Before you changed the alternator had this happened before?

No, it ran good just had a slight overheating issue. My alternator was missing the lower mounting bolt before. When I replaced the alternator,I replaced the bolt and made sure the belt was tight and the temp stayed steady where it should be.

I'm trying to decide whether to upset my wife and have her load up the kids and come get me or to try and drive it home just staying on the gas.

If you are equipped to do so, I would recommend doing a compression test. It's quick and easy on these motors. for the 4G63 170+ is near perfect compression on a stock setup and anything under 130 you should be worried.

I would check your plug wires and make sure they are in the correct order and if you can look at you timing marks that might help too.

No way to do a compression check right now. The plug wires were backwards when I got the car and I already corrected that problem.

Could an exhaust leak be causing this big of an issue? I've only had one other turbo car before, but the engine was built and never had any issues.

It depends where the exhaust leak is.

At the exhaust manifold I believe, but I haven't taken the heat shield off yet to see exactly.

Ok, so it's idling around 1000 rpm. As soon as I stick it in gear(it's an automatic) it instantly tries to die and makes a knocking sound, but not like an engine knock. More like a cv shaft knock, but when I was under the car doing the alternator they looked fine

If none of this was happening before the alternator was changed the only thing that comes to mind is a faulty alternator. When did this knock start happening?

A couple of blocks away from work only when taking off from a stop. Once I hit around 2500-3000 rpm, the knock would go away

And this knock was before or after the alternator change?

Also, can you hear the knock in the car and when you open the windows or go past the rpm range you said, does it go away?

I didn't really drive it enough before the alternator swap. I can hear it in the car coming from the driver side of the engine bay. Once I hit over around 2500 rpm it goes away.

Ok, if you are still having a rough idle I can only think of two things, one recheck the connections to the alternator and see if they need a cleaning and if they are connected. If that checks out it may be a bad IAC valve. The knocking noise might be an emissions valve solenoid. I had it happen to me before with my gst syder which was an auto. To check pop the hood, There are three emissions solenoids (es) Doing this will most likely trip a CEL but its from doing this so don't worry. With the car running and the windows up, pull the electrical connector on the es to the right of the master cylinder, it is bolted right at the top so you wont miss it, then go back in car and see if the knock is gone, if not, reconnect and move onto the ones to the left of the master cylinder, removing one at a time to see if one of them is causing the problem. If the knocking stops, when you disconnect the connector from the es, then its faulty and needs to be swapped out. Try it and see if it works.

All it did was made the idle worse. When the car is not in gear it's idling around 1000 rpm now, but once I put it in gear it's dying.

Did the knock disappear? 1000 is high, I think you have a faulty IAC valve. You can try cleaning the IAC and reinstall it to see if that fixes the problem.

Where is the iac?

Its on the throttle body, it has a 6 pin connector.

Just got done cleaning the iac valve. Starts up a lot easier but still has the same problem when putting it in gear. I took 2 videos but I'm not sure how to upload them onto here.

If you search on YouTube for 1995 eagle talon issue it will be the 2 videos of the dash. It's dark outside so all that you see is the dash lights

My user name on YouTube is fracture83

I suggest also checking all your vacuum lines, I once had a 1g with similar issues and found that I had vacuum leaks on the lines that connected to the throttle body.

Some of them look questionable, but I have ran my fingers over all of them and can't find any leaks.
I started to replace my exhaust manifold gasket tonight but ran into a snag. Do I have to take the 4 studs mounting it to the turbo out in order to take the manifold off?

Any updates? Did you figure anything else out or fix the issue?

Haven't figured it out yet. Haven't had a whole lot of time either though with work and the kids. A local shop told me that if I can get it to them, they would diagnose everything for me for free. Just gotta make it to them.

95tsifw said:

Haven't figured it out yet. Haven't had a whole lot of time either though with work and the kids. A local shop told me that if I can get it to them, they would diagnose everything for me for free. Just gotta make it to them.

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I just had a similar issue last night. ended up being two of my coil packs are arching off the valve cover. I'm going to pull up the boot, wrap them in electrical tape and that should clear that up till i buy new wires. Something simple you can check.

Did you disconnect your battery before doing alternator work? It's possible you burnt out a fuse. Check your fuse box and see if there's any burnt ones in there.

Took the battery out of the car. Also,I checked all of the fuses after the alternator was changed and I drove it

I was having this issue with my 5 speed and it turned out to be a failing hydraulic tensioner on my timing belt. Changed the belt, water pump, balance shaft belt, new plugs and wires and the knock is gone. Its worth making sure your timing is correct because my car ran fine and one day never started again.