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Well, I finally got started .... I posted this history elsewhere, but I'll put it here.

This was my wife's 1992 Eagle Talon TSi AWD which she bought from the original owner in 1997. Other than having a Viper alarm system installed, the original owner left it completely stock. As the car is now, she did all the work herself (other than dropping the transmission, someone helped her with that) between 97 and 2000. She was really active in the DSM community here in Michigan, and she ran the "DSMFEMME" website which was obviously geared toward any females who had these cars.

Then after 2000, working on it really fell off as she became interested in MY hobby at the time - I was a paid-on-call (volunteer) firefighter and EMT and she went and got all the training and joined the fire department. She was good at climbing into the smallest crashed cars and working to stabilize patients while we cut apart the car around them and she was completely unafraid of going on a high roof and swinging an axe to ventilate a structure fire.

But then in 2005 a bunch of medical issues struck her and left her unable to do her hobbies as well as unable to walk or drive.

So the Talon was kind of set over on the side (in the garage). I'd take it out a bunch of times each year and exercise it. There's a nice straight, flat piece of road that's about a mile long, very close to me. So I'd take it out there, and do some pulls up and down the road, take it out on the highway, etc. That car never failed to put a grin on my face!

In 2011, she asked Shep for a favor to do the timing belt which he agreed to. She knew him from before when he rebuilt her transmission, while he was still working at the Jeep/Eagle dealership. She said she encouraged him to go start his own business doing that, and he's still doing that today. Anyway, so I trailered the car down to Ohio for him to do that. But then, it was back to the garage and the occasional driving.

Then in 2018, her health and other things took priority over the Talon. So it's sat in the garage, undriven since 2018. The tires are flat spotted, the battery was completely flat (and unchargeable) and it's dusty and sad.

But now it's time! I'm going to bring this car back to beautiful and a joy to drive.
 
I finally got started!

First things first, the battery. I went and got a new Interstate battery from Costco. But before installing it, I decided I had to rip out that Viper alarm. That thing was always a pain in the butt. It constantly drained the battery, so when the car was sitting for a couple weeks, I'd come out to recharge the battery and the alarm would go off. Then one fob lost its programming or something, etc. etc. Super annoying.

I don't have any photos of the ripping out, but here's the rats nest that came out:

35E3820B-6FE2-4FE1-A999-93704329D6AC.jpeg


The most annoying thing is that the alarm installers cut like 2" out of the main starter wire for the kill relay. So it would no longer reach itself, and it's like a 12 gauge wire. I tried soldering it, but even with a soldering gun I couldn't get the wire hot enough to flow the solder. So instead I had to crimp, which I'm sure will be fine. There's tons of stuff in cars that are crimped connectors.

But I got it all crimped and put back together.
 
a cheap butane torch (even one powered by a bic lighter) and silver rosin core solder worked for me down to equivalent 6ga
 
a cheap butane torch (even one powered by a bic lighter) and silver rosin core solder worked for me down to equivalent 6ga
Thanks for the tip! I don't trust myself down in that tiny space with a torch, what with all the other stuff all around. I'm sure the crimping will be completely fine, I got a ratcheting one and some high quality connectors to match.
 
Today I made progress on an idle surge following steps in Terry's Talon Troubleshooting document; I was able to get the base idle down to 750 using the BISS with screw turns to spare. Though it sounds like the real culprit is still somewhere, so I'll keep working on it. I have an ECU swap coming up, I socketed a spare one for ECMlink and the chip will be here soon.

I have the driver's door panel off, because part of the Viper alarm would remote unlock the doors. If you look back at the rat's nest photo, there's a green lock actuator which just piggybacked onto the regular door unlock rod. It was cobbled up there with those tin strips. It worked I guess but it was kind of janky. And they basically demolished the vapor barrier so I have to replace that.

The other problem is I have extremely loose controls on that door. Turns out *all* the plastic rivets on the panel are broken and it was being held on by hot glue and one screw (the glue didn't hold). I have an idea on how to fix it with some threaded metal standoffs, need a trip to the hardware store to consider some ideas.

