THE BEAST, '91 EAGLE TALON TSi

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INTRODUCTION, TABLE OF CONTENTS

I've had my 1991 Eagle Talon TSi since 2002. She's always been a fun car for me and a great learning experience as far as my mechanical skills go. I've been through ups and downs with her and I don't see myself giving her spot in the garage away anytime soon.

Since late 2015, I've enjoyed getting to work on her again and giving her the attention she needs. I'll go through the history of this car since I've owned her and what I've done to date. Today, my goal is to build a clean, good looking, 400-450 hp car focused on the strip but drive-able on the street. Enjoy the build journal, and please give me a rating in the Quick Stats section to let me know what you think. All comments and critiques are welcome.

I'll try to get this up to date as quickly as possible but bare with me. Here's The Beast as she stands today...

As you can see, she needs some work. You should be able to use the links below to go straight to certain points in the journey. I'll update the links as I add more posts.
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1. My 1st DSM
2. My 2nd DSM, The Score! (Sorry, no pictures)
3. Timing Belt Woes and Why I hate Tallahassee (Sorry, no pictures)
4. A little more than stock (Sorry, no pictures)
5. Hey, what's that noise? (Sorry, no pictures)
6. 21 Splines makes a nice, smooth output shaft (Sorry, no pictures)
7. Interior Cleaning (Finally, some pictures!)
8. The Link and a new Gauge Setup
9. General Condition and Damage Assessment
10. Transmission and Engine Extraction
11. Don't drop a valve, don't drop a valve, don't drop a valve...
12. Front case and block cleanup
13. Final engine assembly
14. First start
15. Leaky Seals
16. Some more maintenance
17. Buttoning this Beast up....I think
18. First Drives
19. Brake Rebuild

 

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My first DSM - 1994 Mitsubishi Eclipse RS, Emerald Green

So I'll start with a bit of my DSM history. A long, long, long time ago, when I was 16, I got my driver's license and a minimum wage paying job. So after working long enough to get something in the bank I was ready to go out looking for a car. I had spent a good amount of time with a buddy that worked and then owned a speed shop. He drove a beautiful, white, 2g GST on a LOT of boost. So naturally I decided that I wanted one too. Note that this was before everything was done through google. So with absolutely no research or knowledge of what I was looking for I started probing the classifieds (like in the newspaper....) and keeping my eyes open while driving around town (in a '94 AWD GMC Safari). Eventually I came across a '94 Mitsubishi Eclipse RS.

The car had been owned by a girl that was going off to college. She was a bare bones 5-speed with peeling, purple tint and an A/C that was out of gas. The odometer showed 64K miles on it and she had a MASSIVE 1.8L SOHC 4G37, 4-banger powerhouse with an incredible 92 Hp at the crank on a good day. SO FAST!!! I was still not any good at driving a 5-speed so my dad actually drove her on our test drive to make sure she was good. No issues except the A/C so we bought her and took her home, me in the van and my dad leading the way in my car.

I had this car for about 5 years. During that time I replaced the thermostat and brakes along with frequent oil changes. I broke the rear motor mount, literally in half, from hard launching at our local 1000ft track. I installed a strut tower bar (designed for a 4G63) which interfered with the ISC and broke it, literally in half. At some point the timing belt snapped while the car was idling in the driveway. I pulled the pullies and cover off, threw a new belt on and buttoned her back up. Got her lined back up and cranked her over and she ran fine for another year or so before I sold her.

Mods before selling her...

• Ingen air intake pipe with K&N filter
• Unorthodox crank pulley
• Upper strut tower brace
• Sprint 2" lowering springs (cut)
• KYB AGX adjustable struts, front and rear
• Suspension Techniques sway bars, front and rear
• No name short shifter
• 2" exhaust piping from header back, no cat, 4.5" fart can
• Clear corner lenses
• 17"x8" alloy wheels with Kumho 235/45/17 tires, 50 lbs per corner!
  

Later, when I sold her I replaced the exhaust with the stock exhaust off of my '91 Talon TSi. I also swapped the 17's for some stock 15 inch '95 Eclipse RS wheels, and traded the slight and small, ergonomic knob off the Eclipse for the yardstick length, rediculous looking shifter knob off the Talon. She had about 120K on the odometer and sold for $1,600 cash.

About how she looked when I sold her, minus the exhaust...

 

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Summer, 2002 - My 2nd DSM, The Score

Well, it took me about 2 years of beating the mess out of my Eclipse to figure out that she was not a fast car. I would race anything that pulled up next to me, whether the driver knew we were racing or not. I remember an old guy in a minivan actually pulling up to the intersection next to me and giving me the “let's race” signal. Come to think of it he may have just been pointing to me and laughing, but who cares. The light went green and I very quickly was able to read his license plate from my close 2nd place position.

