I bought my 1992 Dodge Stealth R/T Twin Turbo in June 1997 to have as a second car. It had about 53,500 miles on it. The body was in less than average shape for a 5-year old car, even for one driven through four Colorado winters. Every panel had a scrape, chip, nick, or ding, but nothing major (except perhaps the rear bumper). The inside was near perfect. Mechanically, to me, the car seemed sound; everything worked, no strange sounds, no bad habits. I paid $12,000 to the original owner. It turned out that was maybe $6,000 too much. I knew I had a bit of a fixer-upper, but never did I anticipate how much of one.
I was aware of the car's potential but I had planned on enjoying the car for a while before modifying it. I would get the body fixed up first then start modifying it for performance. Those plans changed on August 13, 1997, about two months and 1,000 miles after buying the car. The engine developed a rod knock (one day after the 5-year warranty was up). Rather than let a dealer swap-out the short block or just sell the car "as is", I decided to make a long-term committment, as you can see below. My goal is a 500-HP daily driver.
To make a long story of a frustrating and sometimes depressing experience very short, I got my car back from the engine builder after 16 months in January 1999. After having to unexpectingly spend $10,000 on the engine, the car was still far from "right" and still needed many performance modifications. I had taken advantage of the engine being out to upgrade some parts such as turbos and the intercooler system and to add EGT probes (expenses in addition to the engine rebuild cost). However, I had decided to postpone the body work until I had the car in the mechanical condition I wanted.
The list below shows that I have been able to accomplish many of the modifications I wanted to do to this car. I even managed to replace some body panels and improve the paint's appearance. Still, a complete stripping, repair, and painting of the body is somewhere in the future. I don't have my 500-HP car yet but I am close (is a 400-HP daily driver close?). I just need to do a little more tuning and tweeking and add just a few more mods ... . In addition to the links at the end of many of the list items, my Garage Page documents many of the repairs and upgrades. For the price of many of the upgrades go to my web page 2-basicupgradecosts.htm.
Block: 1992 6G72 DOHC 60º V6; cast iron block (Mitsubishi calls it alloy-steel); 1993+ forged steel crankshaft (used from car with 17,000 miles on it); forged-steel connecting rods; 2-bolt main bearing caps with beams and stiffening stays
Completely rebuilt, blueprinted, race-prepared, and balanced
Displacement: 3056 cc (186 CI); compression ratio: 8.26:1 [Stock is 2972 cc (181 CI) and 8.0:1 CR]
Shot-peened, stock, steel, forged connecting rods (shot-peening compresses the surface to make it more dense and more fatigue resistant)
Clevite 77 trimetal rod and main bearings - steel backing, copper-lead intermediate layer (provides good fatigue strength and load-carrying capacity), lead-tin overlay (running surface)
ARP 8740 chrome-moly steel connecting rod bolts (part # 107-6004), tensile strength is 190,000 psi
1997+ Mitsubishi hydraulic lash adjusters (MD337687 are standard in all DOHC 6G72 engines in cars with a production date of Jan 1, 1997 or later, except there are "3rd" generation adjusters made available after the rebuild)
DN Peformance 2-3/8" polished stainless steel intake pipes (50% more air at same pressure loss or 16% less pressure loss at same volume flow) (pictures - DNP intake pipes)
TEC TD04L-15G-6cm2 turbos (balanced; built on MHI 13G "Sport Turbos") (pictures - 15Gs)
Install Zeitronix DashDAQ Series II display with two Zt-2 wideband A/F meter and datalogging systems (replaces factory O2 sensors and two aftermarket Split Second ARM1 A/F meters)
