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92' Eclipse GS 2.0L (slow build)

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buhay6

10+ Year Contributor
1,661
63
Jul 9, 2010
Delisle, SK_Canada
The build of a 92' Eagle Talon TSI AWD
(A.K.A From nothing to something)

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Index
Post
# 1-Introduction/history
# 5-Capture of an Eagle
# 7-Cleaning and parts collection
# 8-Build Goals/Parts list
# 9-Parts collection

#10-Chassis inspection
#11-Engine bay Clean up/Respray
#12-Start of panel replacement/eclipse tear down
#15-N/A 2.0L Tear down
#16-Death of a DSM (R.I.P.)
#17-Chassis panel replacement/body work
#18-Chassis panel replacement Continued
#19-Front sub-frame repaint/energy suspension bushing upgrade
#21-Salvage engine
#22-Eagle number 2 (the donor car)
#23-Sandblasting and undercoating/miscellaneous update
#25-Engine and drivetrain install/first drive
#28-Tran trouble
#29-Parts trip/parts clean up
#31-Tran trouble #2
#32-Rear main
#33-Recap/before and after
#34-Timing jump






Ok well lets start with my DSM history here....yes a history lesson sorry kids. Back in 2009 I was looking for a new car to add to my line up seeing as one was hit and totaled off, insurance took me for a ride so I didn't have much to spend. My dad stumbled across a 92 Talon ESI auto with 218k km on the clock and it that looked amazing, so we rang the guy up and proceeded to head over for a peak. Looked as if it was only a year or two old, got talking to the guy and he said the lowest he'd take was $3,800 for it. The timing belt and components were all just done along with all fluids, fresh tires all around and a brand new full exhaust. My dad and I hmm'd and haww'd, my dad passed and asked about his other car beside the talon which was a 95 Mazda Mellenia with a supercharged v6 which he had planned on selling a month or two later. But I was still focused on the Talon, that color just made it pop (still my favorite color 1g!). I told the guy I'd take it and that's how my DSM addiction started.

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Went to pick up the Talon a week later.....^^ the paint on the exhaust header burned off with in 3 blocks and I ended up blowing 3 of my very new low pro tires and had to limped it 40 km's home going 50 km/h on the side of the highway while being very very pissed off. All happened in one day. I also had a few other mishaps, the OD clutch pack blew out a month later and the shop I took it to damaged my rear bumper, also needed an new exhaust manifold plus something kept the car from going into gear. After I found out the intake kept falling onto the tranny linkages which kept them from moving, but I was to fed up to care anymore.
Car went up for sale the next day and was sold a week later for $1800, I took a huge hit and vowed to never ever come back.;)
As we all know that very seldomly happens. With in 5 months I itched for another one, but since I found out there was turbo charged AWD models I wanted one.


Which brings me to my second dsm.

Started off looking for much needed parts for my MK2 Supra on the way back to the wrecker office to pay for the part I found a 92' Eclipse GS in the lineup waiting to be processed, seeing it sparked my curiosity so I asked if he had any running DSM in stock he in turn said he had five new ones in stock fresh from the insurance company. I "Quickly" checked the body over found some rust but not to bad I though, checked out the engine bay for find it surprisingly clean looking (bonus!!) interior was superb and then I checked the under carriage for rust and found new exhaust along with new rotors and brakes front and back!
Lastly the most important thing was "how did it run?" so I started her up, took a good couple cranks but she fired up and sounded strong yet. That totally sealed the deal for me so I bought it.
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here's a couple more pics of the bad:
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After a month I found the right rear frame section had been compressed 1.5-2 inches and would cost $800-$1500 fix, plus there would be the cost for 2 government inspections to deem road worthy-ness. So at this point I decided to cut my loses and look for something else.
 
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I remembered talking to a guy from Borden a year or two back who said he had a rust free AWD talon shell I could have for free, so I found his email and got back in touch with him. He still had it, he'd offered it to a lot of people and no one came and picked it up. So I told him I'm on my way!........well I was 6 weeks later!