That was enough. I decided that I needed something that actually had some guts. I still loved the styling of the Eclipse and by this time I actually knew a little bit about what to look for. I really wanted a 2g but those were actually still a little pricey back then, although I wasn't actively looking. One day, though, I was heading home after work and spotted a 1st gen DSM from the road in the lot of a local used motor sales place. As I passed by, I noticed the 2-tone paint, side skirts and 16” wheels. I can't remember exactly, but I may have pulled the E-brake and done a 180 in the middle of a 4-lane highway to go back to it.

I pulled into the lot, parked the car and went to take a look. Sure enough, it had the 16V DOHC TURBO / ALL WHEEL DRIVE stickers on the side skirts! She was black cherry with silver skirts and a black roof and wing. I went inside and asked if I could give her a test drive and the owner said “sure.” Luckily, I was only about a couple miles from my buddy's shop so I drove her straight there. Scotty hopped in the driver seat and with me in the passenger seat (only time I've ever ridden in the passenger seat) we took her for a run. He gave her a bit of a beating, testing the integrity of the motor and she passed. We figured the turbo probably didn't have much left on her and I had noticed the boots on both the front axles were torn. When I brought her back to the dealer I made him an offer a bit lower than what he told me he was asking. He said that would work so now I had to figure out a way to come up with the money. Long story short (well, a little shorter anyway) I went back a few days later, cash in hand, and picked her up.

 

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Spring, 2003 - Timing Belt Woes and Why I hate Tallahassee

I started by handling some of the maintenance issues that I noticed during the test drive. I replaced both front axles, all of the fluids, including transfer case and diff. I also checked the timing belt for wear, degradation, etc. Here's a helpful hint for any new, first time DSM owners reading this....CHANGE THE TIMING BELT! Unless you are the one that put the current timing belt on, or you watched it get done, change the belt. No matter how it looks, you do not know for sure that it will not break while you are 800 miles away from home, driving to Florida for spring break....yeah, that happened.

Many dollars later the car was back in the shop getting the timing cover and head pulled off. The damage? 14 bent valves. Really, not that bad considering I was cruising at 70 on the interstate. The only thing I can figure is I was off the throttle going downhill and I pushed in the clutch as soon as it shut off. Either way, I got some new experience sending the head out to be surfaced and rebuilt with fresh valves. Got her put back together with a new water pump, balance shaft belt, tensioner and timing belt. Most of the seals got replaced during this repair as well.

 

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Fall, 2003 - A little more than stock

So other than the new stock valves and replacement water pump, the car was still pretty stock at this point. I had lowered it on Eibach springs and KYB struts. I pulled the 4.5” fart can muffler off the Eclipse and had it welded to some 2.5” piping from the downpipe back. Scotty had given me a 3” downpipe as he had one just chilling at his shop. She had way more in her than the Eclipse but still wouldn't set me back in the seat or anything.

That's when Scotty hooked me up with a 2g MAF and intake tube. I slapped this thing on, along with a manual boost controller and boost gage and then took her for a spin. WOW! So that's what I've been missing! To all you guys that have been in the game for a while and don't remember, when you go from a 92hp (all out with wind on your back) NA Eclipse to pushing 15lbs through 2g MAF, you notice it!

 

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Fall, 2003 - Hey, what's that noise?

So now I had something that I knew felt fast. I had been going to our local 1000ft strip pretty often already, I figured I'd up the boost a bit and take her out with her new, bigger nose and get a new slip. Like a dipstick I upped the boost a bit more (20lbs...) before I headed out. In my defense, I had also installed some Evo 510cc injectors, another gift from Scotty.

There were 4 of us heading up there, Scotty in his Galant, a dude (can't remember his name) in an Acura, another dude in a Civic Si, and me. We had just gotten off the interstate and were about 10 minutes away from the track. I was last in line and pulled out onto the road. Once I was rolling I hit it to see how 20 lbs felt (I know....stupid time to check if it's going to work....). She took off like a bullet and if felt great....and then I heard the “POP”. No go go. Engine still runs, and idles fine....that's good. Give it some gas? Nope. Lot's of grinding. Hey? Why don't I have to push the clutch in when I come to a stop?

Anyway, after a long night of watching other cars run down the strip, I went back to the parking lot I left her in and limped back home.

