the picture.
10) Remove the air intake hose from the throttle body.
11) I then had to remove the 4 bolts on the side of the throttle body.
12) At this point, you should be able to lift the plenum up and bend it back to get at the 3 rear plugs.
13) All you need to do now is switch out the plugs and wires. Again, I recommend changing the plugs and wires one at a time to prevent you from easily mixing them up. After all this work, would you really want to have to rip everything apart again to fix a stupid mistake like that?14) I had to file down the rear wire holders too. Double check your plugs are gapped correctly, the plugs have been put in tight, and the wires are snug.
15) Give yourself a small break to ease any back pains, drink plenty of fluids, and wipe off any sweat burning in your eyes. 🙂
16) Reverse the procedure to put everything back together. Make sure to put in the plenum gasket. Be patient when trying to get that small metal gasket back between the plenum and that small flexible pipe.17) After getting everything back together I started up my car and heard that infamous “tapping” noise for the longest time. It didn’t go away until I took my car out for a spin. I don’t know what caused it, but the noise hasn’t returned since. In fact, the only noise I hear now is that deep, humble growl emitted from the tail pipe…
- Filter charger:
- The standard air-intake on the 3000GTs was very restrictive and didn’t supply the engines with enough air to fully take advantage of all its power. Here I promptly intalled a K&N FilterCharger kit for increased air flow. The results are added horse-power, better combustion, lower emissions, and over a 10% increase in gas mileage!
A Filtercharger Injection Performance Kit is designed to allow your engine greater air intake capacity while being less restrictive. The more air your engine has, the great and more complete combustion, thus better performance, increased mileaged, and more horse power.
K&N Filtercharger is one of the easiest and cost effective modifications to make on your Mitsubishi 3000GT. The complete kit comes with the filtercharger assembly, concise easy to follow instructions, and all necessary cleaners. The kit costs $100-$300, and takes maybe 45 minutes to install. Even if you’re NOT mechanically inclined, K&N makes their kit a real cinch to install.My car is running proof of the benefits of a filter charger kit being added! Before I installed the kit, I was getting 18-22 miles per gallon of gas. Now, I don’t get less than 23 and on long distance highway driving have even gotten up to 32 miles per gallon! With the cost of 93 octane gas being expensive, this kit sure pays for itself in no time!
Step by step
Open up the hood and you should see something like this:
1) Disconnect the vehicle’s negative battery cable.
2) Loosen the hose clamp where the rubber intake hose connects to the mass air sensor unit.
3) Carefully remove the plug from the mass air sensor.4) Unclip the airlid box, and then remove that and the mass air assembly from the car as one whole unit. Remove the bottom half of the airbox assembly from the car. It is held in place by two bolts and one nut. Be patient and work it out as it is a tight fit.
5) Unbolt the mass air sensor from the airbox assembly. It should be held in place by 4 nuts.6) Install the filter adapter to the mass air sensor, reusing the stock rubber gasket.
7) Install the 2 “L” brackets. Make sure they’re positioned correctly, as there is a slight angularity between the two. Leave all the fasteners slightly loose.
8) Install the mass air sensor into the vehicle.
9) Install one of the nylock nuts on the stud and a 15mm long allen bolt in the rear bracket (included in kit).
10) Gently tighten all fasteners and the hose clamp on the intake hose.
11) Plug in the electrical connector to the mass air sensor.12) Install the K&N Filtercharger onto the adapter.
13) Reconnect the battery cable. That’s it!
When you restart your car, do not panic if the RPMs are lower than normal… it takes up to 10 minutes for the car to automatically adjust to the increased air flow. Your car will have to go through this each time you disconnect a battery cable.
You’re done! Take your car out and enjoy all the power you just added.
- Body:
- I found the 3000GT’s body style simply ravishing, drooling over its curves. But it was missing something… the car was built with an “attitude”, but it didn’t show. Now my car growls. See the “before” and “after” pictures after remodelling my 3000GT with a ground-effects kit, spoiler extension, and spoiler side skirts. I even took the extra step to add those infamous “knight-rider” lights!Before:
After:
Before:
After:
View other drivers see:
Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind:
- Other Mods:
- My infamous Knight-Rider Lights
- The Hover Lights
- I’ve added a “magnetic fuel saver” to the inbound fuel line. It creates an intense magnetic field around the fuel, separating the fuel particles from the “clumps” they typically form when gas sits. This increased mileage only slightly, but exposes the particles for a more complete burn, and thus reduces emissions while increasing power.