I finally got the shell from Borden, it was a huge hassle trying to get it out from behind buildings and around all the other cars he had but we managed to do it with out damaging the shell.......thanks to a skid steer loader with a good operator! Loaded it up on the trailer I rented from U-haul with the skid steer and I was off home. To get it home I had to rent a truck and a trailer with cost me $320 after fuel and taxes so that's not to bad.

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(The guy had broke that dash and I had already pulled it out in this pic)
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I spent a couple hours each day tearing down the interior for an interior swap out of the eclipse. I went back and forth between the two cars working, not having a garage I used the day light to work on the talon and in the night I worked on the eclipse till I had the talon gutted and the dash and vent system out of the eclipse. This is where both cars are at as of today.
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(cleaned up the whole vent system.)


Met with the guy I got the shell from to pick up some parts for $100, I got a AWD tranny, transfer case, flywheel, clutch and pressure pate and drive shaft. Then I went to the junk yard and found an AWD auto and pulled the ECU out of it for my build (heard the auto and manual were compatible). The guy I got my shell from told me about the talon at the junkyard, he got a brand new mani, O2 housing and plus a new 16g from it for $60!!!

The goods:
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The tran needs new seals all round and so does the transfer case.
The clutch disc also has cracks in it so I don't think it'd be wise to run it.
I have a lot of parts but I'm still missing these parts:
Engine wiring harness
Transmission mounts
Front brake calipers
Exhaust system
knock senser
turbo
waste gate
oil cooler
exhaust manifold
o2 housing

There's more but that's all I can think of as of right now. I'm basically stuck until I can get the engine wiring harness, I don't want to start putting the interior back in because it makes it really hard to hook everything back up properly. Plus I notice in the auto it had two computer boxes, I don't know if I need both or not but I know I grabbed the engine management comp.
 
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I'm wanting to use my talon for road racing, auto-x and at the same time have it as a DD, what I'm looking for is between 350 to 400 AWHP with the ability to take more so I have a fast reliable dd that if I'm not satisfied I can mod more with out having to completely change my setup.

Engine:

Wisco forged pistons .020 over C.R. 8.3;1
Eagle H beam rods ( acquired)
ACL crank and main bearings
ARP mains
ARP Head studs (acquired)
port'n polish head
bronze valve guides
hone valves 0.10
Brain crowler 272 cams
AEM adjustable came gears
fluid dampner crank pulley
Valve springs (undecided)

Air
Speed density
punishment racing FMIC kit (Acquired)
Meth/water injection kit


Transmission
Quarter master twin disk
Shep stage 3 tran
Fidanza aluminum flywheel (acquired)

Transfer case
stock

Rear dif
stock

Fuel system
Fuel lab fpr (Acquired)
Walbro 255lph (Acquired)
stock fuel rail (Acquired)
850cc+ injectors (pending)
FPR install kit (Acquired)


Exhaust
3" O2 housing with wg dump (Acquired)
ported 14b turbo (acquired)
FP exhaust mani (in question)

Engine management
DSM link v3
Eprom ecu


Suggestions welcome!!

I'm thinking I'll work on the drive line first as it should be able to run a stock engine, that way I'm not being held up on an engine and I can just build one on the side to install when I'm happy with it.
 
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Today I went to the nearby wrecker to pull some parts off of a 1ga talon that a buddy told me they got in. Found it had a 14B on it so I pulled it off, pulled the 450cc injectors and pulled the fuel rail. Then proceeded to pull the wiring harness out of the car, it was a pain in the A$$ having to pull a whole nother dash system. Grabbed a lot of other miscellaneous parts as well.
Pics:
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Broke a bolt on the exhaust side of the turbo, I had to littery climb on top of the car and jump on the ratchet to break the bolts loose that's just how in there they were.

I would have grabbed the mani and O2 housing but one was cracked and one I could no way no how get off (I REALLY tried). Tried to pull the coolant piping as well but when I couldn't get it to come away from the water pump I just said "screw it I'm tired time to go home!"

All I need now is an oil filter housing and coolant piping and hoses, exhaust, front brake calipers and knock senser.
 