 

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Fall, 2003 - 21 Splines makes a nice, smooth output shaft

I got her back to my shop and up on the lift. I knew it was going to be the clutch so when I got the transmission down and saw that the clutch and flywheel looked nearly perfect I had to start thinking again. I went back and looked a little closer at the other components. Got around to the output shaft on the transmission and bingo. Not a single spline left on it. Turns out when you strip the splines on your output shaft you lose your rear wheels....go figure.

This was a “while I was in there” time. While I had the transmission out I decided I'd take a stab at quieting up those pesky synchros and intermediate shaft bearings. Now this part, if I didn't know I did it, I'd swear I never pulled the thing apart! Somehow I managed to fumble my way through the service manual through this whole job and got it back together in working condition. I put in all new bearings, synchronizer rings and synchronizer pawls, all direct from Mitsubishi. I probably only spent a few hundred dollars on the whole thing.

I also threw in a new stock spec clutch, pressure plate and throwout bearing. Got everything buttoned back up and got her back on the road. After that she purred like a kitten through 5 gears and I wasted no time breaking in that new clutch. It's nice how you can fix a DSM and for a little while she's good to you. They always have a way of coming back to haunt you though...

 

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Fall, 2015 - Interior Cleaning


So for 11 years, The Beast hibernated under pine trees and a car cover in my yard. I wasn't able to keep her under the carport because my wife's car got that spot. Plus I didn't even get the car cover for her until 2013! So she grew a nice layer of sap, pine needles and pollen during that time. Then in 2015 I bought a house with a garage and decided it was time to get moving on this thing. I moved her in to the freshly painted, miniaturized, 2-car garage and got her up on wheel dollies. I highly recommend wheel dollies for any projects that take a couple months or more. Being able to just roll the car around to get to where I needed made things much easier. I was able to roll her right up against the exterior wall of the garage to make full use of the other bay once I was finished moving in and out of the driver side.

I started by pulling out the seats, console and carpet. By this time I had watched all of Tom's videos on his Talon and the sleeper GVR4 which gave me the motivation to jump right in to this. Getting the carpet out went much easier than I expected and I only found a handful of crusties under the 25 year old mat.

Once I got the carpet out and the weather got nice enough, I laid it out in the driveway and went after it with the pressure washer. This worked magic to the stains and grossness that was caked into it. I spent maybe a couple hours just hitting the whole thing and then going over it again and again to get all the stains out. There were two trouble spots, one in the front passenger floorboard and one in the rear driverside floorboard that took the most time. I think the stuff in the back was oil, who knows from what. Here's before and after.

I did the same thing with the back seat. For the front seats, I just gave them a good 3 times over with the shop vac and cleaned all the cobwebs out. Then I pulled the brackets off scuffed the surface rust off and hit them with some black rattle can.

While I had all of that stuff removed, I cleaned the console parts and radio bezel. I also installed some shifter base bushings and rebuilt my shifter. I put in all new bushings and re-welded the broken shifter arm that I found while disassembling. Sprayed everything with low gloss black and reinstalled. I also rewired the radio with proper soldered, shrink-wrapped joints. This radio was awesome when I bought it 15 years ago for the eclipse, what with its remote control and all. Guess it's out of style now though...what's a CD?

I got everything reinstalled into the cab and gave the dash a good scrubbing. Next step, installing my boost gauge and LC2WB gauge into my sweet, custom gauge pod...oh yeah....and ECMLink!

 

[Maes]

Looks so much cleaner. Nice work.

 

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November, 2015 – The Link and a new Gauge Setup

Back when I first started wrenching on cars I had thought tuning was a black art. I remember a tuner in Arkansas had designed a throttlebody spacer and gave them out for free in exchange for dynoing the car before and after. I let him use my car as a guinea pig for the design and he threw it on his dyno to check the results. The deal was that I got to keep the spacer but he kept the results. I chalked it up to being part of the “secret sauce” that went in to what they charged you for dynoing and tuning services. I knew what an SAFC was and that you could control fuel with it and all but I never really tried to understand it more than that.

Fast forward a few years and here's ECMLink! This amazing little chip that makes tuning more user friendly than figuring out how to adjust your clock for daylight savings time. Now, granted, I haven't even come close to learning all of the features and controls with it yet, but I can tell you that what you get from ECM Tuning takes about 15 minutes to install and you're ready to go straight out of the box.

So in November while I had the console out I pulled the ECU and checked for the EPROM chip. When I saw that mine had one I went ahead and sent it in for a checkup and socketing. I received my precious little box of joy about a week later and went ahead and got it plugged in. The guys at ECMTuning also replaced the notorious capacitors while they were in there even though they still looked okay (amazingly enough).

Here's a shot of the before...

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Here's the after...

