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pksystems 1997 Eagle Talon TSi AWD street build

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I have an explanation/pics on page 3. I modified (welded) the OEM crash bumper bracket that bolts into the car. The rear fiberglass crash bumper bolts onto this bracket. When you screw in the eyelet/tow hook it goes through the cover/crash bumper and is attached to that bracket, which is bolted to the frame.
 
I added front and rear tow hooks to my car I just used the nylon strap style that bolts on. The ones I got are actually really solid, for being light. The most they are going to see use is pulling the car onto a flat bed so I am sure they are more than capable of that. I used one of the main bolts in the center front lower engine bracket that goes into the frame (quite large bolts) and one on the rear passenger side that goes into the frame just after the bumper assembly and cut a slit in the rear bumper. I am considering adding a second one on the other side of the rear so I can double hook to the car to pull people out in the winter.
 
Boost Leak test. The car wouldn't hold any air pressure the first test.

Here is where I was leaking.

PR J-pipe flange wasn't flat. Block sanded, and sealed with oem gasket/RightStuff RTV.
PR BOV flange wasn't flat. Block sanded and sealed with GReddy gasket/RightStuff RTV.
FIAV bypass plate was using 2 OEM gaskets. The side without a groove for gasket removed and sealed with RightStuff RTV.
Throttle body shaft seals were leaking. Upon disassembling, they looked like the Mil-spec ones. Replaced with the rubber ones from extremepsi.
BISS screw leaking. Replaced o-ring.
Profec-b EBC was leaking. Swapped out incorrect hose the PO used for a new piece of 4mm silicone hose.

I will reinstall everything and do another BLT soon.

Ordered NGK blue spark plug wires. I wanted black, but don't think I need 120$ wires. I will wrap the visible portion with black "magic wrap"

Ordered factory 1997 Eagle Talon brochure off ebay to make some wall art. There is a 3D cutaway view of the car that would make a pretty awesome poster. I will be posting hi-res scans.
 
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Just a heads up autozone offers lifetime warranty on their top dollar parts I got a set of black wires from them with life time warranty for like 50$ if I remember correctly.. if any of the wires goes out of spec they just give me a new set free.

I also talked to the manager and he said if my brake pads wear evenly and when they are shot bring them in and he will lifetime warranty them too.
 
Sweet build! I covered my NGK wires with some black wire loom and they look so much better.
 

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Getting slammed at work, so I haven't been doing much on the DSM lately.

Second boost leak test.

Started at 20PSi, and after tightening a couple clamps here are my results.

After 37 seconds pressure dropped to 12-10PSi. After more then 2 minutes it still had some pressure in the system. I had the vacuum line to the FPR clamped off, since I need to put sealant on the adjustment screw, after it is adjusted. My BISS screw is still leaking a bit, so I will probably put some sealant on that when I adjust it. I did the test with the oil cap off. I believe most of my air leakage was through the turbo oil drain, into the pan, and eventually out the breather.

Good enough.

Reinstalled intake pipe/filter.

Powdercoated and installed my spark plug cover.

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Urethaned/riveted aluminum angle to the rear edge of the carbon rock shield. Much stiffer. Just needs a coat of black rocker guard to hide the aluminum.

Put orange knockoff plasti-dip on my rear badges, as per youtube videos for blacking out badges. I'm not sure if I put too much of the spray on, but I couldn't get the dip to peal at all around the letters, and it didn't want to cut decently with a razor blade. From what I could see, the letters looked great in bright orange. Pulled the dip off, in one piece. I'll figure something out after the car is driving. I may end up making a mold of the letters, and making some new ones that will be painted off the car.

Since I've deleted EGR and Evap parts, and I'll be needing an inspection, I decided to use ECMLink.

Picked up a recently refreshed/socketed 95 ECU, and ECMLink is in the mail.

While going over my checklist of remaining things to do to the car, I came upon calibrate wideband. I put the sensor in the only place that would fit/work per the installation instructions, but now I'm having second thoughts, since I need to drop the downpipe to remove the sensor, everytime I need to calibrate it. Major PITA. Since I'm moving to ECMLink, I might aswell put it in the front O2 sensor position, and simulate narrowband. Then I can wire the wideband directly into the ECU for logging. This should make it MUCH easier to calibrate the sensor. I will put a plug in my original position for WB sensor. Wires will be run the same way as OEM with some extra heat sleeve to insulate the wires.

socketed_ecu.jpg

Tires for the EVO IX wheels will be BFGoodrich - g-Force COMP-2 A/S. 235/45R17. They seem cheap for a performance tire, user ratings seem excellent, and they are all seasons. We've had snow in late May, and early September the last couple years, so I'm not going to go with a dedicated summer tire.
 