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I went out and pulled the trim off the car just to see how bad the rear wheel well rust has become. The drivers side is fine yet just needs some wire brushing and repaint but the passenger side is rusted through.:(
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Went out and bought a dremel today so I could cut a good replacement piece out of a car at the wreckers to weld into my shell, but before I could finish cutting it out I broke the dremel.:banghead: So tomorrow I'll have to take it back and get a new one and go back to the wrecker on my day off to finish cutting out the pieces I need. Also picked up a spare valve cover and fuel relay + miscellaneous brackets and bolts.
After I got home I decided to start finish cleaning my tcase and tranny so I can start to polish them. Just about finished my tcase, got tired and decided to go watch top gear and play some battle field 3.:D
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Once again a small update I cleaned the shell up with the pressure washer today and started preping the front wheel wells for re-paint and an under coating spray.
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Then proceeded to pull the struts and gave it all a scrub in varsol to take the dirt and grease off. Then applied 3 coats of flat black primer spray paint to the frame and wheel well areas, then finished it all up with the under coating spray that turns into a rubber when dryed: did 2 coats of that.
Here how it looks after the paint.....:thumb:
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I had to move the cars around because I got in trouble with the town, so I moved the GS right up against my garage and move the talon to the front and into the car port for some shelter. I finished up the wheel wells and started stripping the engine bay of the rest of the parts.
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Had more but cant find them all that was left in the bay was brake/fuel lines and the harness.

I then stripped all the paint out of the engine bay using circa 1850 paint stripper (works great), VERY LONG PROCESS! wouldn't recommend it. I took me a very long time to do it in the end I decided to hell with stripping the fire wall. here's some pics:
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here's where the drivers side it completely stripped to bare metal and I've started to prime the passenger side already.
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after 3 coats of primer, I used different shades so I could be sure every part of the bay got its 3 coats.

Since I didn't have access or the funds to do a proper paint job I did some research into available routs I could possibly take. I found that using a truck bed liner would probably be my best bet, so I got a couple cans of dupli color truck bed liner and went at it. (some pics are linked do to already being uploaded else where in the forums here)
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Ended up going through 6 cans of this just on the engine bay, at $17 a can its not cheap.
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truck bed liner in the drying stage
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48 hours after being sprayed.
But there's A problem the bed liner just scraps off at the slightest abrasion which is not good!
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Fast forward about a month and its now as hard as a rock and wont even chip when a wrench is whipped directly at it. So I'm happy now, it took 7 coats of the truck bed liner to get it to be abrasion resistant and it looks great.

I then started repainting miscellaneous parts and re-installing them, its starting to come together a little now at lest.
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I also started on the body work and cutting out some of the rust that has started to take hold.
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Due to being harassed by the town for having so many cars it came time to decide what to do with the eclipse. I'm all for saving a shell and getting it back on the road regardless of turbo or non turbo platforms, but with the current budget I had at my disposal I was left with no choice but to part with the shell. I didn't have the time or space to do the comprehensive rust repair needed to make it have a longer life as rust was inside the uni-frame.
So the tear down began sadly......
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Continued in post #15-16
I got really lucky today, not only did my awesome neighbor let me use his picker and home made scooter thingy, but he gave me a big air compressor for free. I gotta fix a couple thing on it quickly but that means I can finally start sand blasting and totally expands what I can all do at home.
 
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Well today me and the good old neighbor finally broke free the crank sprocket bolt, so I was finally able to tear into the bottom end. I'll post pic's of what the bearing and stuff looked like tomorrow, crank bearing look great and so does the crank but the rod bearing are another story. I also cut the patch for the talon out of the eclipse today and basically bent it into form, got some trimming to do but should fit like basically like a glove.
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Rod bearings look a little rough in my opinion.....
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just needs to have the paint stripped and then its ready to become one with the talon.

Tomorrow I'll be working on cutting out the last replacement piece for the PS wheel well hopefully get a start on sand blasting as well. Then saterday sunday will hopefully be undercoating/welding in my replacement panels.
 
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Well this last weekend I decided it was time to get my ass into gear, get the panels cut out of the eclipse that I needed and start cutting her up. It was only a little below zero (way warmer then usual for this time of year) So what better time then to be out side slaving away.