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While I was at it I got my NLTS wires spliced in and wired up my LC2WB. I tied it in to my NBO2 input as I decided that would be the easiest to locate and setup. I already had the input located because I had a ricer NBO2 digital gauge hooked up from my previous life. Looking back at it now and after reading some of the other threads, if I ever get motivated enough I'll switch this to a different input and install a narrow band O2 because I like the idea of having a redundant system for monitoring fuel. I mounted the Innovate power supply to the inside of the console under the radio. This way when I calibrate, I can just pull the DIN pocket out to watch the light.

Now for the gauges....

The perks of having access to rapid prototyping machines. Previously, I had been using a hacked up piece of steel with two ~2” holes cut in it with an oxyacetylene torch for my gauge pod. I really like having the gauges in the dash with a stockish look, so I decided to CAD up a gauge pod that snaps in place of the stock vent. I left some vent slots in there for airflow and designed the rear brackets to fit my specific setup. If I ever change gauges (at some point I can imagine 30 psi not being enough...) I'll probably have to modify my design. The FDM doesn't have as good of resolution as other rapid prototype machines but this did the job and with some flat black paint doesn't look too bad.

Here's how it looks in the car from the driver's seat. I'd say I got it pretty close as far as the angles. I've adjusted my model since to angle it a little better but this was pretty good for eyeballing it. I'll also swap the boost and WB gauges next time as I tend to watch the WB more than the boost.

 

[GST with PSI]

That gauge pod is awesome. I'm sure there would be a market for them should you decide to create more.

 

[92AWDHX40]

I got my gauge pod off eBay does the job . Keep up the great work.

 

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December, 2015 – General Condition and Damage Assessment

Now that I had the cabin cleaned up a bit I got started on the engine bay. Remember, the car sat out in the weather for about 11 years at this point. Most of that time she didn't even have a car cover on her. I was totally expecting to find rodent nests, wasp hives, you name it. It really wasn't that bad. The engine bay was littered with acorn shells, pine needles, leaves, etc. but no evidence that a family had ever moved in. Still, with the look that there had been plenty of rodent presence there, I was not looking forward to sorting out all of the chewed up wires I now expected to find.

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I got right to it pulling stuff off. My goal for this spurt of energy was to get the transmission ready to pull while also taking inventory of what I would need to replace. Luckily, I'm not in a hurry these days so I took my time labeling things and writing down what looked like would need a replacement or a rebuild. I started with getting the wheels off and preparing to pull the axles. You can imagine my thoughts once I could see the whole rotor and axle nut. The brake calipers looked pretty awesome too.

The bump stop was nearly disintegrated on one side and not much better on the other. I also located a slave cylinder leak as well as getting a good view of a rear main leak and turbo oil drain pipe leak. The front crank seal must have also leaked for a long time before the car stopped driving because there was a layer of grime built up on the left crossmember under the car. Both control arms also had a good layer of dirt on them.

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The list was getting pretty long by the time I got around to the top. Basically anything that was rubber was going to need replacing which was what I had guessed. I also found this awesome bandaid on my lower radiator hose. I'm going to say that I didn't do this, but I really couldn't tell you for sure.

I finished up the night with everything out of the way and the transmission ready to be dropped and left it like that for the night. Really, the day went pretty well. Remember those nasty looking axle nuts? They actually just came right off with the impact. I didn't break, strip or loose a single bolt! I'd write that up as a successful start to a tear down for sure. I definitely felt more optimistic about getting the transmission out. I was feeling pretty good about doing the thing that I had not done on this car yet, pulling the engine!

 

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December, 2015 – Transmission and Engine Extraction

Getting the transmission out once I had everything else out took no time. Just pulling the transmission to engine bolts, transmission mount and then wrestling it out using a floor jack as an extra hand. I do want to put a reminder in here for myself to take that gusset plate out before pulling the transmission back from the engine next time. Going off of experience here, you will not get the transmission out with that plate still in place...

The transmission looked okay, just really dirty. The right side axle seal had a tear in it but the left side was still good. It also did not look like it was leaking any out of the input or output shafts in the bell housing. The throwout bearing felt pretty crunchy when I spun it so that will go on the list.

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Now to pull the engine. I borrowed a cherry picker and got some chain for this. I had to figure up a plan for getting it back into the garage once I had it out. This ended up being an arrangement of some scrap OSB and plywood stacked up to make a ramp up into the garage. And a bit of muscling the hoist's wheels up over the expansion joints in the concrete. It all went pretty smoothly and the engine didn't fall off of the chain with all of the bouncing about which was good.

