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2G Rebuild TSI or GST?

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AntmanAndLittleDi

Proven Member
161
15
Nov 12, 2014
Russell, Kansas
We are going to pick up a '97 TSI in the next two weeks as a donor car for our '99 GST. Our GST is complete, running, driving and just needs a tune to finish it up. It isn't pretty, needs doors, tail lights, front fenders, headlight brackets, weather stripping, new paint and the frame looks like it's been bottomed out. We haven't seen the TSI yet, but it is described as being straight, low miles, original paint and overall a complete car minus motor, trans or transfer case (I need to verify) and the rear subframe is gone. Has clean title to boot.

My question is simple: Which car do I save? I'm not 100% sold on the idea of having a awd car, I quite enjoy the fwd GST. (And the looks you get while passing a rwd V8 muscle car after telling them yours is fwd I4). BUT! I had also tossed around the idea of putting a 2JZ single turbo into the TSI and making it rwd.

Either way, there's an engine swap that's going to occur and that's why I chose this forum. If it doesn't belong here, feel free to move it or remove it.

Let me know your thoughts and questions, they're All appreciated at this moment.
 
Whether or not people on a dsm forum will admit it. The Eclipse, just because of its name, is almost always worth more. Whenever you go on craigslist or other sites, Talon TSI's can be found for dirt cheap compared to a GST/X. So that being said, If I had to butcher one, it would be the talon and keep as much value in the eclipse as possible.

Not many will agree that FWD is the way to go. The Talon probably is a better platform. But you do have a point in bragging rights when it comes to being fast in a FWD 4cyl. I like my 98 GST just fine.
 
I had mild built 20g srt for a few years, it was really fun, but fwd got old to me.

I dont think I will ever go back to a fwd performance car. Im running an EF1 turbo at the moment and when the turbo hits in lower gears, have your head back and hang on...no joke, not like a fwd car at all! Not even comparable.

In my opinion, AWD is better then FWD. However, its easier to break and takes more money to upgrade and fix. Im not saying fwd is slow, or isnt fun.

As far as talon vs eclipse. Its a subjective argument, whatever you happen to like more, then go with it :)
 
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Nothing in the tsi is useful at all. You're basically getting an awd shell with nothing on it.

It's value is next to nothing. To complete the car with a rear end, driveshaft, axles, transmission, engine, plus all the other little parts, would cost twice as much as buying a running and driving AWD second gen.

Have you even priced out what it's going to cost to find all of those parts to complete a restoration of a shell?

Where are you even going to store it, it can't roll around. Some one should pay you to take it from them
 
I have a similar situation on my hands as you. My gst is in excellent condition very minor surface rust only in wheel well. my 98 tsi awd is in need of rust repair in several places and I'm pondering the idea of stripping it to convert my gst to awd. I prefer the 2gb talons far more than the eclipse both in style and that I never see them. I honestly can't remember the last talon I saw turbo or n/t. 2gb tsi's are pretty rare especially awd 98's. I say save the talon. In another 10 years people won't even remember that eagle was a brand, but plenty of n/t pos eclipses will be rolling around, not to mention other gen eclipses. I love the 2g eclipse don't take me wrong here I just think the talon is exceptional. I'd love to know where 2g talons are selling next to nothing because in New England i don't ever see them for sale, even more so 2gb talons. But as others stated rebuild what u love more. motor swap is nothing to do in a weekend.
 
Have you even priced out what it's going to cost to find all of those parts to complete a restoration of a shell?

If I were to restore the TSI, I would be using my GST to do it. At that point I'd only need the rear subframe. All the other parts are there. I've never seen an awd car up close to fully understand what bolts to what, but it's a complete enough car that the owner is able to bolt things up enough for it to roll onto a trailer. It really isn't missing much from my understanding. Hence why I'm torn between which way to go. I'm partial to my GST & would naturally lean towards restoring it over a TSI, but I'm lost when it comes to the value of a TSI. I just don't want to screw up and scrap a car that doesn't deserve it.
 
If I were to restore the TSI, I would be using my GST to do it. At that point I'd only need the rear subframe. All the other parts are there. I've never seen an awd car up close to fully understand what bolts to what, but it's a complete enough car that the owner is able to bolt things up enough for it to roll onto a trailer. It really isn't missing much from my understanding. Hence why I'm torn between which way to go. I'm partial to my GST & would naturally lean towards restoring it over a TSI, but I'm lost when it comes to the value of a TSI. I just don't want to screw up and scrap a car that doesn't deserve it.

