Black Widow97's Talon: Brought back from the grave.

[Black Widow97]

Just moving this to the new journal system. It's the progress on my 1997 Talon TSi AWD build. Here is some general info:

Year- 1997
Make- Eagle
Model- Talon
Sub Model- TSi AWD
Mileage- 55,871
Ext Color- Black
Int Color- Tan/Black

Here is the story behind the car. I bought the car from a partout ad in July of 2010. The car was originally form PA, and I had it shipped here (Fargo, ND). Why? You ask? Well, for a few reasons. One being the low mileage, another being the fact that it has no rust. It is vertually impossible to find a DSM with no rust around here. When I got the car, it was missing 1) the engine and related components 2) the front brakes 3) the ECU 4) the exhaust 5) any performance mod the previous owner installed and 6) the turbo system. The windshield had been broken at one point by the previous owner neglecting to latch the hood. So there was tiny shards of glass everywhere inside the car. The wiring was a mess. It came with a 2Ga Talon front bumper and 2Gb Eclipse headlights installed. Also there was some serious cleaning to do. The radiator support was also bent, so I needed to replace that as well.

The plans for the car as far as looks is rims (18x8 Konig Illusions), 2Ga Twisty skirts, and window tint.

HP goals are 300-350 WHP.

So here is all of the progress I made summer 2010.

I did a LOT of cleaning.
Straightened out the wiring. (The right way, using solder and heat 2 pieces of heat shrink per connection.)
Installed an Eprom ECU and engine harness from parts car.
Got a good start on the brakes.
Got the engine from the parts whore torn down.
Started replacing the bent radiator support.

After pulling the engine out of the parts whore:

Pics of cleaning the interior:

The rear turned out looking like new without having to replace any parts. All i had to do was paint the speaker grills because they were scraped up and starting to rust. You can also see the CF cargo cover I got for it too.

Here is some of the wiring woes I had:
This is most of the random wires left lying around in the car. Most of them had copper showing, waiting to short out and cause a fire.

Here is some broken and cut wires in the engine bay.

These wires were cut for some reason and twisted back together and wrapped with electrical tape, which was coming off because of power steering fluid being spilled on them.

Here is the engine bay after I replaced the main harness and marked where everything goes with blue tape.

The brake progress:

The progress installing a new radiator support:
Note in this pic all of the wiring is fixed and back to the way it was from the factory.

 

[Black Widow97]

Progress in the fall of 2010.

My biggest project was replacing the radiator support. It looked like someone tried to pull it out of a snowbank by the old radiator support and bent it all up.

Here is the old one:

Here is the car after I removed the old one:

Here is the new one welded on:

My most time consuming project was getting a hold of one of a 2Gb Talon front bumper. I had been looking for one for 6 months, and finally got one. I traded my 2Ga front bumper and old CF hood for it.

 

[Black Widow97]

Well over the winter of 2010-2011, I kept myself busy trying to ignore the cold and snow working on the car.

I added red badges to the rear bumper instead of replacing those ugly blue/purple letters that originally came on 97-98 Talons.

I painted the door speaker grills black. They were all faded and looked like shit.

I added my amp and subwoofer setup.

Finished my brakes and installed my rims and got it rolling again.

And FINALLY put my front end back together and started adjusting everything.

 

[Black Widow97]

Well as many of you have read above, I replaced my radiator support. Well, it turns out that they sent me an N/T support, and it went unnoticed until it was welded on. So my project this weekend was to start all over, grind the N/T one off, and weld the correct one on. And while waiting for primer/paint to dry, and in between steps of installing the new radiator support, I did a few other things.

So here is all what I got done over the course of the weekend:
1. Replaced radiator support

2. Aligned the doors better so they don't scrape the fenders when I open the doors

3. Rust proofed

Painted the wiper arms that were faded and peeling.

4. Put black floor mats in.

5. Straightened out the pinch weld that was bent and starting to rust.

6. Fixed some wiring that wasn't routed correctly.

7. Drilled and tapped broken fender bolts.


I finished putting the front end together the following day. There was still a lot of adjusting to do to get it perfect. You may also notice that the front bumper is gray in these pics rather than paprika as shown in the pics above. I decided to go with a new 2Gb front bumper from JNZ and start off fresh with it, and keep the paprika one as a spare.

 

[Black Widow97]

Pics of the engine assembly.

 

[Black Widow97]

Here are pics from the engine install.

 

[sypherzero]

Very nice build man! Those badges look sick! I'm hoping to get the engine finished and dropped into mine in the next couple of months.

 

[Black Widow97]

When I finished putting everything together and started her up. After 15 months of sitting, she fired right up! She ran surprisingly well. Idle was a bit high. No leaks of any kind (at that point). No belt squeal either. I put 10 miles on it that day.

Here she is at the gas station getting some fresh gas after the rebuild.

After about $50 miles, the brand new passenger wheel bearing went out. I also noticed a few issues that arose.

Here's how she sat for the winter until I got back around to it in the spring when it started warming up outside.

Here's the emblem for the front bumper after I finished painting it.

Most annoying was leaking oil from the turbo oil drain tube. I re-gasketed it and it continued to leak., so I swapped back to the OEM oil drain tube and it continued to leak. It turned out to be leaking through the bolts, so I used longer bolts, wrapped them in teflon tape, and added crush washers to the bolts. No more leak.

