The Gold Digger

I started on the fuse box harness today. I was going about my business stripping and crimping barrel connectors on when I hit a snag.


I need one size bigger on the barrel connectors for the remaining wire so I'm stopping here plus I need to order wire.

Here's...

Got my first order of Deutsch stuff today; Crimper and some connectors.


I tossed it into an organizer to keep everything well, organized :P


I also got...

Over the past couple of days I removed all the loom and electrical tape from the OEM harness. This is a super messy job, went through a couple pairs of nitrile gloves.

First day, I got up to the DRL/High beam relay bracket done (that's what those relay rust things are). I'll likely be doing away with the bracket as it's pretty pointless and HUGE to mount two little things. I'm also...

I started by dying the main hatch panel.


I also washed all the other pieces off and let them dry.

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Been out at my parents place for the past couple of days helping my Dad bust up a concrete wall with a Jack Hammer. Between that I've been doing some wrenching on the Talon.
Easiest mod ever, though I'll likely change it because I want to overhaul the cooling system, 12" fan on the rad.
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Got a box in the mail today.


I wonder what's inside?




















Oh look European Market folding mirrors!
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Had to replace the gasket on my Intake Manifold this weekend. This is simply the worst repair I've ever had to do, it's such a pain to get at the lower bolts with the huge hands I've got but luckily with a ratchet wrench, it's doable.
Starting the tear down, the night before. There's so much stuff to get out of the way first that I didn't finish it the first day.
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I decided to chop the spare tire well out of my car. It was rusty and crappy so it was time to go. I replaced it with a sheet of 1/8" thick aluminum.


Old rusty wheel well.
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After a whole day I've got the trunk 99% done (I need to weld in a small little patch) and the driver side rocker panel.

Copper weld through primer on everything.

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Sunday we got hit with rain plus it was Easter so I didn't do any of the rust work but turned to other things that could be done. First is I had to make some new connectors for my Prosport Oil Pressure and Temp gauges as the connectors came apart when I removed them. Hopefully this will work, I'll find out when I drop the dash in late today.
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Saturday I started off on the rust repair.
I started by pulling off the driver side skirt, I was very nervous about doing this however it wasn't as bad as I feared.
Skirt off.


The rust.
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Loaded up the Tracker and left the house around 10ish today. As you can see in the picture, snow, oh joy!


Once I got out to the car around 11:30ish the snow/rain had stopped and by 2pm it had cleared up so I started working.
Car still covered by the car cover and a fish net. I need...

Took off the rear bumper this week and found something that made me happy.


Look closer....


Yay, a nice dent. Looks like the car was in some sort of fender...

A couple weeks back I unwrapped my dash harness of all the electrical tape on it, thinking back I'm sort of regretting it but at the same time it's allowing me to repair somethings. When it comes time to put it back into the dash I'm gonna wrap it with some braided sleeving from Cableorganizer.com.
First is where I had the Pro Sport gauges wired up, they were tapped into my hazard and rear...

Still waiting on a bunch of parts, once everything is here I'll do one big update and share the stuff I've gathered so far.
I was out at the car the other day and temptation got the best of me so I took her for a drive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWE9u3YboA0

I also removed some more things from the interior, some things I want to work on and some things are for the...

The one thing I can't stand about my interior of my Black car is the fact that it's grey. Black car, grey interior....it just looks odd.
Something I've heard a lot of talk about over the past while is SEM Paints, they make a line of flex coatings for changing the color of your interior. So I went out and bought some of the paint to try my hand at dying my interior.

I'll start...

Got some work done when I was out at my parents place, not a bunch of stuff unfortunately.

I pulled all the interior out minus the dash, carpet and seats for now. Looking at all the stuff I had in the Tracker, I doubt the dash would have fit in there along with everything.
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Alright, so I'm moved into my new house. I parked the Talon at my parents place and insurance is coming off of it at the end of the month.
My mom has an 03 Chevy Tracker that has been just sitting in the drive way so I've commandeered it to be my DD for the time being. Here's a picture of what it looks like (stolen from the net, I'm not actually going outside to take a picture of the thing)....

UPS came by today with some more parts.

First is my turbine housing, set up for an external gate and ported.



My turbo is whole again.
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Clutch is broken in, ARPs need to be retorqued but other then that the car runs awesome. Real fun to drive.



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Well, we hit a small snag. The o ring that seals the water pipe to the thermostat housing was broken so when Ryan went to fill it with coolant, it leaked right back out. Sadly being a Sunday afternoon, he couldn't find a replacement. Since we were only 20 minutes away, he went to look at the car anyways. Plus get my camera with all the pictures.
I'll have the car back this Wednesday.
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Since I'm moving across the country in a month or so I decided I really need to do some maintenance on my Talon. Of course, we all know how that goes with a DSM, you think to yourself, well...while I've got that off I can replace or upgrade this....Needless to say there's some nice upgrades going in (keep in mind the car is stock).

First and foremost is a new timing belt.
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've got almost all the parts to start on my first ever retro fit. I've got some cool things planned for this.

E55 Bi-Xenon Projectors
Bosch AL Gen 2 Ballasts
Osram Bulbs
OEM Talon Headlights

Pictures:

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Picked up more parts yesterday.
First off is the Megan Racing Down Pipe, I've now got a full 3" exhaust once this goes on. I need to have a cat welded plus the bung for my wide band before I install it.


Neck down to mate with the O2 housing.
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Cat back is on!!

I apologize for the cell phone pics. I'll get some better ones this week.
This thing is MASSIVE!! It sounds freaking EPIC too.

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Alright, time for an update.

First off, my Pro Sport Water Temp gauge came in. Then I realized that my dumb ass ordered the wrong freaking version (Performance so no warning or peak/hold features) PHUCK! So I'm seeing if there's any thing I can do.

Got my turbo timer installed. The ash tray made a perfect hiding spot, especially because I'm trying to quit smoking again....

Ordered a bunch of parts today.
3" Megan Racing Cat Back
JMF Coolant Can
Prosport EGT and Water Temp
Vented O2 Housing

Still have a bunch of other stuff to order, JMF Catch Cans (x2), DEI Heat Wrap, ARP turbo bolts and manifold studs, oil lines, manifold gasket, oil cooler from STM, J pipe and another coupler and I think that's it.

I'm...

My friend who's painting my bumper just sent me this. It's in primer now as the picture is a few days old. Can't wait to have the new front on the car. I'm having a hell of a time finding stock 97-99 Eclipse headlights though.


Here's a decent shot of the IC piping (the...

Decided to start one of these. I have more parts/pictures but will have to take some better quality ones this week.

My goals for this year are to run somewhere in the 13-14 second range, hopefully I can make it there.
The car is a 96 TSI AWD with rear LSD.


So far...