This is the Build Thread for 1996 Eagle Talon ESi. Reply below.

Buckle in folks, this is a fun ride

Lets set the scene:
Its the morning of December 31st, 2024. I'm filling up gas in my Talon at a local gas station in Tennessee before I go to work. A country feller around his late twenty's sees my car, and approaches me with a question: "Hey man, you looking to buy another Tal-lawn? (he was trying to say talon but was super southern)".

Now, I'm used to people approaching and dumping a wave of nostalgia on me explaining how cool these cars were back in the day, so this was a bit of a new experience for me. And, of course, like any wise DSM owner that has a car in barely running condition, I said no. I went on to explain that my turbo car always has problems and I'm not really looking to get into another project. This fella goes on to say that he bought a '96 Talon from a buddy that ran and drove "recently", but stopped running on him the day he bought it and he can't figure out why.
Alarm bells are going off left and right in my head saying "run away, run away!" because I figured he was gonna be one of those "I know what I got" type of guys and want like $3,000 for some absolute PoS GST. He goes on to say "I got it from him for $300 a few years back, and I'd probably want $500 for it if I were to sell it".

The situation unfolding in my head quickly shifted from alarm bells, to glorious angelic hyms. I was hooked.

Depending on the condition of the car, this was potentially a perfect opportunity to get this car out of this guys hands and part it out for some extra cash, while gaining some more experience with the DSM platform along the way. Quickly, I get his number, and later visited the car that weekend.
Its... definitely a $500 car, and I figured it would be. As it turns out, the car was basically an Eclipse RS but as a Talon, meaning it was about as poverty spec as you could get it. No power anything, minus a powered sunroof and A/C. Also turns out this car could likely be a runner! So, lets get into that:

It has some negative quirks for sure, but also some really positive things! Lets start with the positives:

• For starters, someone really cared for it at some point. It had maintenance paperwork (and even the dealer option sheet!) all the way from 1998 when it was purchased new to about the end of 2004. The maintenance paperwork basically stops there, until a receipt from 2009 where the motor (and maybe trans, but I forget) was purchased from a salvage yard and replaced at a mechanic shop. This motor I think was relatively low milage considering how much compression it had after doing a quick compression test. The working theory is that the previous engine caught fire since the hood looks like it was definitely ablaze at some point, but the rest of the engine bay looks pretty clean.
• The car is also miraculously free of rust, better off than my turbo car even. A poor muffler weld job resulted in the muffler rusting off, but I digress.
• The interior is complete, trans shifts well and the linkages feel solid as rock. The clutch feels solid as well. Granted I never got it moving, but just from a stop, I couldn't deny how good they felt.
• Under the hood looks good! Nothing important looks to be missing, though I don't know the 420a platform nearly as well as the 4g63.
• Compression numbers were 150psi of compression in each cylinder, which is lower than the spec you want for a 420a, but also not completely trash either.
• A sunroof! I always wanted one on my turbo car, but I also like my '95s hardtop since its rare.
• A clean title! Whaaaaaaaaat? I know, I was shocked too.

Now for the negatives:

• The paint. Enough said
• It is a no-start at the moment, with no real pointers as to why. Fuel and air seem fine, so its likely spark related. P/O said it was the crank sensor, but he also worked on carbureted small and big block chevy motors exclusively so I don't know how much I trust that.
• Random interior/exterior bits are broken or missing. Trunk latch release handle on the inside is straight up gone, glovebox doesn't stay up, both exterior doorhandles are completely f'ed up, and more I'm likely forgetting.
• The key is bent. Still manages to start the car after some jiggling, but doesn't fit in any of the lock cylinders.
• Radio looks shot.
• Wheels are ugly and one of the 4 is broken, meaning the rear left wheel is mismatched to the others.
• Muffler rusted off (but is that too much of a problem?)
• Tires are worse than useless.
• Sunroof mechanism isn't great shape.
• Despite the interior being complete, the headliner and visors could certainly use some love.
• Battery is trash.
• No power steering, and no explanation for why other than it doesn't work.

I am psyched to start working on this thing. I'd love to turn it into a daily so I can give my turbo car the love it needs, and really deserves. If it gives me too much trouble, sadly I reckon I'll end up parting it out and scrapping the chassis unless someone makes me an offer.
But that's for the future! For now, I'm still optimistic this thing will run with relatively minimal effort, and I'm looking forward to my spring break this year so I can go back home and begin to work on it.

And to those of you who are saying "Why the hell did he pay $500 for this? Its not even worth near that!", you're entirely correct. I wanted to get him down to about $400 or even $450 but he was firm as a rock on the price. Despite working on Chevy's primarily, and having that southern education if you know what I mean, he was pretty smart and knew he could just part it out or scrap it and rake back that money. Plus, its nice to save a car like this and hopefully put it back on the road again.

Thanks for reading! All the pictures I have of the car are linked in the profile, and down below.

Also! Quick thanks to all the people who helped me out on the forums with my turbo car when I purchased it. I like to think I understand the platform pretty well now thanks to everyones' help and it's given me a lot of confidence to fix both my turbo car, and take on a larger project like this one. Much love to the best DSM community!
I'm also writing this while wearing my DSM 30th Shootout hoodie

Don't part it out. It's ugly but the body looks solid. That isn't an unreasonable asking price either. I paid twice that much for a higher mileage RS back before inflation was rampant, but it was running at least.

Worst comes to worst, I'll take this thing off your hands for sure. But I want to see you breathe life back into it and daily drive it. Those little 5 speed non turbos can be great daily drivers as long as you don't cut them up too bad.