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Pulled the dipstick tube, so I could remove the lower heat shield, so I could remove the downpipe, so I could remove the wideband sensor. I'm glad I made this change now. MAJOR PITA.

Put a plug in the wideband hole I welded in the "optimum bung position", and reinstalled everything.

Finally put my sewing portion of home-ec to some good use. Made a heat sleeve out some aluminized fiberglass heat barrier with kevlar thread. The wideband wires run over the shield like oem.

heat_sleeve.jpg

I can install/remove the wideband sensor in the front O2 sensor position after I remove the top heat shield. Very easy for calibrating the wideband.

Installed Mobil-1 M1-104 Oil filter, and overfilled the engine with 10w30 Mobil-1 synthetic. Once the oil cooler and lines are full of oil the level should drop quite a bit.
 
Pulled out the GReddy E-Manage Ultimate piggy back ecu/harness.

Installed the 95 ECU with Ecmlink.

Wired my MTX-L wideband into the ecu harness for narrowband simulation.

Modded my harness for Clutch cut (No lift to shift) I don't know if I'll ever use this (daily driver) but it's pretty simple to wire, and then one radio button to check off in ecmlink to enable.

Tires have been installed. I threw them on the car for some pics. The car still needs an alignment, so my oem 17's with old tires will go back on before the car starts moving under it's own power.

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Tire stick out is perfect with the EVO IX BBS wheels.
 
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Looking good man! I recently installed some G-Force all seasons on mine. I really like them. Excellent performance tire for daily duties :rocks:
 
All Seasons were a good choice. It was snowing for a couple minutes today.

Finished tucking the rest of my wiring, and reinstalled the kick panels.

interior.jpg

Time to put fluids in it and start playing with ECMLink.
 
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Filled it up with:
50% PEAK Extended radiator fluid, 50% deionized water
Diaqueen SAE90 LSD gear oil (transfer case)
KAAZ GL-5 80w90 LSD gear oil (transmission)
Motomaster Dexron VI ATF (power steering)

Greased tie-rod ends (zerk fittings)

Installed new NGK BPR7ES spark plugs and NGK 7mm wires, with magic-wrap on the visible areas (to hide the blue in engine bay)

Made a spark plug wire separator out of a couple pieces of scrap 1/4" aluminum plate.

Ordered a 4K knockoff GoPro camera for road trips. It will be mounted on the front tow hook.
Akaso EK7000. Pretty awesome how much crap comes with it for the price. The online reviews all look good. Sound is not great, but I don't know how much you would actually hear with wind noise as the car is screaming around mountain roads.

camera.jpg


Painted aluminum angle on edge of carbon rock shield with rocker guard.
 
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Make a bracket to attach the action camera to the front tow hook.

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Installed new battery.

Adjusted TPS, throttle cable, and calibrated the wideband.

Picked up 10 liters of Petrocan Ultra94 gasoline (10% ethanol). 128.9/L

Ready to start.
 
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It's Alive!!!!!

Engine started up without any issues. No leaks, other then a couple drips from the top radiator overflow bottle connection, which we fixed by putting on a real hose clamp (removing that weak oem thing)

Adjusted the fuel pressure regulator, idle, and started adjusting base ignition timing. My TPS was set to 0.63v when adjusted it with car off, but for some reason, is now sitting at ~0.71v, so I guess I will be re-adjusting that. Throtpos also moved from 0% to 2% with foot off the pedal.

Fuel gauge is not working correctly so I'll have to take a look at that.

One of the belts squeals when to turn the A/C on to full setting (I have cold air (A/C works)) so I believe my alternator belt needs to be tightened a bit.

Lifted the front end off the ground and with the engine running turned the front wheels lock to lock several times to bleed the power steering.

Topped up engine oil, after all the lines/cooler were filled.