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I took some shots of the back of the engine while I could access it then bolted it up to the engine stand. I could definitely tell that the rear main had been replaced at some point since there was blue RTV gooped up under the main housing. I could also tell the it would be a fun time of cleaning all of the dirt and grime built up in all of the ribs and recesses in the block....stupid oil leaks....

I got the timing cover off and got a good look of the timing components. Obviously everything on the front would be getting replaced or at least completely taken apart. I did find some good creepy crawlies in here too. I could also now see how messy a leaky front main can be.

My plan was to refresh everything I could without pulling the head. Probably not the best plan especially when you figure up the cost of all of the seals and gaskets I ultimately replaced vs. the cost of an engine gasket kit. But I knew I did not want to break into the block unless I had to. I had a pretty good list of things to start with now and was ready to start tackling it.

 

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January, 2016 – Don't drop a valve, don't drop a valve, don't drop a valve.....

So the first thing up on my list was the reason I stopped driving the Beast 12 years ago. Looking at it now it would have made a lot of sense to just fix this when I found it but you know how that goes, or maybe you don't, I don't know. Anyway, I had noticed that the car would rev high at idle occasionally before I stopped driving it. I could tap the throttle and it would settle down a little but still acted funny. After checking some things I got around to pulling the valve cover to look at the valves and rocker arms and I was going to put in some new lifters. I got as far as pulling the valve cover off when I noticed that one of the valves looked funny so I stopped there. Fast forward 13 years, I pull the valve cover and cams and here's how the intake valve on cylinder 3 looks with nothing in the way...

Yeah, so, the valve is being held in by about the bottom ¼ of the keepers. The only thing I can guess is that these were damaged when the shop put them back in after the timing belt episode (see above) and they continued to degrade from “normal” driving. After I pulled them out I could see how bad of shape they were really in.

So I proceeded to replace these 2 and another set on the exhaust side. On both valves, I replaced both keepers and the retainer with OEM parts. I also went through and put in all new viton valve seals. The euroexport tool, a compression tester hose and my compressor made pretty quick work of this. If you're looking at using this tool, use some grease on the keepers to hold them in place while you decompress the spring and on the bolt to let it turn freely. The tool worked okay and got the job done but there are better tools out there. This was also a good time to throw in some revised lifters and ARP head studs. The lifters were thoroughly cleaned, soaked and then bled down before installation.

After I got all of that back together my next task was fixing all of the loose valve cover bolts. These things were barely holding the cover on, which was another cause for all the oil all over the place. I used a helicoil kit and replaced the threads in all of the holes. I also got a new valve cover bolt set to replace all of the old crusty bolts that came with the car.

I checked that the valve cover bolted on snugly with the new threads then pulled it back off to prepare to reinstall the rockers and camshafts. I got a warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that I now had all good parts in the top end. I would have liked to have been putting in new camshafts with this repair but those weren't in the budget yet.

 

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January, 2016 – Front case and block cleanup

With the top end sorted, I now needed to tackle the bottom end. I knew I needed to replace the front and rear main seals and reseal the oil pan. I decided to get a new front case gasket as well and check out the oil pump.

I started by pulling the balance shafts and the front case. Once those were removed I went after the mating surfaces with a variety of tools to remove all of the gasket material from both surfaces. This took some time to get everything off but was well worth it.

I also replaced the castle nut seal during this. I'm not even going to go into what I did to get that thing off but just know that for every second I worked on it I regretted ever having to mess with it in the first place. It was in bad shape when I finally got to it though. I put in a new o-ring and a new castle nut.

I checked out the oil pump and made sure the gears and clearances spec'd out. I also smoothed out the transitions in the oil galleys on the back of the case. A carbide burr bit made quick work of this. Then I did the same to the oil galleys on the front of the block. I went as far as I felt comfortable with, using a towel shoved into the block to keep the debris from going into the block.

I had bought a BSE kit when I originally started planning. But after reading a few threads on the arguments from both sides I decided to leave them in. I got the balance shafts loaded back in after cleaning them up, bolted the case back up and put on a new water pump as well. Ooooo.....what a shiny engine I have now!

Oh, wait, it needs an oil pan. Okay, so I cleaned up the oil pan next. This was a sequence of scrub, rinse, repeat over a period of a couple days. When I was satisfied with it I gave the outside a good coat of primer and heavy coat of low gloss black engine enamel. The rear main seal got replaced at this point as well. It was tough getting to it and cleaning the surfaces with the engine on the stand but I managed. Then I slapped some RTV around the oil pan sealing flange and bolted her back on. I made sure to put the shorter bolts in the front under the timing belt so as not to immediately ruin my engine.