Um.... You do realize the only piece of the spider you could use to build the tsi is the engine right? Every other piece of the transmission, axles, drive shaft, rear end, rear suspension, gas tank, fuel pump, abs modules, is different.

The rear subframe holds the rear end and holds the rear diff, and holds the rear axles. It's not just one piece, it's a bunch of really expensive pieces that are hard to find.

So no. That's a stupid idea to trash your spider just for the engine

Are you asking if you should convert the tsi to front wheel drive because you don't want a convertible? That's really your only option, you would need to convert the tsi to front wheel drive and cut apart the rear subframe to change out the rear suspension mounts to make the fwd suspension fit under the back of the tsi. You would need to then convert the wiring on the interior of the tsi to the fwd fuel pump and gas tank. You would also need to delete the abs and abs lines on the tsi shell. You would need to move all of the emissions pieces off of the Spyder to the tsi, since the fwd cars have the charcoal box on the gas tank. So you would also need to strip the spider of the engine and body harness

So no. Hell no. I didn't even get into detail about the specifics
 
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First of all a talon will always be rarer than an eclipse. People converted so many after the stupid f&f fad and the production numbers were lower. What turbo 2g said is exclusive to his particular area. Go on CL or FB and see how many talons v. eclipses there are. Ntm talons never went through a horrible 3g,4g and SUV faze. Around my area the talons don't exist and when they pop up they ain't cheap (unless it's an esi) There's only 3 registered in my county and 2 are mine. I receive compliments every time I drive her and I almost never did with my eclipses. Even my 97 Tsi with it's crappy paint job gets a ton of lookers. Most youngsters don't know about DSMs because they weren't of age in the 90s. They don't even know what a talon is until they see the taillights as I pass em. But, everyone's heard of eclipses, usually the bad ones.
I'm a bit confused. What are you buying the tsi shell for? Just some fenders and talon tail lights? Seems excessive considering they're junkyard parts. As Chrysler kid said you can't exactly drop the motor in the awd shell and convert it to fwd without some work, but it's doable just not common. You can use your GST for the subframe and suspension parts you need. You can probably use the awd gas tank if it's there. Or you may luck out and find an awd conversion locally or a AWD part out. The ecus are the same except for the speed limiter on the fwd.
I say keep em both and slowly piece together the parts for an awd build on the Tsi. If not, and the talon shell is really much better than your GST then go for the swap. AWD is rewarding off the line but if you don't care about the track or spinning tires all the time FWD is much easier to work on because of less 20yr old parts. A Talon is always worth saving due to the rarity.
For 802gst that's a helluva dilemma considering a 98 Tsi awd is the rarest of rare 2g.
 
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The OP says the talon is only missing:
1-engine
2-transmission
3-transfercase.
I guess its all about area, there is always a few dsm part outs on CL near me. I have a spare AWD tranafer case laying in my shop now that was just given to me when I bought one of my dsms. I could jump on CL or the classifieds and find an AWD trans and trasnfer case.

If the talon is not rusted, all the wiring is there and it is a clean car, CLEAN is key word. Then get those 3 items and build it :)
 
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I have owned/own plenty of Awd and Fwd versions, Since I actually like to be able to DRIVE my cars, I say big turbo and slicks on the Fwd, and say goodbye to wheelspin and hello to single digits, if you choose the Awd system then make sure to always pack two trash bags and a shovel in your hatch, oh and pack your bank account with money, you will need it (and AAA gold level).

As far as looks, I cant for the life of me understand how anybody thinks that the 2g Talon looks good at all, it just doesnt flow well with the rounded body lines of the 2g body. The 1g Talon looked way better than the 1g Eclipse hands down, but the 2g Eclipse came back with a vengance and trounced the 2g Talon looks wise, had the 2g Eclipse came with orange tails, I dont thing we would even be having a conversation, it would flat out rule.
 
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FWD on the street is wheel spin, wheel hope, and tourqe steer. Simple as that, AWD is better, simple as that...

If you want a 1/4 track car, sell both dsm, go to the junk yard and pull an LS1, throw it in any s$#t rwd car you can find and run single digests.

If you want a fast street car, that you dont want to run slicks on, think about AWD. If you want a fun all around car, thats going to cost less then maintaining an AWD car, then think about an fwd or rwd.
 