Oil pressure seems low when the car is fully warmed up. It is around 12psi, but from what I see posted, thats normal for 10w30. I was expecting it to be high with the BSE, and no oil pump porting.

We did get a couple check engine lights. Something to do with alternator (belt needs to be tightened) , and something with the front O2 sensor, so I probably need to adjust something in the narrowband simulation settings.
 
Adjusted the base ignition timing. It's alot easier (sarcasm) if you tell the ecu to lock it at 5 degrees at idle. :)

There was a very small leak on one of my lower radiator hose connections. Tightened it up and it's good.

Car seemed to be running fine, except for the fuel gauge. I grounded the all yellow sender on the drivers side of the tank, and the gauge slowly went up to full, so the gauge, and the wiring to the gauge are fine. I opened up the passenger side of the tank to verify the float wasn't catching on anything, and it was fine. I opened up the drivers side, and immediately saw the problem. I guess 10L of fuel isn't enough to spill over onto the drivers side of the saddle. Went and picked up another 15L of Ultra94 (E10) and made sure the drivers side of the tank had gas in it.

Next day, new problem. The car will no longer start. The only thing that changed was that gas. It was idling fine the day before. It was raining heavily here the last couple days. I am leaning towards that 15L of fuel was crap.

Battery is fine. It's new, but I tossed it on the charger anyway.

Fuel pump seems to be working, since my AFPR gauge goes up to ~40+ psi when cranking the car.

Spark plugs had some fuel on them, but they aren't gummed up or anything. Plugs and wires are new. The coil pack came with the car, so it's used. I haven't tested it yet, but I don't think it died overnight. If the coil tests fine, I guess I have to drain 15-25L of fuel out of my tank, and never get gas at that station again.
 
I want you to try something, from the sounds of it you are already into the tank a bit so this is easy. Unplug the fuel pump electrical connector from the sending unit and start the car, if it starts after a couple seconds and dies it's flooding. You can now connect the pump and it will probably start just fine. If it doesn't then it's something else. I've had flooding issues off and on with my talon. I found one cause of it was my fuel tank not sealing properly.
 
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I tried unhooking the pump connector, and there is no change.

I found something on the net saying that with some EFI cars, if you floor the gas pedal while you crank it, it tells the computer that it's flooded and inject less fuel. This seemed to work a bit better, the engine chugged a bit more, but didn't fire. (This video isn't that attempt)

I'm going to check that I'm getting spark on the weekend, and if they're all working, drain the tank.

Here's a video I shot with my action cam so I could verify fuel was making it to the engine while I cranked it.

 
I'm trying to imagine how fast mine turns over vs this video.. If my car battery is even low on amperage or voltage my car wont start. It will still crank just not with enough grunt to appease the DSM. I would try unplugging the sending unit connector and try cranking it over for a good 8 seconds or so to clear out flooding at about 7 seconds in my car would act like it was going to start and I knew to stop cranking because the flooding was clear. My car would require unplugging the connector (fuel pump) and cranking it till it tried to start finally after 8-10 seconds and then I can plug the fuel pump back in and it will start just fine. Maybe also put it on a charger while its in your garage it can't hurt. I used to have to put my charger on 100amp start mode to make up for my old battery not having enough amps to crank the engine fast enough. I had a red top optima and it wasn't holding charge sitting.. at 11v base line it would crank my car (turn it over), but not start it. I changed to a yellow top and its been much better.

So if all of this fails maybe you did get some bad gas. If you did probably empty the tank with a pump into gas cans.. if the gas isn't real bad you could probably run it through your lawn mower.
 
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Tested coil pack. I'm getting spark on every wire.

Timing is still dead on. That clear cover is awesome.

Pulled both fuel senders/pump. Purged the fuel lines of fuel with low pressure filtered air through my FPR side line through fuel rail back to the tank. Drained the tank, and let any residue evaporate overnight.

Tested my fuel senders (gauge still isn't working)
Main sender (Passenger side) gives me 58.5 - 3.7 Ohm which is just outside OEM spec of [56.9 +/- 1] --> [2 +/- 1]
Sub sender (Drivers side) gives me 51.6 - 3.2 Ohm which is again just outside OEM spec of [50.1 +/- 1] --> [2 +/- 1]

I think the senders are fine. Maybe that ~1 Ohm on each is my problem.