I started by saying screw cutting the spot weld and lets just cut the whole bloody piece out with a angle grinder! Vwhala! 30 min later there out.
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Now it came time to say good bye to yet another beloved dsm *tear* :shhh:
I had to make sure I cut it equally so it wouldn't tip onto one side and make things more difficult, so logically I started with the heavier end first..the engine bay!

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then went to the roof to c pillars
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Then I started on cutting the A pillars to drop the windshield....what a PITA! I ended up getting fed up, and decided before I got carried away it'd be best if I dropped the front sub frame/control arms because it was already becoming front heavy.
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Before long my scrap pile looked like this, I got carried away!
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The end result looked like this!
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Cost of the Eclipse -$775.00
Parts sold to Recoup:
5 speed Transmission +$250.00
Tire's and Rims +$250.00
Rear Seats +$60.00
Miscellaneous interior +$80.00
Miscellaneous Engine +$120.00
Scrap metal value +$64.00
Cutting disks -$30.00
Profit of $19.00

Parts left to sell:

Front seats
Front bumper
Rear bumper
Injectors
Fuel pump
Wiring connectors
N/T 6 bolt block
6 Bolt Crank
N/T pistons/rods
Rear quarter windows
DR/PS door windows
 
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Well I believe its long passed time for an update on the slow build. I've been very busy over the winter months and spent many an hour freezing my butt of working on the talon in 5 to -15 degree's Fahrenheit. I've made a decent amount of progress so far, I'm almost done cleaning up the chassis and doing rust removal and preventative maintenance. I'll try and go in order in which I did things over the winter months.

I was waiting on my bonus check from work and got the itch to get going on the talon, with funds been very tight I though it was best to do something that didn't take money. As much as I didn't want to do it and wasn't looking forward to it I crawled under the car to scrub at this crap that layered the whole bottom of the car. (photo's are failing to upload hope to fix soon)
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What it started as
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After acouple hours scrubbing the tunnel
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after 6 hours of scrubbing with a small wire brush, and being scrubbed with mineral spirits. I had to lay under the tunnel to scrub and could barley squeeze onto my side at times, it was a complete pain in the @ss. Next under coating.

Did two coats of undercoating and used por-15 where the sub frame mounted to the uni frame.
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After I got that done I couldn't go any farther for awhile because I needed a welder to start on the body work, I found so much rust in the shell it was shocking. It did very well at hiding it until you really opened it up and took a look. Got my welder early march and the rest of the supplies I needed to get cracking on welding in the many new body panels it needed. I just fab'ed them up and got them to fit as best as I could seeing as it was my first time doing any type of body work and I'll never make it a rust free shell like I wanted to but it's been a good learning experience. Will help a lot when it comes to fix my much harder to find supra.with out further ado hears the pics.

passenger side front of the rear wheel well.
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Passenger side rocker panel under the passenger door.
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Also found what looks like stress cracks in the same spots on both sides of the car. anyone had the same thing before?
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Now time for the drivers side, I'll let the pictures do the talking:
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After being sandblasted, a couple coats of weld through primer and por-15
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Welding in the new metal:
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Stress crack on the drivers side:
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After I got all the panels welding in I went a round and started grinding off all the welds and filling what ever thin spots I could find, then went to the inside of the panels to seam seal and make it as water tight as I possibly could to pro long the life of this doomed shell. Found that body work is not for the faint of heart, even going slow and trying my best to make sure all the panels lined up straight I got metal warp and uneven ness in spots. I'm just very glad its a talon model so all the new panels will be nicely covered up. I still have to buy more por-15 and coat the inside and out side of the panels a good 3 coats before I install my full interior.
 