So by now I had a pretty fresh, clean long block. My next steps would be to install the camshafts and timing belt. I had done this before with the engine in the car so I expected it to go pretty smoothly with full access to the front of the engine. But still, I dragged it out a little to make sure I had everything I would need.

 

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May, 2016 – Final engine assembly

Once I got started on the timing belt job I immediately ran into a problem with the timing belt tools that I bought. The cam holder had been machined incorrectly and would not fit. I shot an email to Extreme PSI and sent them a picture of what was going on. They sorted it out and sent me the corrected piece no charge.

With that sorted and the new piece in hand I got back to work a few days later. Overall the timing belt job was obviously much easier with the engine out of the car. It was also nice being able to take my time on it and make sure everything was done correctly.

Next I got the water pipe installed and took a final look at my nice clean block. This was going to be covered up soon so I wanted to get some lasting memories at how gunk free everything was while it was exposed. Ahhhh......

Enter the FP 68HTA V2.

By now, most of you have a pretty good idea of what the 68HTA is capable of and its driving characteristics. I have to admit I jumped the gun on this one a little when FP was running their sale on it in August 2015. However, after reading the reviews that were available at the time, and now after reading the reviews that are currently available, I'm still satisfied with this gem. It's definitely capable of getting me to my goals or at least very close and I feel that even with the lag that's been noticed it will still be fine for street driving. And a glimpse into the future here shows that I still haven't opened this thing up. I was at least impressed with size difference compared to the stock 14b. I wasn't expecting it to look quite this different. My only complaint about it so far is that FP didn't take the time to clock the wastegate actuator nipple so that it wasn't pointed straight at where the intake tube would be.

Before installing there were a couple things I still needed to do. One was port matching the stock O2 housing and the new SS gaskets to match the FP turbine housing.

The other was getting all of the hot parts ceramic coated! I had this done at a local coating supplier that makes their living coating headers, differentials and pistons and rod bearings for NASCAR. They also coat turbine housings for the diesel industries in the area. The parts came back looking awesome and I'm hoping that the coating really keeps down the under hood temps.

The last thing on my list was sorting out the oiling for this beast. I got an FP oil feed line kit for feeding from the OFH and installed that. I routed the line up under the manifold against the block used some heat shield sleeve on the oil line to try to keep the oil a little cooler.

For the oil drain line, I had actually planned to reuse the stock oil drain. Once I got the manifold and turbo bolted up it was clear that this was not going to work. So I also ordered a -10an oil drain kit and got that set up. I made sure to open up the AN fittings to match the gaskets before installing. I'll have to get a black nylon tube or push fit tube at some point because this shiny SS line just isn't going to work for me.

Here's the final shot of the completed engine assembly. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. It's about 600% cleaner than when I started. I probably removed about 30 lbs of oil and gunk from all the crevices. The new parts look great and I didn't break anything while going through it. There was still tons of work to do before I'd ever see it spin but this was one of the big milestones that I had looked forward to checking off for a long time. Side note here, completely disappointed with the color of the valve cover. I was absolutely not going for army green here so I'll have to get that redone.

 

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Summer 2016 – First Start

At some point between May and September I managed to get the engine bolted back up to the transmission and dropped back into the car. First I had to clean up the trans (fail on the blast cabinet...) and give it some solid coats of Duplicolor Engine primer and aluminum spray....Neighbors love it when you spray paint car parts in the front yard....especially when you make it as classy as this.

I stabbed the transmission with the engine on the hoist and the trans on the workbench. This made it very easy to line up and get bolted up by myself. For the clutch I chose the ACT 2600 sprung 6 puck. I used some Avid poly motor mounts to line everything up. This was pretty tricky getting the engine / trans assembly dropped in place with these mounts installed on the car. They were very tight and didn't give much wiggle room. In the future I'll put the mounts on the engine when I install it.

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During the down time between finishing up the motor and reinstalling it there were a few other things I needed to handle. I began pulling the fuel pump to swap out the stock 25 year old pump for a new Walbro 255 LPH. While I was doing this I decided to break off all of the tank studs that the pump bolts to because they were stupid and tiny and old... Anyway, I opted for replacing the tank rather than drilling out the broken studs. The old tank was very rusty inside anyway plus I wanted to try to find a cleaner sending unit. I got a “new” stock tank and sending unit and trashed my old, rusty, dented up tank. Luckily I did manage to at least break the fuel lines loose without destroying anything and they were in really bad shape.

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Original pump and sending unit....

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“New” replacement pump and sending unit....
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I got the that done and also put in some new fuel lines and a new fuel filter. I bled the brakes at this point. I did this by cracking the bleeders and letting the whole system drain before putting new fluid in and pumping it through. I also greased up all of the caliper pins. Ewe...15 year old (or more) brake fluid....