Main fuel thermistor seems to work. It takes awhile before the light finally turns off when you remove it from water per the FSM. Sub fuel thermistor works, and is much quicker to react to empty.

Grounding the yellow wire on the drivers side with car switched to ON slowly moves the gauge to full.

Fuel gauge seems to be slowly moving up, and low fuel light is off with wires hooked up correctly.

20L of new Ultra94 (E10) from a different gas station yields the same results. No start. My fuel pressure regulator seems to be holding pressure longer tho. It is slowly bleeding off the fuel, but it was almost instantaneous before.

It wasn't the gas.

Turned up the pressure on the AFPR. It's hitting 60psi (the max the gauge will display) when cranking now. I'm pretty sure the pump is fine.

I will test the engine coolant sensor tomorrow. I keep seeing this mentioned in threads about hard/no starts.
 
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We did test the turbo timer around the last time we had it running and it worked perfectly. I don't remember if we tried restarting it after that. Disconnected the turbo timer from the harness: still no start.

Tested ISC: Pass (didn't check it before and while I'm checking everything else)

Tested Power transistor: Pass

Tested MFI Relay: Pass

Tested Fuel pump Relay: Pass

Tested Injector Resistor pack: Pass

Tested Starter Relay: When I apply 12V/ground to the circuit with the resistance, it clicks open the circuit on the other pins, which sounds like how it's supposed to work.

Opened up the ECU which was recently gone over by ECMLink: Everything looks fine (caps were all replaced, and none are leaking) Check engine light goes on, then off while cranking so it's working.

Removed the "G-sensor" while I was behind the radio. (ABS Delete)

Checked every fuse with multimeter. None looked blown, but I'm positive now. :)

Tested the coil pack for resistance, and appear to be getting no continuity on the primary, or secondary. I was trying to test it on the car, so I might not have had the leads making contact in the tight space. I did get spark through wires/plugs when we were cranking it. I will test this again tomorrow.

Tested Coolant temp sensor: Couldn't seem to get any continuity/resistance trying to make contact in the connector. ECMLink says it's fine: 66F when cold. -74F when unplugged.

Swapped in old spark plugs that came with my 7-bolt engine. No change.

Verified there were no bananas in the tailpipe.

I will check the CAS & 6 bolt in a 2g adapter (Crank position sensor) harness, and engine compression in the next couple days.
 
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Verified there were no bananas in the tailpipe.

I was gonna say make sure.... hahaha.

Srsly tho, you've tested basically everything and still no start.

So you had it running and then it wouldn't start the next day?

Can you post a log of you turning it over and we could peek through your settings? Two heads and all.

Also, I may have missed it but did you check your injectors? Just throwing ideas out there...
 
Car was idling good. I opened the gas tank to try to figure out the fuel gauge issue. Added some gas, and the car would no longer start. Not positive, but I think we let the turbo timer turn off the car the last time it ran. The TT worked perfectly, but maybe it fried something. Yanking the TT didn't fix it.

Removed coil pack and tested it: Pass

The search continues.
 
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Pulled the Cam Angle Sensor and verified the fuel injectors were firing (clicking) by manually turning it with the car set to on. I also put a screwdriver to the injectors, to my ear while cranking the car. They were all firing. Fuel pump seems to be working as the AFPR is spiking to ~40 when I was spinning cas.

I'm probably going to pull the injectors and run some carb cleaner through them while giving them 12V to verify they are getting a decent spray pattern.

Tested the voltage at the fuel pump. This is what I'm wondering about. When you start cranking it's in ~10.2-11.4V range, and then spikes to 12.5V when you stop cranking the car. The car has the factory harness. I'm getting pressure in the rail, but I'm wondering if I'm getting enough pressure fast enough.

Hooked up a cheap compression tester, and got ~90psi on all 4 cylinders cold with a bit of oil in them. This sounds way low, but they were all identicle. I'm wondering if the gauge is junk. Even if the compression is that low, the engine should start no?
 

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I'm getting pressure in the rail, but I'm wondering if I'm getting enough pressure fast enough.

Just check the "activate fuel pump" box under the "misc" tab and the fuel pump will run continuously.

90 PSI on a compression test is really low, even cold.

Air, fuel, spark. You likely don't have one of the three. Which of these is not present?
 
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