When it was running today, I very tentatively tried the heater/ac fan and what I expected to hear, was the case: critters seem to like to make nests in the blower cage fan, and I instantly heard like leaves or other material rattling around. They continuously do this to my Toyota Tundra that parks outside too. So I have to take that apart and clean it all out.

Then I took it down the street and around the block and it ran just fine, aside from the idle surging. But there is a really strong left-right wobble in the steering wheel, almost like a wheel isn't on tight or something. Maybe it's just the tires which are shot.

I will take more photos going forward so there's something to look at!
 
I say you’re on to something with the tires, likely flat spotted from sitting and if they were already older when it was parked that probably sealed the deal. Keep in mind when you install ecmlink it will need some calibration so you may want to keep the chipped ecu and afc in it set where it’s at until you have a way to do so. Unless it has had a wideband afr gauge installed at some point in the past that’ll go hand in hand with utilizing ecmlink. I’m willing to bet she had the chip burnt and used the afc back in the pre-wideband days using an egt gauge and narrowband o2 voltage.
 
Could be, I remember being told "Todd Day's modifications" to the ECU.
I should’ve said more so the assumption I’ve made. Todd Day was one of the guys burning chips back in the day and if I recall the mastermind behind TMO logger, therefore I’m going to assume she had a chip burnt for the 550cc injectors. When you pull the ECU there’ll likely be some kind of labeling on the eprom chip if that’s the case, with that the ecu will be socketed already. Unrelated but TMO logger was so well done that I was still using it 5 years ago, way ahead of its time! Either way that’s so cool that’s still in there, I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, that’s a true time capsule you have there.
 
I have a Tundra too. Gas prices, amirite?
I have a 2003 Tundra AND a 2005 Sequoia .... a couple months ago, my 10 yo son was with me filling up the Sequoia, and I left it pumping while I ran into the little store. When I got back in the truck he's like "THAT GAS COST $100!!!!" .... LOL, yup!

I'm thinking about gluing on short threaded standoffs to the plastic panel, then using short large head screws to go through the door panel. The glue is the hard part, though I found that original Gorilla glue which you put on with a mist of water is super strong stuff. I fixed a button in the Sequoia with it and it's got the perfect amount of flex to not let go but still let the button work. I think it will work for this.
 
Did a little over the weekend; moved the car out to the driveway so I can wash it. It's very dusty.

D21F4BC4-24FA-4D93-9560-53FFC3E8D5D8.jpeg


And because I had it backed into the garage, the passenger side was close to the garage wall. I forgot that about 8 years ago, someone scraped down the passenger side when backing out of the driveway next to it.

E274AC6F-49F3-4EBF-81E8-21187484A5D9.jpeg


I *think* much of that will buff out, but the area below the vent there is pushed in. I'll have to pull off the plastic cladding and see if I can bang it out, I'm hoping it should be fine. I'm willing to go get body/paint work if necessary. I know there's a big 2" long scratch on the passenger fender when the weed whacker fell off the shelf onto the car.

I have replacement decals to restore it to original and get rid of the silly "Talon Port".

And I've got dash curl, so planning on how to fix that. What's the right glue to use for this that is compatible with foam underneath?

B161FB64-D87C-49B2-9B96-72337D6219C8.jpeg


Speaking of glue, most of the headliner is falling down so I'm planning on doing that as well. The thing I think is really weird: clearly the car interior is very dark grey, the carpet is almost black, etc. But the headliner is a very light grey color. I can't decide if I should replace it with the same color or if I should move it to a dark color like the rest of the car. I'm also thinking of going away from the "fuzzy" headliner material to a knit instead. Opinions on color and material?

I need to really clean the carpet to see if it needs replacing. I bought a 2005 Toyota Sequoia in February, and that carpet was capital N nasty. So I took everything out of the interior and got the carpet out. Threw it on the driveway, scrubbed it with carpet cleaning solution and then used a pressure washer on it and it came out beautifully! Looks almost new save one blue ink stain that did fade a lot.