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Its been a long time since I've updated my build thread and a lot has changed since last winter. Got lots of new parts and installed a lot of them over the last while, was planning to update awhile ago but since my computer crashed out on me finally I lost the majority of pictures I had. It definitely killed my motovation to work on my build thread and to make it more thorough, but I've restarted and am going to update more.

progress through this summer
Well to carry on with where I left off from the body work, I had my front end completely torn apart and I figured may was well install new subframe and control arm bushings. I ordered the energy suspension bushing kit along with new ball joints, and in the meantime figured it would be best to clean up the old subframe and bracing to finish up the front end.
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So I went to the local auto body supply store to purchase some POR-15 as it seemed to be the best product for the application I was wanting to fulfil. (Just a tip to others looking to use the POR-15 line, buy the original!! I tried acouple of their other styles and it just flaked off, unlike the results I got from the original where it could take a full on blow from a hammer.......I tested it yes.)
Took me 3 hours to prep the subframe, control arms, and front subframe bracing as I wanted to make sure I wouldn't have to redo it. I went through $120 of POR-15, 4 paint brushs and I had to eat a lot of cereal so I had some good size card board pieces to use haha. It was still cheaper then powder coating at any local shops got that done in a week, and the next week my suspension bushings and ball joints came in.
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Installing the energy suspension bushings was incredibly easy, followed the directions supplied and it was a cake walk. Pushed them in by hand with not to much effort, I found that the POR-15 made a very slippery surface for the bushings to stick to. I ended up picking up the dye grinder with a sanding wheel to take off some of the paint and it worked perfectly. When it came to installing the subframe it got tricky, I had to use a jack with a block of wood to slowly raise it into place. It didn't like going back in much and liked to push out the bushings a lot, but after an hour of fighting with it I got it to jimmy into position and it went smooth from there.
Then it was just down to installing control arms, new ball joints, and sway bar end links. Since I had the steering rack out I thought it would also be a good idea to clean it up and paint it as well. Re-installed the rack and also installed new tie rod ends....you know the way it is, since I was there anyways.
I also decided to check out wheel bearings to see what condition there in, it was a good thing I checked into it. I ordered new wheel bearing and seals with in the hour from autopartsway.ca and yes I painted the hub and knuckle assemblies......since I was there anyways. ( used the POR-15 undercoat line paint....mistake!)
Thankfully my work place has a nice big press so when the bearings came in a couple days later it was straight into my lunch box and to work. Bolted the fresh hubs in right after work and the car hit the ground for the first time in 3 months.

parts:
1- Energy suspension bushing kit $163.86
2- Moog lower ball joints $ 62.78
2- Koyo front wheel bearings $112.00
2- Tie rod ends $76.38
4- Paint brushs $12.03
2 quarts- POR-15 $120.00

Shipping expenses $80.76

Total $635.81
 
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moarrrr...


awesome to see this level of restoration.
 
moarrrr...


awesome to see this level of restoration.

Thanks man, nice to see someone's reading it. I wouldn't exactly call it a restoration but more of a keep the cops off my case measure as they're cracking down big time on rust here.

acquiring the engine

Well it was mid June when I decided to look for an engine to start knocking down the list of required item. I called every wrecker and searched local classifieds to no avail, nothing was around for me to pick up so I said screw it and went to one of the better wreckers to buy a core engine.
Found the best one in a 90 fwd with full 3 inch exhaust and a few other small mods. Thinking it may provide me with some upgraded parts, along with already having the drive tran pulled off so it was less work. So when I was removing the harness I found the head had been recently done and even better......a single stage turbo smart mbc was tucked in the mani. I was pretty happy with my choice and got the wreckers to load it up in the truck for me.

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Once I got it home it was tear down time, got it unloaded and started picking away at it. My suspicions of the fresh head made me think of the typical timing belt jump......

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Needless to say soon as I seen the bearing material I was surprised my initial thoughts were wrong yet at the same time disappointed it wouldn't be just a quick head refresh and running

The timing belt had definitely jump previously in its history but judging by the carbon build up it was and old wound.

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Bearings:

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The worst of the bearings

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For the most part the bearings looked newer, the bearing material looked to have come from the rear balance shaft bearing. The only other one that should any signs of damage was one of the main bearings
The crank shaft obtained some damage from the bearing material but it looks to be well on the salvageable side. Slight bit of polishing at the shop and it should be good to go.
 