If I have any questions about it, you'll be my guy for sure! Hopefully one day I get to show it to ya since I'll be moving back to Alabama not too long from now.

I'll definitely take a look and give some pointers. By the way, this particular tag is now available since the car is unregistered. Would fit nice when you move back to Bama

Good thought! Love the barber plate too!

I wish someone would approach me and offer me a nearly free DSM, I’ve been looking for a 2nd one and it’s been about
5-8 ads were the person doesn’t respond at all or they do initially and ghost me when I want to go see it.

Looking forward to build !!!!!

I was shocked as well! I was hoping it’s be good enough to actually buy for that price and turns out it really was. Im looking forward to the build as well!

Finally back at home in TN for my spring break! Ended up taking the car cover off of this car to clean it out a bit and take a look at some of the paperwork. Also took a look under the hood to take stock of what parts need to be ordered to get this thing running again. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be too much! The car was also registered in Feb of 2023 with the tags expiring in 2024, so in theory the car ran at least for some of 2023 and gives me confidence that it won't take too much to get running
Plan is to roll the car off the trailer it's parked on and get to work cleaning it out a little bit better, as well as installing the exterior doorhandles that my dad picked up today. Thanks @IHeartMyHonda !

Anyways, I knew a lot of receipts came with this car, but I didn't nearly expect the amount of records that were stored in the glovebox. Here is the story I can confidently talk about, according to the piles of paperwork:

First of all, the car was shipped to and purchased at a dealership in Michigan. Given it is a 1996 model year, it is safe to guess that it spent about a year or year and a half being driven around before it somehow made its way into Tennessee, where it has lived since 1998.
The oldest record I have of this car is a couple purchasing it used from a dealership in Tennessee on June 30th, 1998. They purchased it used with 34k miles for $12,440. Now here is where things get strange: 2-3 weeks later, the car was returned to the same dealership, with an extra 1k miles on the odometer. This time, a girl named Summer bought the car on July 14th, 1998, and also traded in a green '95 Geo Tracker to get this car for about 6,500 cheaper. Poor Summer got ripped off, since the car sold this time around for just shy of $14,000 even though the car was back at this dealer just 2 weeks after it left, and had an extra 1k miles on it from the last time it sold. Summer was a good owner though! Had the head gasket replaced due to an oil leak, as well as regular brake replacements and a decent bit of preventative maintenance.

After this, the car changed hands quite a bit. For a brief period of time, Kyle Dunlap owned the car and got the exhaust and catalytic converter replaced during a few months of 2003. Before Kyle sold the car, the motor was ripped out of the car, and replaced with a 1999 Eclipse N/A motor out of a salvage yard. The previous motor must've gone kaput, since there was also a charge for towing on the salvage yard invoice. This all happened in December of 2003, 2 days before I turned ONE YEAR OLD! Makes me feel ancient now . The fuel pump was also replaced for the first time around this engine swap job.

Around 2004, a man named Charles Ramos owned the car and did basically everything to it. He replaced oil seals, the oil itself, all the belts, coolant flush, both crank and cam sensors, and more routine maintenance things in one trip to the mechanic. That trip cost poor Charles $1,720 in 2009 dollars
Charles also had the master cylinder replaced, as well as the fuel pump. Mr. Ramos sold the car in about 2009, and that's when the receipts stop sadly, but I've still got a lot of records on this car that I haven't written about since this post is getting wordy. Also, considering I have no records at all regarding my turbo car, I think this car is a cool find for only $500!


The pictures and video below are of the collection of paperwork. 2nd picture showcases the paperwork sorted by the owner listed on the paperwork. What a fun introduction to this car!

Put a cam sensor in it, and a junked ecu, and it runs!

Got some more to work out, but regardless, I’m stoked!

Does it idle any lower as it warms up? Target idle speed is 750rpm and should drop down fairly quickly.

It did sometimes for sure! Ran the AC like a champ thats for sure.
I can pretty confidently say its likely got a few vacuum leaks, but I started addressing other things like fluids after letting it run for a sec. Sadly, this image is what “other things” happened to be.

Ive got some rad hoses and other things on the way since things started breaking like crazy when removing them, and then i’ll re-fill it with fluids to see if the headgasket is bad or not. Bummer, but at least im not relying on it as a daily

Don't waste the fluids. Rule out where oil and coolant can mix. Leakdown alone will likely point out headgasket. Other possible areas are oil cooler and turbo. Both are easy to bypass or test to see if problem returns.

pauleyman said:

Don't waste the fluids. Rule out where oil and coolant can mix. Leakdown alone will likely point out headgasket. Other possible areas are oil cooler and turbo. Both are easy to bypass or test to see if problem returns.

Click to expand...

This is a 420a car so no turbo or oil cooler to look into, but yeah thats definitely some good advice.

There's very few ways for coolant and oil to mix on a 420A. It's time for a top end rebuild. I wouldn't run it again until doing so.

Collected all the parts I have for this thing together, ready to go to their future home alongside the car. Well, everything mechanical at least. Theres much more still sitting in the car.

Its really a bummer that this car hasn't sold yet. I was hoping to move this car along to someone who wanted it more and would put the pieces back, but haven't had much luck to be honest.
I don't have too much longer to hold on to this thing either, its taking up too much space in my parents driveway and we're getting to a point where they aren't able to be as patient with me anymore especially with the new Eclipse.

Re-posting it in the classifieds again soon. $500 gets it and every part I've accumulated for the 420a platform.
PM me here or use the number in the listing to text me.

Sending you a PM!!

Sold the car yesterday! Looks like its going to a good home and someone who knows something about the 420a platform. Definitley a little sad its gone, but it is what it is. At least I saved it from getting scrapped!