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91' Talon TSi AWD (La Rata)

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JAW91

10+ Year Contributor
131
5
Dec 16, 2008
Orlando, Florida
I know its a lot to read but this was the shortest way I could sum everything up so you guys know everything that's going on and how everything happened. Plus the read is worth it :p

Well, I sold my old 2g to my girlfriend's brother because I ended up running over the oil cooler (It wasn't properly tied down) and I'm pretty positive I spun all 4 bearings from oil starvation at the very least. So I was in search of a new DSM to replace my old 2g, but I knew I wanted an AWD this time because of what happened last time. So my search began, I looked for about 3 months before I found a red 1g that looked pretty beat up (and the owner said he was trying to sell the car with a body kit that was never put on -_-) but he said it had a freshly rebuilt motor and no rust was trying to explain to me everything else the car had but I told him I would just come take a look at it and see what was up. So I went to see the car and the guy ended up being pretty nice. The first things I noticed was that the car had no front bumper, radiator, battery, intercooler, intercooler piping and a small amount of rust on the rear drivers side quarter panel, but everything looked fixable and he told me he had a FMIC that he could give me and he had the radiator. I did not have the $2,000 that he wanted at the time, I only had $600 so I asked him if I could put a down payment on the car and have him tow it to my house (he owns a tow truck) so I can work on it and see if I can get it running before I give him the rest of the money. At first he was pretty reluctant but he finally came around and let me take the car while he kept the title. When I got the car parked in the driveway I started seeing what the deal was with it. I opened the door and found a turbo sitting on the drivers side floorboard with no exhaust housing so I ended up putting that aside to do research on it to find out what it was (Garrett turbo with 1.10 A/R housing) along with a Garrett GT3271 that was actually on the car. The guy planned on getting the car running and tuning the car with a MAF-T Pro Gen II, I just wanted to make sure the car ran at all so I just ended up taking that out and soldering all the wiring he hacked into back together so it would be stock again until I could get DSMLink V3. When I looked behind me after I could finially sit in the front seat I noticed all the stuff piled everywhere from the car (bolts, MAS, gaskets, misc car parts) the back seat got destroyed by grease from the car parts. So I cleaned out all the car parts and put them into a bin to see if they were parts that I would need to use later because I figured they had to come from somewhere (I found out later that most of the parts were just extra parts and that the guy was just really disorganized and didn't really care about the car). After I cleaned out the back seat I opened the hatch and noticed MORE car parts and bolts and about 5 years worth of piled up grease. I cleaned all that up and sorted all the parts out also. Then I noticed the car kind of smelled weird and I looked over at the passenger side floorboard and noticed something that looked like dead weeds, and a bunch of rat turds.. So I took the seats out and vacuumed everywhere. I washed the car and started working on getting the parts from my 2g's 6-bolt build to my new car to make the new car stock (14b, 2g exhaust manifold and a couple other things). After I got the parts I had put on I put my old rims from my old car on my new car because the stock saw blade rims had garbage tires on them (every one was dry rotted). Then moved on to washing the car for the first time since I got it (About 5 years worth of pollen build up and dirt), it cleaned up pretty decent except for the faded paint and clear coat peeling that I didn't notice until after I washed it. Then I moved on to cleaning the interior more thorough and started to find some nesting material under the center console by the shifter, I followed the nesting material to behind where the radio goes (The car came with no radio and a chopped radio harness... All the speakers were also cut out so the connectors are all gone). I vacuumed what was on the ground up... Then I looked up and found out what was nesting in the car... Rats.. And they had been living in the air vent tunnels of the car I guess with nesting material they had found. I vacuumed out what I could without taking the dash out. My girlfriend's brother came outside and I wanted to show him how far the car had came already since the last time he saw it (The guy dropped it off the night before and I started working on the car right before the sun came up). I let him sit in the drivers seat while I sat in the passenger seat and he looked down by the radio by my feet and said "what is that?" so I looked down and there was a baby rat crawling up the passenger side floorboard by my feet (Alive). I jumped out of the car and ran to get stuff to get the rat out (I didn't want to touch it with my hands). I got the rat out and right after that we found out the name for the car "La Rata". Here is some pictures of the car now and a little after I had cleaned it (I didn't get pictures of how bad it really was before I started on it because I was just too excited to even think about that).

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This is the earliest picture I have of the engine bay, I had already pretty much got it together. I can't believe I forgot to get pictures of the car when I first got it, it was bad, especially the engine bay... The block is yellow! :ohdamn: .