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Well after seeing the state of the engine from the wreckers I decided I'd hold off making any moves for a while and check the local classifieds to see what might pop up. About a month later in August something good actually did pop up! Well two good things came up, one was a guy selling off his dsm build parts, the other was a 93 talon awd for $500. Needless to say I sent a few emails, from the guy parting out his build I bought a fadanza aluminum flywheel, stainless steel braided brake lines, arp head studs, MAF translator, and a aluminum hard pipe with couplers.
I got in touch with the guy who had the talon as well and met up a week later, turns out him and his dad have been in the dsm game for almost 20 years and have 6 between the 2 of them. I got the story behind the car from the guy, turned out it was in an accident and he bought it was a insurance write off. He fixed it did all the maintenance and drove it for 2 years, then got if stuck in a ditch during a blizzard and either blew the clutch or transmission trying to get it out; he got it home and its sat for the last 7 years. My buddy and I took a good look at the car and I decided I'd buy it, I did a little bargaining and got a complete 93 talon awd with a blown clutch or transmission for $400. Boy I tell you I couldnt have been happier that day, August was a good month! Then my buddy alex and I loaded it up onto the uhaul (with a little help from the PO) did the paper work and off we went.

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Towed the parts car to my place of work (with permission) and unloaded it into the spare shop for disassembly the next day.

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I worked my usual Saturday shift and the whole time I was just itching to go do a number on the parts car. I ended my shift at 4 pm pulled my tool box into the other shop and went full retard on the parts car that night. Ended up working on it non stop from 4 pm to 2 am before getting tired enough to call it a night, came back at 9 am the next day to finish it up. I was finished by 1 pm that Sunday (day of rest....LOL), I stacked all the keeper parts nicely on a pallet and used a forklift to pull what was left of car out to be towed away for scrap (wasn't much left haha)

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Notice something I forgot?? find out later.

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Got the engine and drive tran home along with a truck load full of other parts. Took a while to unload it all, I pulled the complete rear sub frame and assembly as seen by the the pictures above to be cleaned up and swap my current assembly out next summer. Well brilliantly smart me decided while using a forklift to lift the rear subframe assembly into the back of the truck I'd push it to the very front to be room efficient..........weeelllll one braking being seized the other one not made it a little interesting and time consuming trying to unload it by myself.

The next day I decided to find out what really happened to my 93 talons drive tran. So I pulled out the air compressor and impact to make quick work of this job so I could finally put my curiosity to rest. I rip of the tran bolts and guess what I find.....well I guess I actually knew what happened soon as I took the inspection cover off, but i still wanted to see just how bad it was.... it was bad!

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Ended up getting half a 5 gallon pail worth of clutch material from the bell housing. I was astonished! well perfect I though tranny should be totally fine then (wishful thinking much?...).
So I go and place an order for some parts from RTM Racing:
1-new 7 bolt timing belt tension-er
1-BES kit
1-fuel filter
1-O2 housing gasket
1-mani to turbo gasket
1- oil return line gaskets
1- 7 bolt front case gasket
1- 7 bolt oil filter housing gasket
1- oem oil filter
cost $350 shipped....that didn't take to long blow through the rest of my budget!
I already had new timing tension-er and idler pulley bearings as well as a virtually new oem timing belt so I felt no need to order that stuff as of yet.

From there I started cleaning everything up make it look a little prettier because like most guys.....I HATE a dirty engine bay yuck.
what it looked like:
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Started by pulling the tb elbow and tb, I decided hey since I have the elbow off and it has this nice rough edge in it to disrupt air flow into the manifold. Grabbed some sand paper and sanding that crap down and did a slight polish.

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Also swapped on my spare pre-cleaned mani to finish off the intake side of things.

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Next thing that dawned on me was hey I need a new flywheel, the clutch toasted the old one. So thinking about who was close and had a 7 bolt, I came up with Andrew (Nekid here one tuners), got together with him and he gratefully donated a seven bolt flywheel as he wasn't using it. Thanks Andrew!
I didnt take pictures (wish I had!) as it was rusty but nothing a little ATF with a scotch bright disk on a drill with a few hours of time cant do, it cleaned up beautifully. So I go slap it on and move onto the next task, finding a new exhaust mani as mine was extremely cracked and in comes Mike (1990AWD) with hooking me up with a mani for a $20 and letting me use his clutch tool. So on goes the clutch and the tranny back bolted up.