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The last thing on the list before being able to try to start the car was installing the FuelLab AFPR. I got that installed and was ready to fire The Beast up....or at least try.... The first night was a no go. I turned her over a few times with the MPI fuse pulled to prime the oil pump first. Then I put the fuse back in and ran the fuel pump for a few seconds to prime the fuel lines. Then I tried to crank her.

A few spins and I could tell she wasn't going to crank. I took a look at the gauge on the regulator and there was pressure but I couldn't get it to go down. Then I remembered when I put the gas tank back in the return line seemed a little kinked but I didn't think it was much more than normal. I decided to start there and pulled the line off to shorten it up a little and get it to straighten out. Next I tried priming the fuel system again and voila! I had good pressure and could hear the fuel being pumped back into the tank through the return.

2nd try did it. She turned over and coughed a few times but then cranked! 12 years and The Beast was running! She sounded terrible because I had nothing past the downpipe installed and the new lifters were doing a tap dance under the valve cover but she was running. I let her run a bit to level out and then shut her off to check for fluid leaks.

It felt incredible to hear her fire up after so long and so much work. This was a major milestone for me even though there was still tons of work to do before I could take her for a drive. It had been over a year since I began work on her. My next steps were to finish up the drive-line to make her drive-able and then start diagnosing any issues I could find.

 

[crash]

September, 2016 – Leaky seals

Now that she was running I had the fun task of finding all the things that I couldn't find, or just didn't find, when she was not running. After letting her run and idle a few times and pulling parts off and checking them, she developed the notorious high idle / idle surge symptoms of a vacuum leak and would not go into closed loop. I spent hours going over every part of the intake spraying things with water, listening, feeling for leaks. I never could find any spots that changed the idle. I finally decided that it must be the throttle body shaft seals.

I disassembled everything and pulled the throttle body off. First I drew a line down the throttle springs for lining them up later. Then I started pulling all the parts off.

Pulling the throttle plate off and throttle shaft out was next. This gave me access to the seals which I pried out, making sure not to scratch the housing. Once the seals were out I felt more confident that this was where my leak was coming from... I also put in a new BISS o-ring.

I reassembled the throttle body and parts then put it back in the car.

Once everything was bolted back up I fired her back up....still surging (frowny face). I shut her down and sat there staring at the engine for a minute. Then I noticed that the intake snorkel looked funky. Closer inspection showed that it was nearly falling off of the turbo inlet. I loosened the hose clamp and slid the tube back over the inlet and tightened it back down. Cranked her up again and there it was. No idea how I didn't notice that before and why the water that I sprayed all over it didn't affect the idle but there it was.

Once she was up to operating temperature she settled down to the set 750 RPM and purred like a fat, sleepy, old cat with a mouse stuck in it's throat. Again, I had nothing installed past the downpipe...

 

[buddahboost]

That gauge pod is awesome. I'm sure there would be a market for them should you decide to create more.

Oh yeah there is. Especially for us GVR4 guys who don't want to pay $100 for Speaker pod

Loving the whole build. Not much people hang on this long, especially the same car

 

[crash]

August, 2016 – Some more maintenance

While the Beast was still on jackstands (as if she's ever coming off them....) I went through the front suspension with some new parts. First I cleaned up the control arms and gave them a fresh coat with low gloss black. Then started putting poly bushings everywhere I could fit them.

Next, I replaced the tie rod ends and ball joints with some MOOG parts...

​

Finally, I replaced the hatch struts. I was able to find these pretty easily on Rockauto. This was a pleasant surprise because last time I replaced them, about 13 years ago, I remember having a tough time trying to source them.

​

I also went ahead and wrapped my downpipe with some Ledaut 2” titanium exhaust wrap. This stuff was nasty to use dry. After I got finished I noticed in the “instructions” it says to wet it down before wrapping. That would have helped wash out most of the little fiberglass strands that ended up in my hands...ouch. Anyway, I'm happy with the look and hope that it will be enough to keep from heat soaking my oil pan. I also opted to put my WBO2 behind the flex section as innovate calls for ~24” from the cylinder head. I'll see how this works first as I can move it later if I don't like it there.

During my idle surge issue, I had another issue pop up. While the car was idling, or at least trying to idle, I noticed that the coolant temp in ECM Link wasn't rising much above about 86 deg but the dash gauge was getting dangerously high. I was able to trace this back to some bad coolant temp sensors. I replaced the sensor and got it buttoned back together, started it and let it idle and quickly saw the temps go up, up, up! After doing some searching I realized that the primary fan was not kicking on. Got it narrowed down to a bad fan motor and ordered a replacement on Rockauto. I felt like this was a little risky but the price wasn't bad so I figured I'd give it a try. The motor came in and although there were some differences between it and the stock motor it bolted right up and fit perfect! Dropped the fan back in and started the car up and temps stayed below 200 no problem.

