Street Build '91 TSI AWD 75k mile time capsule resto mod

[Capt Obvious]

In high school (late 1990s), a friend in the grade above me had a red '91 Talon TSi. He let me take it for a spin one day (even though I didn't have my license yet) and I fell in love. That was the moment I became a car nerd, and cars have been my main passion ever since.

A couple years later, I ended up with a '95 GS-T that I then modified pretty heavily (for the time) with a big 16G with external wastegate, ACT 2600 clutch, front mount, etc. I sold it during college because it was getting beat up from street parking and always told myself I'd have another DSM some day.

Well, 20+ years later it's "some day" because I stumbled upon a really clean 1G that I just couldn't pass up. It's a '91 TSi AWD with 75,000 original miles(!) and it's pretty much all original and unmodified.

The original owner bought it new and parked it in 2011. The second owner bought it about two years ago and did a bunch of maintenance to it then decided to move on from DSMs, which is how I ended up with it.

Items taken care of in the last year or two:

• Timing belt, water pump, balance shaft delete with all OEM parts
• All new fluids
• New tires
• New clutch (Southbend Kevlar) with ACT flywheel with new OEM throwout bearing, slave/master cylinders
• Jacks built transmission with TMZ 4-spider cross shaft
  • The original transmission from this car was send to TMZ for a rebuild but got destroyed in the fire last year. He ended buying the transmission that's now in the car from someone here on DSMTuners.

He also gave me a mountain of spare parts; I needed a trailer to take everything home. It's mostly OEM parts from other DSMs he'd owned over the years and I likely won't need most of them, so I'll probably sell off a lot of stuff once I've had a chance to sort through them all.

Overall, the car is super nice. Mechanically, it's about as perfect as a 30+ year old car can be. The paint it hammered, but the body is really straight and everything is there. The interior is very nice as well, except the front seats are pretty trashed.

My plan with the car is to restore it back to its former glory and do some period-correct bolt on mods. I'm going to do my best to restrain myself on this one since it's so original.

The car came with the following parts that I plan to utilize:

• Freshly rebuilt small 16G from Justin Whitesell
• 850cc injectors from FIC
• Dejon SMIC with piping
• Megan Racing aluminum radiator with slim fans

So, I think I got myself a pretty good start for a project.

Right now, I'm just browsing a lot of build threads on here trying to re-learn everything I've forgotten about these cars over the years, and trying to learn all the new ways of doing things. A lot has changed since the days of "tuning" by using a Super AFC to correct for larger fuel injectors and doing data logging with a Palm Pilot...

 

[Capt Obvious]

And of course, some pictures.

Tucked in for the night with its roommate.

 

[Capt Obvious]

Haven't done much with the Talon yet, I need to catch up on some maintenance on my other cars and I have a few projects I need to finish around the house before I tear into something new.

I have been collecting some parts though.

"I will not let this snowball. I will not let this snowball. I will not let this snowball..."

 

[danl]

Looks good. I like the paint the way it is. This way you won’t be afraid to drive it. A lot of them looked like that 20 years ago anyways. Try to keep it mostly stock. They are a handful to keep running well even in stock form. The more modified they are the more time you spend working on them and less time enjoying it!

 

[CrackedDSM]

Not really crazy about the fixed back racing seats in a street car either, but thankfully it's your vehicle so you do you. I like the OEM ones, especially the leather models, way better for cruising on the street.

 

[Drewpy Dawg]

My first DSM was a 91 Talon in that same two tone blue/silver. Seeing that makes me nostalgic.

 

[mosul210]

Nice find. Looks like a great project.

My only advice is to keep the oem fans if possible. The OEM units generally outflow the aftermarket fans

 

[CrackedDSM]

Nice find. Looks like a great project.

My only advice is to keep the oem fans if possible. The OEM units generally outflow the aftermarket fans

There’s no generally. The oem fans DOMINATE almost every aftermarket option that fits. A single oem cooling fan will outflow two slim fans. Lol.

 

[We're on Boost]

Looks nice!
Were the 1st and 2nd owners in Western Washington?
If so it probably doesn't have much rust, right?

 

[Capt Obvious]

Not really crazy about the fixed back racing seats in a street car either, but thankfully it's your vehicle so you do you. I like the OEM ones, especially the leather models, way better for cruising on the street.

I'd prefer OEM seats too, but I'm 6'4" and don't fit in the car unless I recline the seats well past the point of comfort. I've never had fixed back seats before so I'm going to try these out and see how I like them. It's easy to go back or swap to a different seat if I hate them.

My only advice is to keep the oem fans if possible. The OEM units generally outflow the aftermarket fans

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll swap the factory fans over to this when I install it.

Looks nice!
Were the 1st and 2nd owners in Western Washington?
If so it probably doesn't have much rust, right?

Has spent it's whole life in Washington, zero rust anywhere besides the normal surface rust on some of the suspension components and on the wiper cowl, which are always rusty it seems.

 

[bo0st2]

Haven't done much with the Talon yet, I need to catch up on some maintenance on my other cars and I have a few projects I need to finish around the house before I tear into something new.