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This is the turbo that came ON the car, it's a Garrett 3271. It was on an ebay hacked and destroyed manifold with an old turbonetics delta mark II waste gate. I'm glad the turbo never got ran on the car because with that manifold and waste gate I don't think it would have lasted very long.

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If you know what your looking at you already know what I had to do here.

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The guy had a flexible rubber hose here that was completely destroyed, I tried putting gas into it the first time and none of it even made it to the tank, which was bad because I had to take the tank off and get about 5 gallons worth of 5 year old gas out of it.

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The P/O sprayed rustolium over the rust before it got bad luckily, even though now I have a black patch on the body, it doesn't really matter because I'm going to be going flat black with the whole car anyways eventually. Plus that's the only rust spot on the body I've found, Anybody got any suggestions on how I can get those side vent covers back on? I was thinking body mold?

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My front seats and dash with my awesome JDM steering wheel (Lol) I tried to make it a little better by taking the little cardboard thing out that said JDM on it and putting the stock eagle thing inside instead (I found the stock on in the side pannel).

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Before I got the radio and gauges in.

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I had to rewire the fuel pump to the stock pump wire, he had it going to a switch where the cigarette lighter used to be.

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The hatch after I cleaned all the bolts and grease out of it.

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Nesting material in the air vents.

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Rat poop and stuff that was under the passenger seat.

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This is just a small amount of what I pulled from the air vents.


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When I finally got the car started I noticed the power steering fluid was just draining when I took it for a ride around the block, so I looked under it the next day to find out that the line that goes through the bushing had rusted a hole through, so out the rack came to get new lines.

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The new OEM lines on the rack, coated with bed liner to keep liquid from settling on top of the line and to keep another rusting incident from happening again. I hope...

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The new Mishimoto radiator and slim fan.

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The new down-pipe (The car had no exhaust at all when I got it).

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I plan on getting a pipe welded from the end of the down pipe to a Dynomax VT muffler I bought and having full 3" straight pipe.

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As she sits right now until I get the Bill of Sale from the guy so I can get it registered finally. I have a question for you guys about that but I'll ask it a little later so I don't get too off topic.
 
Nice buy man, its funny how some people dump so much money into these cars then just sell them off cheap, great deals to be had. Hit that thing with some paint and your ready to go.
 
Congratulations on a good job, that is a lot of work that you are getting done there. Just one curiosity, when and where did you buy those power steering lines? I few months ago I bought what I was told was the last one available in the US (I don't remember which one of the two) for my steering rack, now I have a spare that I'd like to rebuild and it would be nice if the lines were both available again.
 
Well, I got the 1g lines (obviously) and the part numbers are on the packages in the picture, I got them from JNZTuning.net though, I usually get my OEM Parts from there. Also, I got my muffler welded on by RevWorksinc.com (Rev Works) its a shop near me... They are awesome :D and my exhaust sounds great. Also, I got it registered last Wednesday finally and of course the problems began LOL. My slave cylinder boot came off and wouldn't go back on and was leaking fluid all over while it was sitting. I was filling the fluid back up and driving it anyways and of course my Shift linkage boot for my 2,4, and Reverse ripped and so for now my shift linkage is zip-tied to itself (The new shift linkages should be coming in any day) and that's working for now. I also already replaced the slave cylinder. Pictures to come tomorrow. Also, I painted both fenders flat primer black to match the hood and other side. I have not re-painted the hood yet but that is to come next and then I will start working on the rest of the car.
 
Thanks LOL its actually a Turbonetics DeltaGate Mark II wastegate (A 2 bolt wastegate that he tried to make fit on a 4 bolt flange)
 
Here are some before and after pictures of some of the interior that I cleaned up the stains on today. Also, I have some of the pictures of the exhaust that I promised you guys. I wish I would have gotten pictures of it on the lift, it looked amazing, they really know what they are doing over here at Rev Works. Here are some of them with me just jacking it up. I also, sanded down what clear coat was left on the fenders and sprayed them both flat black so they actually matched were the same color. I plan on taking the passenger side fender off again and fixing the dents out and everything before I actually paint it for real.


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The Fenders:

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The Exhaust:

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The Motor Now:

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Lol yeah its alright, I would really like to get a new front bumper, fix the back bumper and all the dents and paint the car all matte black like the rims are.
 
Tomorrow :) I only have crappy cell phone pictures right now but I'll post some of everything even though I don't have the tubular O2 housing on it right now. I also think I found out why I'm getting knock, I think I have one more more collapsed lifters. So, I'm either going to put the lifters from my old head with only 60k miles on it in the new motor or I'm going to buy some revised lifters. I also got a new front bumper support from the junk yard off a 90' laser so no more ghetto home-made bracket holding up my front bumper, and I also got a steering wheel from the laser and put my talon logo in it so no more "JDM" steering wheel LOLol.
 