Also I replaced the hatch struts which were completely shot. Annoying how much I had to pull apart just to get to the lower mounts. I know there's an old article that says to flex out the plastic over the mount, but I just didn't trust it. The plastic covers over the taillights and etc. FELT brittle holding them in my hand, like they might just fall apart looking at them.

D912B586-E589-4700-BE13-E682B6226BED.jpeg


This week hopefully I'll get the gumption to take apart the throttle body, hunting idle surge. I found a simplified troubleshooting document on the vfaq site which says it's likely: dirty throttle body, leaking BISS screw, EGR valve or ISC. So I'm going to go in that order.

And I need to tackle the loose door controls panel. The plastic rivets look like this:

AE85A934-CA88-4E9A-8B09-EDB4B2670B2B.jpeg


*EVERY* single one is gone. I was thinking of gluing on some short threaded standoffs then put a bolt through the door panel, so I got one to test. And while that might work, while looking at it, I thought about going the opposite way around. Gluing some of these onto the control panel in the broken rivet spots:

s-l1600.jpg


Then putting a nut and potentially 1 or more washers from the door panel side. Seems like that would work better. Too bad I can't find these bolts locally, I have to wait for them to come from China(!) via Ebay.

That's about it for this weekend. Thanks for watching!
 
I have not managed the gumption to look at the TB.

But I did start considering where to put the oil catchcans. I’m following the PCV article on here, adding the recommended two cans: one between the PCV and the IM with an extra one way valve. The other between the VC breather and the turbo intake.

I’ve got some sheet metal pieces that I can weld up to make a bracket out of. It’s 20 gauge, so probably a bit thin. I guess I can stack two together to beef it up a bit. So far I’m planning to do something like this:

5ADE9514-AD0D-47D8-A3EB-92CE1965C8C6.jpeg


There’s an empty threaded hole at the base there from whatever was taken out of this area, was it AC stuff?

Then there’s a bolt behind the horizontal bend through a bracket already there, I can just get a longer bolt. I’m not crazy about the backward bend of the mock-up, so I’ll probably fiddle around to see if there’s a better way. Otherwise I’d have to have a hole in the bracket to be able to access the bolt. I guess I could do a 90 degree left, then the 45 degree right to the bolt point.

BAC81B26-0B10-4EE3-9DAB-1E447D16DA2C.jpeg
 
I haven't done anything for awhile, been too busy with other things. However, over the winter I'm planning to pull the headliner to redo that, troubleshoot the idle surge so I ordered a EGR blocking plate in case I need it. Also I'm going to pull all the wheels and take them to Detroit Wheel for refinishing and out of round repair if necessary.

Question: what are folks using for tires these days? The old tires (slight cords showing) are maybe what is causing the front vibration too. I don't plan to drive the car in the winter, nor do I really plan on any serious tracking - maybe just one track day a year for grins.
 
Finally got the headliner installed. I recovered it over the winter but had been waiting for nice weather to put it in.

71061858472__048F785C-7870-49C6-B92A-12AF976931BE.JPG


I always thought the ash grey color that it originally was, was super weird due to everything else being dark gray, so I chose a charcoal headliner. I also had to change the rubber moulding around the sunroof because that was also ash colored, so I bought 20 feet of black off Ebay.

I'm trying to find large chipboard to redo the sun visors, anything greater than 11x17 is hard to find unless I want 30+ sheets. To do the visors I need roughly 12x14.

I'll probably also get ambitious and paint the ash colored hardware; the sun visor mounts and clips, and the sunroof latch. Not sure how paint will hold up, especially the sun visor grabber thing, but maybe Plastidip?

The refoam of the board wasn't bad, getting off the old foam was a pain. But gluing up the new went just fine. I did get overconfident and made a little crease right behind the sunroof latch, but I don't think it's too noticeable.

I also got new tires; I went with Firestone Firehawk Indy 500, my Costco had them on sale and there was also a manufacturer rebate. Surprisingly when they pulled off the 20+ year old Pirelli P7000, they said they were in pretty good shape, no dry rot or anything like that. They also told me that one wheel is slightly bent, they could still balance it out, but I can feel it going down the road. A slightly square wheel feeling which explains the front end vibration I felt before. They put it on the back so it's much less noticeable.