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Next on the list was to give the little 14b a check up! I did notice some some contact on the comp housing of the cool side when I was tearing apart the parts car. I found no in and out and no side to side play on the hot side yet I did get some side to side play on the cool side of the turbo which didn't make sense to me. But I couldn't get the turbine wheel to contact the comp housing no matter what so I gave it a clean bill of health, had the typical crack around the WG and the comp housing damage must have been a prior incident.

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Since I couldn't go any farther with installing parts to get the engine and tranny ready to go into the talon I figured I'd knock off one of the last thing on the "To Do" list on the chassis. I had been procrastinating (I'm really good at it) doing it for a good 3 months as it was going to be a dreadful process......boy was I right.
The chassis had a good bit of rust under neath I wanted to tackle before it got to bad. So I bought a sand blaster gun and 5 bags of 20-30 grit blaster, then jacked the car up as FAR as I could get it this time (still wasn't enough) threw some jack stands under the old girl and suited up for a long weekend.

Just an idea of what it looked like before:
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After a little progress..... around 24 hours of work I was at this point:

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I ended up putting another 10 hours in of sand blasting to take off more of the pesky rust left (seen in the pictures above) which took a good while because there wasn't a lot left. I still didn't get all of it be I did get around 85% to 90% of it which I was satisfied with. Sorry about not having a lot of pictures but I just wanted to get it over with as winter was fast approaching so time was extremely short.
After sand blasting I crawled back underneath the car and started scrubbing with mineral spirits to get it ready for under coating LOTS of under coating. Went out and spent $120 just on rubberized undercoating paint to protect everything nice and $60 more on seam sealer to make sure the water stayed out, this is how it looked after:

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I was extremely relieved when I had finished the chassis crap, all the work was finally paying off for once. Then since the parts hadn't arrived yet I decided I would try the Mothers 3 step polish and wax system on my talon as it brought my little brothers faded red Miata back to a shiny red I wanted to see what it could do for my talon. After one pass with each step I was amazed at the difference, it was night and day different.

Before the polish/wax:
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After:
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The next day the parts from RTM racing come in so I could finally rap this crap up and drop everything into the car.

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I pop off the front case to do my BESK and check the health of the oil pump, and everything goes beautifully. The oil pump didn't show any signs of wear at all so I was extremely relieved yet again, it was a new specifications so I cleaned both mating surfaces up and back on she went with new bearings and tension-er. I also found the water pump currently on the motor was siezed solid so I threw on the brand new gates I had bought the preivious year for the eclipse and whalla problem solved.

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Since I had to take the oil pan off I decided to do a little clean up on that as well, sanded it down de-greased it and painted in 2 coated of semi gloss black high heat with 4 coats of high heat gloss to top it off. Not bad for a quick 2 hour job

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So with all the motor work done and tranny bolted up I decided it was time to throw on the good old timing belt so I could wrap this puppy up for install.....there was one problem tho, I hadn't set cylinder one to tdc before removing the timing belt originally:ohdamn:. Oh well just meant a little more work for me I guess, using the haynes manual I got it set right and threw on the timing belt. Turned the engine over by hand until marks were back to the original positions to make sure timing was correct.
When I was cleaning the motor up I noticed the vc was leaking bad so I figured since I have the parts to remedy this problem may as well go a head and do so. So off comes the vc for inspection and a new gasket. Taking out the last bolt I fumbled it and guess where it falls?!? Thats right down into a cylinder! I definitely kicked myself for the stupidity, should have put the spark plugs back in before taking the vc off. So I took my good old handy bendy claw tool and send it down after the bolt in cylinder 4......but find when it has the bolt in its claws its to big to come back out the spark plug hole. I reached a serious "oh shat" momment at this point as I have no new hg's and the snows coming right away. I managed to find a small magnet on my fridge that I completely lucked out with, I stuck it to the end of the bendy claw and put it back down the cylinder. The magnet cleared the sides of the spark plug hole by maybe two blond hair widths, I carefully lowered it in as to not drop the magnet and was completely relieved when it came out with that 10mm bolt on the end!:p
 