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My new toy that I bought from turbolover10 Evo III 16g and FP Manifold. I cleaned it all up and repainted the manifold.

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And something I forgot to post about was that when I first got the car the RPM's didn't work so I got to thinking... The car has an external oil cooler, the 1990 coil pack, and the 1990 throttle body but it has a 1991 gauge cluster. Long story short I bought a 1990 gauge cluster. I sanded the backs of the new gauges because I wanted them to be white and brighter to match my boost gauge but I instead got a lighter orange color from it which I think is because I need to get some new white LED bulbs for the back of the cluster to make it white like I wanted it. For now though brighter works for me, plus the RPM's work now :) they are a little shakey and drop to zero when I get on the turbo but I think that's because of the noise filter. Anyways, I'll figure it out. Here is the picture of what it looks like from my perspective right now.

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Lookin good, its amazing what a little cleaning and paint will do. I'm looking forward to tuning it:sneaky:
 
Yeah its crazy, I cant wait to paint the whole thing :p also, I can't wait to tune it either. I have to get those lifters first though.
 
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This is the car as it sits right now, the head gasket is leaking but I think its because of my crappy torque wrench not being able to torque to the right specification that I set it to. I put on the new Evo III 16G, the Cyclone intake manifold that I have had since I bought my crate motor for my last car, my FP exhaust manifold, Hyundai valve cover, a head that I had sitting with 50k miles on it that I cleaned up in the parts cleaner and did the valve stem seals on. I also put in the 3g Revised lifters because I was getting horrible lifter tick and put on a new FelPro PermaTorque head gasket and did a small wire tuck.
 
I haven't been able to try it yet since my head gaskets leaking BUT I've read that it will give a 5% fuel efficiency increase and 40 torque. I also put the heat barrier gasket on it, the only bad part is I didn't figure out my MPG before I put it on :(
 
I haven't been able to try it yet since my head gaskets leaking BUT I've read that it will give a 5% fuel efficiency increase and 40 torque. I also put the heat barrier gasket on it, the only bad part is I didn't figure out my MPG before I put it on :(
I also opted for the heat gasket. Just as much for the fact it is thick and I don't use the rear brace for the intake manifold. Extra protection for the vibration. And then there is that whole intake temps thing. That too, I guess :)
 
Same here, no brace for me. It also increases the length of the runners. v:D
 
looks pretty good, I had a 91 awd dsm with a jdm 6bolt, act clutch,dnp turbo manifold,agp delta 52, dsmlink v3, cams blah blah blah, I sold the car for 4 grand, the new owner drove the car for 1k miles before he busted the driver axel , now im buying it back for 1,500 :)
 
That's awesome man, mines supposed to be a 91 but everything in the motor is for a 90'. The body is a 91 but the motor is a 90 LOL.
 
mmmmm maybe I have that issue LOL, well I brought the car home today LOL, but I have a 91 talon with a jdm motor, and im wondering if I have a 90 motor and tranny or what, cause my shift brackets are from a 90 but its hard to get into gears if I try to speed shift it, but I have 91 cables?? mm ill figure it out..

sorry to get out of topic, looks like you have done great improvement to the car
 
Thank you :) Head gasket has been fixed by the way, but now the turbo took a poop :notgood: anyways, I still have to weld a T-25 waste gate to the manifold for butterfly runners. Once I get the turbo rebuilt that will be happening but for now I have to go back to the 14b :ohdamn: . Oh well... I also ended up cutting the garbage dynomax muffler off because the stupid flapper was stuck closed and it was rattling like crazy before that anyways so now I'm full 3" straight pipe :hellyeah:
 
Just a little update since the last one.. 6 years ago.I started messing with the car again once I moved to my new house. I wasn’t driving it for a while though because it was having issues starting since I had a rat in the engine bay again (imagine that LOL) who decided to chew up lots of random wires. I ended up buying a Rywire harness which only powers the essentials. I started running wires to everything else last weekend to hopefully get the car going again in the next couple of weeks. I already drained and change the oil and filter, got the old fuel out and put some fresh fuel in. Just gotta get the rest of the wiring figured out. When I am done I will
Probably do a write up of how to get that harness working with a supplemental secondary harness to power accessories like I’ve done. Anyways, here are some pictures to go with the story.
 

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