I have been collecting some parts though.

View attachment 730944

"I will not let this snowball. I will not let this snowball. I will not let this snowball..."

Not a bad way to spend $10,000

 

[We're on Boost]

That garage is interesting. Is that like an 8-car garage or something?
I see garage on the right end, garage on the left end, and it looks deeper than 1 car deep. And it's not all littered up like garages get when they are overcrowded with too much stuff in them.
Looks good whatever it is!

 

[Capt Obvious]

It's a decent sized garage, but not huge. Technically a three car garage, but it's 30 feet deep and has an extra 6 feet of space on one side so there's quite a bit of storage and work space. Getting it organized has been an ongoing battle, but it's slowly but surely getting there.

 

[We're on Boost]

it's 30 feet deep and has an extra 6 feet of space on one side

Yeah that's what does it. That's really good. Nice!

 

[Capt Obvious]

I haven't done much with the car since I bought it. Still trying to catch up on life and collecting parts. I did finally get around to finishing building seat adapters for the Corbeau's and got those mounted so I can drive the car finally.

Put around 80 miles on the car the other day driving it to work and back and it drives great. Feels weird driving one of these that is totally stock.

I finally have a game plan for how I'm going to build the car too. Since I have pretty much all of the parts I want for the car, and the car has no immediate maintenance or repair needs I'm going to start by fully "assembling" the car with the bolt-ons (coil overs, Dejon SMIC and piping, 2g front brakes, exhaust, etc.) to get everything fitted and dialed in so I can drive and enjoy it.

Over the winter I'll probably install the 16g, fuel pump/lines, injectors, ECMLink, etc. and get it running well in that state.

Then I'll tear it all apart again to restore everything (powdercoating the subframes/suspension parts, new bushings, repaint the engine bay, etc.).

 

[Capt Obvious]

Spent some quality time with the Talon this weekend detailing the fender wells and undercarriage, and installed the BC suspension too.

First things first: get it in the air and take the wheels off. I sat back and drank coffee while the shop foreman showed me how to properly remove a wheel.

I spent quite a bit of time and quite a bit of foaming engine degreaser cleaning 33 years of road grime off of the car. It wasn't really all that bad though, the car has spent it's whole life in the Seattle area so it was mostly just accumulated road grime from driving in the rain and stuff. The fender liners had turned white with age as well, so I busted out the heat gun to bring out the black again, then hit them with some trim restorer.

After everything was clean, I tossed the coilovers on the car and called it a day.

Before.

After.

While I was at it I test fit an old OZ Monte Carlo I've had laying around for years. Too bad I only have one of them.

Back on the ground and sitting pretty.

Next up: I'm going to try to liven up [what's left of] the paint a bit by hitting it with some compound. Radwood is coming up in about a month and I'm hoping to display it.

 

[Capt Obvious]

Spent some time this weekend trying bring a little life back into the paint. I started with the roof and was able to polish it from oxidized gray back to black.

I also managed to get what is left of the blue to pop a little more.

Starting to look pretty presentable now.

 

[Capt Obvious]

Now that the paint and fender wells are cleaned up, it's time to clean the bottom of the car. I rolled my lift out of the garage so I could clean the undercarriage this weekend. This car has spent its whole life in the PNW so it's pretty darn clean underneath, but now it's about as clean as a 33 year old former daily driver can get.

No rust anywhere besides some very minor surface rust on things like the control arms. This winter I'll be removing pretty much everything from under the car and painting/powder coating it and installing new bushings.

 

[Capt Obvious]

Finished up the exhaust. I was going to build one from scratch, but I scored a Megan catback for only about $100 more than it would have cost for just supplies so I decided to go that route and save myself some time. I also bought a CX Racing 3" downpipe to go with it. Since that leaves you with a big gap to fill where the catalytic converter used to be, I decided to chop up the downpipe to extend it and add in a Flowmaster 200-cell cat while I was at it (I hate the smell of catless exhaust).

I hadn't used my TIG in about a year and a half and it showed, but I got the job done.

While I was under there doing the exhaust, I pulled the driveshaft so I could clean it up and repaint it. I also removed the heat shield to clean and give it a very light polish. Then I painted the tunnel while everything was out of there to spiff it up a bit.

I'm going to remove the fuel tank and rear subframe this winter to redo the back end of the car, so I'll make everything nice and pretty later on.

 

[We're on Boost]

Finished up the exhaust. I was going to build one from scratch, but I scored a Megan catback for only about $100 more than it would have cost for just supplies so I decided to go that route and save myself some time. I also bought a CX Racing 3" downpipe to go with it. Since that leaves you with a big gap to fill where the catalytic converter used to be, I decided to chop up the downpipe to extend it and add in a Flowmaster 200-cell cat while I was at it

Thanks for the pics of the Megan exhaust all clean and new. Do you know when it was made? I guess you bought it from somebody who bought it a long time ago and never used it?
My car has the complete Megan exhaust - downpipe, test pipe, and catback. It has been on my car since 2008 and I like it.