​

With the idle and coolant temps fixed I was getting really close to being able to drive the old girl around the block for some “dynamic” testing...

 

[crash]

October, 2016 – Buttoning this Beast up....I think

So there were a couple things I had left to be able to drive the Beast. One thing I noticed after I began adding fluids (of course after I put the transmission back in the car) was the right axle seal was leaking ever so slightly. I guessed it was because I pressed it too far into the transmission because it was sitting just past flush with the housing.

​

I pulled it out and destroyed it in the process, so I installed another seal. This time I put a dab of RTV on the outer edge and made sure to press it in to where it sat just less than flush. I also replaced the transfer case output seal (because I forgot to while the transfer case was out).

Next on my list was the driveshaft. After doing some searching on here I found the videos by Jaffro and began watching them and got the pages from the FSM up on the laptop. First I disassembled the driveshaft and gave all the pieces a good cleaning. Then I went over them with some low gloss black to give it that nice, new look.

Pulling the Lobro joint apart was interesting. Ended up having to borrow a couple 3 jaw pullers from my buddy to find the one that fit. Anyway, I was able to get it apart and cleaned up. All of the bearings measured out right so I reassembled it and got it filled with grease. Then I reassembled the driveshaft with new OEM carrier bearings and new U-joints.

I also threw in some Torque Solutions solid carrier bearing bushings.

Finally, I “aligned” the front wheels using the jackstands and string method. First time I'd ever done this so it was a shot in the dark. I got it good enough to go for some test drives but that's about it.

And roughly a year after I began, the Beast moved under her own power!

So many late nights and dollars spent on her and I finally got to drive her around the block, about 12 years since the last time I drove her. I knew the journey was far from over but this was another major milestone for this nostalgic project.

 

[Vegas Smith]

Good. Now get it to run 9s.

 

[crash]

November, 2016 through January, 2017 – First drives

For my first drive I just took the Beast around in my neighborhood. I just wanted to get her moving to know if there would be any issues that I should immediately consider before taking her on the road with other vehicles. At the end of this drive there was a slight downhill stop before I turned onto my road. Going down the hill I could tell that she was being a little sluggish and by the time I got to the stop sign I didn't even have to use the brake to stop. I had a feeling my left rear caliper was sticking since it had given me trouble before so I went after this first. Up to now I had not had to mess with the rear wheels so I was quite surprised when I was only able to get 4 of the 5 lugnuts off....

​

This thing was locked on tight. In total I think I spent 5 hours working on it before I was finally able to get it off. I used a lot of tools that should never be needed on wheel removal and ended up with a bag full of metal shavings and a royally jacked up tuner lugnut. My fault for having tuner lugnuts on stock wheels as they just seize themselves into the bolt hole and screw everything up.

Once the wheel was off I was able to compress the rear caliper and got it moving enough that I was satisfied. Turns out this was a mistake that I'll get to later....

The other thing I had to handle was getting my exhaust pipe put back together. For inspection purposes I needed a CAT on the car. I ordered this sweet 3” “hi-flow” cat from Amazon along with some 3” v-bands to attach it. Then, since my exhaust piping that was on the car was only 2.5” I got a 3-2.5” reducer piece and had a buddy weld it all together. I'll attend to the 2.5” shotty piping and fart can muffler later...

I decided the car was put together enough to drive to work so I came home for lunch the next week and swapped rides. At the time I lived about 5 miles from work so it was a short drive which I made even shorter by stopping at my buddy's house on the way as a check in. The car had a bit of a smell but I chalked it up to all of the oil on the new parts, copper gasket spray, etc. Drove the rest of the way to work and decided that there was definitely something wrong. Smoke was coming from the left front wheel well and the wheel was hot to the touch.

After limping the car back home, with a stop at Dan's house again about halfway, I parked her until I had a chance to give her a closer look. A bit of a let down but I'll leave you with a "glamour" shot of The Beast at my work parked next to Dan's "new" 325i...

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[bastarddsm]

1 tip. Don't use them bristle discs/scotchbrite or any other abrasive discs on a zippy grinder to clean gasket surfaces. They leave abrasive embedded, and leave you with a no longer flat surface. Use a scraper, and if you feel the need a sanding block.

Also when you replaced that keeper/retainer, did you inspect the valve? Usually when something like that happens the valve might not be in the best of shape. I would keep an eye on them.