Amazingly, someone on /r/dsm offered a set of 92 Talon OEM wheels for free if you come pick them up, and he's only 1.5 hours away, so that's a score. Getting those next week, exact match and they come with all the center caps. Now I'll have a full set I can send to Detroit Wheel for refurb much easier. He's also offering a Forced Performance exhaust manifold for $100, unused so I'll probably take that too.

I removed the "Talon Sport" decals, which wasn't too bad. The passenger side was mangled from a vehicle scrape and the driver's side left a shadow on the paint I'll have to buff off before I put on the side replacements. I added the rear decals and it's pretty good looking. I'll post photos; in case anyone wants to know, I found the decals at Hoosier Decal. They are not exactly like OEM but close enough, and from a distance you can't tell they are individual letters and not a sheet decal.

I rushed and got this stuff done so I could take the car to a Cars and Coffee at Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor MI. People liked it, they kept coming by and reminiscing about their brother having had one, or their dad, etc. I also met the Kiggly Racing folks, super nice people.
 
Dove in today and swapped out the ECU for the ECMlink one. Wasn't too bad actually, except the middle connector on the ECU, the locking tab broke, so instead of having a U shaped lock tab to push on, the bottom of the U broke off, so it's the two legs - and that's a pain to try to unlock. Hopefully I won't have to take it out again.

I didn't remove all the SuperAFC wiring; it was nice of whoever to put bullet connectors on the signal wire, so that was easy to just put back together, and the other 3 wires are just for power and ground, so no problem there. I simply disconnected the Apexi but will eventually take that wiring out though, probably when I go back in there to wire up the wideband O2 sensor I just got.

Initial running on the new ECU, car starts and runs down the road just fine, no changes there. But idling is worse, after a few minutes of warming up, it will just start fluctuating RPMs leading to a stall. I got data logged, so hopefully that will help.

Innovate LC-2 came today, not sure when I'll put that in. I decided I can do without the ancient Blaupunkt 1-DIN radio that's in the car - with no AC, I have to drive with the windows down and between the exhaust and road/wind noise, can't hear a stereo anyway. So I'll fab up some kind of matching panel and put the LC-2 there, I was thinking of getting a oil pressure gauge too.
 
Finally got the headliner installed. I recovered it over the winter but had been waiting for nice weather to put it in.

The refoam of the board wasn't bad, getting off the old foam was a pain. But gluing up the new went just fine. I did get overconfident and made a little crease right behind the sunroof latch, but I don't think it's too noticeable.
Please tell me, what adhesives did you end up using for the (replacement foam?!?) and the headliner fabric) I'm facing the same project myself. Your end result looks great!!!
 
Please tell me, what adhesives did you end up using for the (replacement foam?!?) and the headliner fabric) I'm facing the same project myself. Your end result looks great!!!
Thanks!

You want 3M 38808, "Headliner Adhesive" ... pretty easy to get, kinda expensive. The headliner fabric itself which is bonded to the foam already, lots of places sell it and they're all pretty much the same. I forgot who I bought from. Find someone who will send you color samples first (if you want).

I found this youtube:

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It's a great resource on how to do it. The one caveat is that he uses a wire wheel on either an angle grinder or a polisher and I tried that, but found the wire brush was tearing up the board too much. But be diligent on getting off the old foam so you can get a good bond. Also the glue comes out really stringy, almost like silly string. I really had to go back and forth a couple times over the area before I felt like there was enough glue.

Also be careful getting the headliner out. The trim plastics are pretty brittle and because I was pulling mine out in March, so it was cold, and I was being impatient, I ended up busting the big B pillar cover on the driver's side. Fortunately, I found a shop on Facebook who sold me the replacement.

I haven't done the sun visors yet. The part that you glue the fabric to is chipboard, and I had a devil of a time finding big enough chipboard. It has to be like 12 x 18 if I remember right.
 
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