You didn't really lose anything by having to custom build the section where the cat goes.
Because what we found with mine, the test pipe, downpipe, and catback, didn't line up with each other well enough to use as-is. We solved it by building a custom test pipe with a slight zig-zag in it, to line up with the downpipe and the catback sections.

 

[Capt Obvious]

I got my exhaust brand new from MAPerformance with free shipping.

Megan Racing Exhaust Systems – MAPerformance.com

Aftermarket performance parts and components from Megan Racing are built to give you a boost in power and handling over stock parts.

www.maperformance.com

I also found a promo code online that got me an additional 10% off.

I had the same issue with the downpipe and catback not aligning well, so it worked out well that I had to modify the downpipe anyway. I also had to the do the same zig-zag thing you're talking about which I'm not super happy about because I don't like how it looks and I don't like that the transition into the cat isn't a straight shot, but no one will ever see it and I highly doubt it will affect performance in any measurable way.

 

[We're on Boost]

I got my exhaust brand new from MAPerformance with free shipping.

Megan Racing Exhaust Systems – MAPerformance.com

Aftermarket performance parts and components from Megan Racing are built to give you a boost in power and handling over stock parts.

www.maperformance.com

I also found a promo code online that got me an additional 10% off.

I had the same issue with the downpipe and catback not aligning well, so it worked out well that I had to modify the downpipe anyway. I also had to the do the same zig-zag thing you're talking about which I'm not super happy about because I don't like how it looks and I don't like that the transition into the cat isn't a straight shot, but no one will ever see it and I highly doubt it will affect performance in any measurable way.

Oh good, I'm glad they still make that.
The MAP page is a little confusing because they don't show a correct picture for the 1g AWD catback. Looks like they only picture the 2g FWD. But the AWD 89-94 would be the right one.

The zig-zag, I have a story for that. When Lucas English wrote up the estimate for my car (that was when we were still just talking about it in 2015) he put in $1,000 for a custom exhaust system: "ER Stainless Turbo back exhaust 3in. Very high quality, OEM look out the back".
I told him that I had this Megan system on the car and that I think it's a good system, but that I had some doubts about the zig-zag that we had in the custom test pipe.
So when he came with his gigantic transporter to get my car, he put it up on the top rack, and he looked at that. For about 10 seconds. And he said, "Oh that's fine, we can use that. It won't hurt anything." Also he knew the guy, Andre, who had welded it up, and he knew that Andre was a good fabricator, good with stainless steel. Andre got the flanges by cutting them off of the Megan test pipe. But he did that right. He didn't cut right where the flange welds to the pipe. He cut the pipe about 2 inches from the flange, so each flange had about 2 inches of 3" pipe already on it. Then when he welded up the new test pipe he was welding pipe to pipe, not flange to pipe. That way there was no warpage of the flanges. They were still nice and flat.
I can't tell you how many degrees of angle we have on the zig and the zag though because I never measured it. It's not much.

 

[Capt Obvious]

Andre got the flanges by cutting them off of the Megan test pipe. But he did that right. He didn't cut right where the flange welds to the pipe. He cut the pipe about 2 inches from the flange, so each flange had about 2 inches of 3" pipe already on it. Then when he welded up the new test pipe he was welding pipe to pipe, not flange to pipe. That way there was no warpage of the flanges. They were still nice and flat.
I can't tell you how many degrees of angle we have on the zig and the zag though because I never measured it. It's not much.

That's exactly how I did mine too, cut the flange off with a couple inches of pipe on it. This pick shows off the angle of the pipe going into and out of the cat pretty well. It's minor but it annoys me because I prefer stuff to look as perfect as possible.

 

[We're on Boost]

That's exactly how I did mine too, cut the flange off with a couple inches of pipe on it. This pick shows off the angle of the pipe going into and out of the cat pretty well. It's minor but it annoys me because I prefer stuff to look as perfect as possible.

That looks good enough. About as much angle as mine. I know what you mean about always wanting this kind of thing to be better. Here's mine:

 

[Capt Obvious]

Radwood PNW is tomorrow so I've been trying to get the car cleaned up and ready for that so of course one of the wheel bearings decided to take a crap on me. Luckily I had new ones ready to go because I was going to replace them this winter when I drop the rear subframe to clean it up and do the 4-bolt swap.

I am so glad this is a west coast car with zero rust because everything came apart super smooth and within an hour I had the passenger rear stub out. I did discover what lead to the bearing dying while I taking everything apart. My car does not have ABS, but the plug that should cover the hole for the ABS sensor is missing so it allowed a bunch of water to get in while I was doing all the cleaning and pressure washing I did a few weeks back. I have a temp plug in there now but need to find something more permanant.

Of course, I had to get punished for that part being easy and it became a two day fiasco of trying to find a bearing puller with a long enough reach to grab the bearing (thanks Harbor Freight for making a puller with an 8" reach). Luckily, I was able to get the bearing off without messing up the metal shield things.

The new bearing slid right on with some help from a press.

And now for a long night of prep for tomorrow's event...