Also a very small leak from the T case. I suspect the T case got a bit overfilled because I had just the front jacked up when I filled it.

I forgot to tighten one coolant line clamp to the turbo. It started leaking about 100 miles in. Tightened it down, no more coolant leak.

It was idling at around 2k rpm after the rebuild. The parts car I got the TB and many other parts from had the same issue. I figured the TB was dirty and needed to be cleaned. Well it turned out to be that I just needed to adjust the throttle stop screw. She idles right atabout 900 RPM now.

Lastly I had a few boost leaks after initial install of the hard IC piping. I adjusted all of my IC piping and re-tightened all of the T-bolt clamps and fixed all of these. But it continued to cut out pretty bad under heavy throttle. Upon installing the boost gauge I got for my birthday, I discovered that I have some pretty nasty boost creep. It will creep up to 20PSI very easily. I have an extra turbine housing I am planning on porting to hopefully remedy this issue.

Here are pics of the bumper install.

Here's the exterior FINALLY finished.

There are a few things I would like to do to it by the end of the summer.
1. Fix boost creep issue
2. Get wideband gauge
3. Get oil pressure gauge
4. Tint windows

 

[Black Widow97]

Pics of my Talon with my old man's Chevelle.

Me with my Talon at my brother's wedding.

After her first wax.

And here she is at her first car show.

 

[Alex7747]

Very nice build and clean car, but the red badge stands out too much in my opinion. What are your plans to mod it, if you have any.

 

[gprix1]

Wow. I know that was a lot of work!
We just got my girlfriend a '95 GSX someone was parting out and we will be dealing with a lot of the same issues you did. After spending a year building my '97 GSX I also saved, I'm not really looking forward to this next one.
Anyway, Excellent job saving the car. I really like the red badging a lot. The only thing I saw that I didn't like too much was the exhaust tip sticks out a bit much but that is a minor thing really.

 

[Black Widow97]

Very nice build and clean car, but the red badge stands out too much in my opinion. What are your plans to mod it, if you have any.

Thank you. Mod plans for the near future aren't much. MBC and I'm thinking about getting a multigauge instead of using the tripple pillar pod and 3 gauges. I also have a set of springs to drop it a bit more. I may be going back to school so that may make funds for the car pretty limited. But after that I will be shooting for 300-350 WHP.

 

[Black Widow97]

Wow. I know that was a lot of work!
We just got my girlfriend a '95 GSX someone was parting out and we will be dealing with a lot of the same issues you did. After spending a year building my '97 GSX I also saved, I'm not really looking forward to this next one.
Anyway, Excellent job saving the car. I really like the red badging a lot. The only thing I saw that I didn't like too much was the exhaust tip sticks out a bit much but that is a minor thing really.

I saw your thread about your car, so we both can relate to how much work this is! My girl also has a 97 Talon that looks like it will turn out to be more work than we thought. Damn rust.

Thanks for the compliments. I really appreciate them. I know the exhaust sticks out too far. I think my DP is a bit too long. But I plan to fix this when I cut the 2.5" neck down off my Thermal, I will cut a few inches off and reweld a 3" flange on. That is one of my next projects.

 

[airmail96]

How did you do at the car show?

 

[crash89]

Lookin good man.. Just curious what was the difference between the N/T and turbo core supports? There didnt look like there was any differences from the pictures. Other than that

 

[Black Widow97]

How did you do at the car show?

It's just a car show that you show up, park your car somwhere on the street, and walk around and look at other people's cars. They don't really do awards. There was only one other DSM there. An Eclipse N/T. Owner was cool though.

 

[Black Widow97]

Lookin good man.. Just curious what was the difference between the N/T and turbo core supports? There didnt look like there was any differences from the pictures. Other than that

On an aftermarket support, the tranny support bolt holes are tapped on the driver's side for a N/T. They're tapped on the passenger side for a Turbo. I believe OEM ones have both sides tapped. But I had a body shop order this one for me from one of his vendors. I thought about just tapping the passenger side of the N/T one, but they only reinforce the side that it is made for on the aftermarket ones.

 

[Alan11]

POS ...love it man!!

what happened with those twisted side skirts you told me about???

 

[96DSM_Steve]

Looks sick man! Love the car!

 

[Black Widow97]

POS ...love it man!!

what happened with those twisted side skirts you told me about???

I still have em. Just trying to get some other stuff taken care of before I install them.

Looks sick man! Love the car!

Thank you sir!

 

[96DSM_Steve]

On that bumper it has square fog lights?

 

[Purple_Demon]

Looks awesome man, keep up the good work! Wish my 2GB front bumper was that clean , I still gotta get ahold of the rear bumper sometime too XD

 

[Black Widow97]

On that bumper it has square fog lights?

No, it has the OEM 2Gb Talon foglights.

Looks awesome man, keep up the good work! Wish my 2GB front bumper was that clean , I still gotta get ahold of the rear bumper sometime too XD

Thank you! I bought the bumper new from JNZ. I have another one that is pretty beat up though.

 

[Arnie]

Just came upon this thread! I enjoyed it, happy to know people will do so much for a car! That shipping for your car was awesome! No rust , low mileage, and sexy car!

Glad you finished it or still under construction!

I thought your badge was unique, matches your break pads! Both red!

 

[slvrbllt]

another dsm is brought back to life.... grood job with the build so far