This is the Build Thread for 1992 Eagle Talon TSi AWD | Tennessee Blue. Reply below.

For the longest time, I was loyal to my Electric Blue 1gb shop car. Like many projects, it ended up sitting for years while I focused on family, life, and other priorities during my hiatus from DSMs and BOSS in 2015.

As I started finding my way back into the platform, I came across a Tennessee Blue shell in Spokane, Washington. Tennessee Blue had always been one of my favorite DSM colors, but I had never come across one for sale locally, nor had I ever worked on one or seen one in person. I jumped on the opportunity with the intention of restoring it and eventually replacing my Electric Blue as my long-term 1g keeper.

Not long after, I came across this two-owner Tennessee Blue 1992 Eagle Talon TSi AWD for sale in Oregon. It was a no-brainer. The car was largely unmolested, complete, and far cleaner than the shell I had purchased. More importantly, it would save me the time and effort of sourcing missing parts and correcting years of modifications and damage.

I bought the car in 2021 from the second owner. As the third owner, I was fortunate enough to keep the car in the Northwest.

The car had an overheating issue when I bought it that the previous owner had tried to remedy with a Mishimoto radiator and an aftermarket fan. There was also an attempt to raise the rear of the hood to help vent heat. After a little digging, I traced the overheating issue to a cracked exhaust manifold and a cracked 14B turbo. Rather than go too crazy with modifications, I replaced the manifold with another stock unit and upgraded the turbo to a 16G that I had sitting on the shelf. My focus was on keeping the car reliable while maintaining the factory feel.

Around the same time, I was able to source a set of black-housed headlights in need of restoration. Having already owned a set on my Electric Blue shop car, I wanted to preserve those, so I picked up this set to restore instead. I also upgraded the exhaust system, installed some suspension components to improve the driving experience, and swapped the stock wheels for a set of 17-inch black aftermarket wheels I had on another DSM.

The last thing left on the list was to build a mid-pipe, but as luck would have it, life got busy and the car ended up sitting for a while. During that time, I had the opportunity to spend time with my youngest son as a baby—time that I'll never get back—finish college, and earn my black belt.

As life settled down, I found myself coming full circle and finally able to make cars and BOSS part of my day-to-day life again. With my kids getting older and many of my other commitments behind me, this is the first year I've really been able to get back out and participate in the DSM community in a way that I haven't since 2013.

Most of the focus now centers around maintenance, restoration, and preservation. The goal isn't to build an all-out race car, but to keep a clean Tennessee Blue AWD on the road and enjoy it.

I'll use this thread to document the car's history, repairs, upgrades, and future plans.

Pictures

After purchase:

After some work:







Videos

First TB pick up:


Finding my 1g unicorn:


Walk around:


Doing some work:


Swapping suspension:


Swapping suspension continued:


Heating issues:


Manifold stud issue:


New manifold studs:


16g:


Exhaust set up:


If you've read this far, thanks for stopping by and feel free to follow along. There's plenty of work ahead, and I look forward to sharing the journey. More photos, updates, and progress to come.

Oh yeah beatiful dsm enjoy.

Last month, I had worked it out with someone I knew who paints cars out of his home to use his space to respray my Tennessee Blue TSi AWD. Over the last few years, the oxidation had gotten pretty bad from sitting outside. We agreed on the first weekend in June. The plan was either for me to spray the car myself or, if my shoulder still wasn't up to it while recovering from the surgery I had at the beginning of April, I'd pay him to spray it for me.



In the meantime, I went out and bought all of the materials and got everything ready on my end. I definitely had a bit of sticker shock seeing how much paint materials had gone up since the last full respray I did back when I last had my shop, BOSS Innovations, open.

The first weekend in June rolled around, but the weather wasn't going to cooperate. The shop wasn't insulated, and the car would be moving in and out throughout the job, so we needed a dry weekend with decent temperatures. We agreed to push everything back one week.

Heading into the following weekend, the forecast looked great. My shoulder wasn't feeling up to it, so the plan was to pay him to spray the car. Friday evening I started tearing the car down so I could drop it off Saturday morning. I pulled the headlights, mirrors, taillights, and spoiler. I tried getting ahold of him that night, but he was MIA.





I also made sure to give the TB 1gb a good bath.




The next morning he finally got back to me and said he'd had a long night at work. We agreed to plan on Sunday instead.

I was running a little behind on removing the fog lights anyway, so I finished pulling them and planned to touch base Sunday morning—I hated those fog lights, . They always made the car look like it had two little teeth.



Needless to say, Sunday morning came and went. I didn't hear back until around 1pm, when he told me he was out with his family.

By that point, we'd already been having some communication issues since the beginning of June, and I was starting to feel like getting the car painted wasn't as much of a priority for him as it was for me. That Sunday pretty much confirmed it. I tried to nail down a committed time or even another date, but eventually I was just left on read.



At that point, I knew I just needed to take the L and put the car back together. With limited time, and the NW DSM Centralia Meet I was shooting for only a couple of weeks away, I didn't have time to keep chasing it. I was going to have to make plans to address the exterior another time.

I get it my talon needs paint but its prepped for it , im not sure if i will get it painted i do it myself before the fall. Ill paint it after the shootout,

You have a lovely selection of Talons in your driveway! My dream DSM has long been a jade 2Gb Talon.

What part of Washington are you in?

92AWDHX40 said:

I get it my talon needs paint but its prepped for it , im not sure if i will get it painted i do it myself before the fall. Ill paint it after the shootout,

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I'll probably now have to paint mine some time down the road. I have a pretty tight schedule for each project. Since this one had the issues it did in scheduling to get the paint done, I have to move on to what was planned for later this month, or early next month, with other projects.

That said, I'm going to try and see if I can't still do some things to clean up the exterior of Tennessee Blue a little, but that's if time permits.There is an event I'm trying to make, the NW DSM Mt St Helens Run, coming up in a few weeks, so there's not a whole lot of time for me to tinker around. The weather hasn't been that great this week and we're headed into a holiday weekend, so work has been minimal. Then next week I won't have time to work on any of the projects.

Capt Obvious said:

You have a lovely selection of Talons in your driveway! My dream DSM has long been a jade 2Gb Talon.

What part of Washington are you in?

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Hi and thank you!

I'm in the Lacey area. I see that you're in Gig Harbor, so I'm actually not that far from you.

We'll have to connect some time. I'll send you a DM.