Well I was finally at the point I had been waiting to get to for a good while now, everything was ready to go! I laid out some plywood from my back garage door to the car and pushed the engine out with the picker got it all lined up. Then realize some of the stuff I had re-installed back into the engine bay had to come right back out again or risk getting wrecked and setting me back farther. Pulled that rad back out all the P/S lines and battery tray.
Then I reset the picker into position and started lowering it in, the plywood kept shifting all the time which made me have to jerk the picker around a lot while going down. Caused a lot of paint damage and some damage to a few firewall mounted items, decided to just say screw it and keep going with dropping the engine in.
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Did a little trading with Andrew for some redline fluids and can't thank him enough again. So I changed all the drive line fluids and installed the drive shaft and t-case.

After I got it all dropped in I stepped back and took a look at the a/c crap I had, and well since I've never used A/C no matter how hot it was outside I figured why the hell do I want this crap Vamoos with yee!
After I got rid of A/C components, hooked up the wiring harness, fuel system and moved onto the intake I ran into the first problem......I only had a n/t intake canister, which as some people know is a few inches shorter then a turbo models with a different maf port. So I made a run to the wreckers and got a new one the next day (one of the parts I forgot in the parts car!). Finished up the intake, installed the rest of the removed components and threw in a battery to go through the first start up procedure.
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Pulled the plugs and unhooked the fuel return line so I could be sure I was getting fuel to the rail. Turned the key and waited for the fuel system to prime, let a good few liters poor onto the ground from the stock fpr to do a little flush of the fuel rail. Next I pulled the fuse for the fuel pump and unplugged the coil pack, cranked the motor over for about 10 revolutions before I seen oil pressure register on the stock gauge. Got back out plugged the coil pack back in, reset the fuel pump fuse, installed the plugs and wires. Moment of truth finally arrived, turn the key and boom she fired right up, purred like a kitten quiet and nice.
I was extremely pumped now, I killed it after a minute to put on the lower rad hose....which I couldn't find. So I started it back up to move it to the front garage so I could work on it through out the winter, found I only had 2 gears! I finished moving it around front and jumped here on tuner to find out why.

Little research later I found I had my 91-94 shifter base/cables in a 90 tranny bracket (another part I forgot on the parts car), well that explains why I only had two gears! Went back to the wrecking yard AGAIN and pulled a 90 setup from a wrecked awd. Took me about an hour to swap around, bingo got all my gears back in their prospected spots.

My order from RTM racing for rad hoses came in and I could finally finish getting it into operating condition.
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Installed the hoses and filled and bled the cooling system. She was finally ready for her first driving tests.

Snow came not long after and with out any real progress in sorting out my electrical issues I figured why not take this baby for a boot. I didn't even make it to the end of the block as the cars alignment was WAY out. I turned around and went back to the garage and did some adjusting, then took it back out again. Ended up repeating a few times before I got it close enough to straight that I could drive it a little. Since it snowed a good bit I figured I'd run to the good old grand parents and shovel their drive way for them!

Pic of it finally making it farther then 1 block:
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Sorry for the crap quality

On the way back I down shifted into first gear coming to a stop sign and lost first completely. So I nursed it back home and parked it for a few weeks.

I ended up coming across a good 14b here on the local classifieds on tuners that was a very good deal, so I bought it as a spare (cant remember from which member) as I don't know how long my current one will last me.
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Checked out the turbo and was very impressed with its condition zero shaft play and virtually rust free! love me these southern turbo's.

Since I had time on my hand's I decided I'd tackle this alignment issue and get it over and done with.
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Found my alignment was out an inch and a half toe in, which definitely explained why it fought its self to go straight. Also noticed that half the wing nut on my positive side terminal battery cable end was melted to my hood.......could have had a serious fire there!

Current engine bay picture:
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