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Done right, there is no torque steer, wheel hop, or wheel spin, Kevin at Kiggly racing is a prime example of that as is Magnus racings fwd car and many others across the sport compact platform, saying that awd is better isnt telling the whole story at all, better at what? sitting on the side of the road broken? making a better yard ornament? awd is better in the winter or for rally but for drag racing or daily driving not so much in 2018 now that we have options like affordable slicks, traction control systems of various types including even the cheaper engine management systems and big enough turbos that prevent tire spin to begin with due to more linear power output.
 
I completely disagree with the talon statement (obviously) especially as I got older. The 95-96 talon with the twisty skirts and thumbnail spoiler reminds me of a refined subtle European sports car and I think is the only DSM that doesn't look dated. The 2gb talon is straight outta the 90s and took me awhile to grow into, and the 2gb eclipse just looks goofy with the fat ass, square side skirts and big hoop spoiler. It doesn't help I had a HS gf drive one. I'm 42 years old I don't need to drive an obnoxious car.
Everyone's tastes are different at different ages. Just remember that if you plan on hanging onto the cars for awhile.
If the TSI is straight, rust free and in better condition than your GST then just swap everything over and make the TSi FWD. That's your best bet if you're unfamiliar with AWD. I personally love my FWD much more than my AWD; I chose to build that car instead of the AWD because it was in much better shape and much easier to work on. Even when they were both bone stock the FWD was much more responsive. But that's just my 2¢
 
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I agree with the guys for FWD. Not that I dislike AWD. But I've found that less weight in a car is the direction I like to go when going for quick/speed. I know how to make a FWD hook, and once that happens, it's better than an AWD of similar power. The benefits of the FWD are in fuel economy as well. Way less weight/rolling resistance. As others have said, much simpler/dependable/cost effective system to work with. I dont claim FWD is better than RWD or AWD, but it certainly isn't bad if you know what to do with it.
 
Thanks for all the replies so far! Figured I'd be opening up a can of worms, but it's been pretty good so far. What about any thoughts on dropping a 2JZ single turbo into the TSI? I can find motor, trans, drive shaft and rear end from a Supra for about $3k. Finding a Supra for parts to go in is the hard part LOL.
 
I wouldnt consider a 2jz swap, if you want a 2jz get a 2jz based car and be done with it, they can be had fairly cheap as can the 1jz cars. Alot of my playing around is actually done from a roll and with that said the fwd tears the lungs out of the awd car, better gearing for higher top speed also, I guess it also depends on if you want to set a world record at the dragstrip or have a fun much lighter and more nimble platform for highway or road course play, I have both but my fwd is my baby.
 
Having been into the supra scene, I know that there are many misnomers people have about the 2JZ and its capabilities. The only available 2JZ engines people always talk about pulling out of Lexus' and what not, are not at all like the 2JZ GTE engines that came twin turbo. You can't just throw a turbo on a 2JZ. It can't handle it. And the differences inside are enough that you can't even put most things out of a 2JZ-GTE into a 2JZ. The process of making a 2JZ any good are astronomically expensive and complicated. Its not worth it at all. A 4G63 can easily be far better than a basic 2JZ. You are looking at big bucks for a 2JZ-GTE like what came in the late 90s Supra twin turbo. You won't find one just laying around a junk yard or that hasn't been pulled from a downed shell. So I'd scratch that idea. Thats not even considering what would be needed to make it work in a DSM.
 
We made the trip to the car last Saturday, but unfortunately the trailer we were borrowing was in terrible shape and both axles locked within 10 miles. So, we didn't get the whole car. What's even more sad, is the car was mis-identified. Instead of being a TSI, it was a GSX and in the most remarkable shape I've seen for a 20 year old car. It only had about 50k miles on it and had been garaged for all or most of its life. We took everything we could, everything except carpet, seats and a few interior panels, the rest is in our garage. It also came with a 20 gallon fuel cell, F&F style body kit that's NIB (minus the box now because it stacked better in the back of the truck outside the box), blitz bov and a apex wing, plus a few other stock parts that were leftover from the owner doing upgrades. The original plan was to get the whole car and save it in a round about way or find someone who needed a frame, but since we couldn't find a trailer on last-minute calls, it's been crushed as the owner was moving and didn't have a place for it to go. Like I said though, we took everything useful including things we didn't need, so if I can I'll be listing the extras for sale/trade on here in the next handful of days. A lot of you have been really good people to us throughout the years with giving us info and ideas, so I feel a little obligated to give back to the dsm community. It's a small token, but it's all I can do for now and it's better than nothing. Thanks for all your help guys, sorry I couldn't save the car.
 
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