Canadian Eagle Talon

[thebrownman1]

thebrownman1 submitted a new DSM Profile :

Canadian Eagle Talon


Read more about this vehicle here...

 

[thebrownman1]

I am originally from Texas but moved to Alberta a couple years back. I have had DSM's since I could remember. Back in Texas I had a 92 GST. The best DSM I have ever owned. It was super reliable and I did put head studs in it after a new head gasket. Sadly, when I left Texas I told myself I would build one in Canada.

I pulled all the goodies off this car and shipped them to Canada. All kinds of little things. From the tunneau cover to the twin piston 'big brakes'. Once I ripped all that stuff, no one wanted the shell so it became beer cans.

This motor got new seals all all around and timing components.

Can you spot the problem?

I was incredibly lucky.

There you go lil fella.

All ready for her trip.

See you in Canada!

The shipping will prove troublesome as some accessories suffered damage on the trip.
This is all preface to the actual build.

 

[thebrownman1]

The ripping of Dory(previous car) happened during a trip took to visit family and friends in Texas. I had already purchased an Eagle Talon from a guy in Red Deer. The pictures and the price were decent but It definitely had some unfucking to do. Here she is at previous owners house. It was already broken. Allegedly the motor was seized but honestly I haven't torn the original apart.

Super filthy, eh? Looks like some cool stuff. Hard IC pipe. Maybe HKS bov? Nah, it was a knock off. Ebay tube mani was cool in the pics.

What is going on here? Turbo timer, Sparco wheel? Neat!.. .right now anyway.

Racing Hart C5's? Yes lawd. I'm not a fan, however. Will be looking to trade these.

It looks like a pretty good deal. I bought it for $750 Canadian, that's $530 US as of right now. I will be making that comparison when I talk about prices because man the Canadian dollar is so weak. This makes it difficult to get parts. Not only that I live in a small town. There is only 1 other DSMr here. Shipping prices are pretty high.

My goal for this car is to make it a nice, streetable car. It will need interior bits as well. I thought I did pretty good with this buy. So far, I haven't noticed bad rust in the usual locations but I haven't pulled the skirts yet so we will see.

 

[AWD-Tony]

Not bad at all for $550. You could probably get good money for those wheels from the right person, if they're in good shape. Do you know why the balancer belt broke?

 

[thebrownman1]

Not bad at all for $550. You could probably get good money for those wheels from the right person, if they're in good shape. Do you know why the balancer belt broke?

I have no idea why the balancer belt broke. I reckon when I did it last I didnt tighten down the pulley hard enough and eventually came loose enough to destroy the belt. I was so lucky. Im still debating wether I should eliminate the balance shaft all together but I like the idea of having all the parts working as they should and not modifying it too much. The rebuild of the original engine I may delete but not too sure yet.

 

[thebrownman1]

The day comes to finally pick this car up. It looks decent when I get there but it was in pieces. I had never bought a Canadian car before let alone one that was this old. I had my doubts but I bit the bullet and bought it anyway for $750 cad($530 usd). The wife and I use a winch to drag this thing onto our trailer. It is so low that the broken exhaust was caught on the door seal. What a pain the in ass.

We finally get it home from Red Deer. Once it was home I could look at it closer and see what I got myself into.

Looks pretty good in the driveway. By the way, I don't have a garage and winters here are killer. No progress is made during winter months but when I got it it was summer time.

Other than a bad motor I found:
Broken downpipe at flex section + some cheap ass exhaust
wiring problems galore: it had a remote start system that was totally a rats nest of wiring. "professionally installed". yeah right.
Broken interior bits.
OIL and grease everywhere! But i do think it acted as a rust inhibitor.
Old GR-2's with cut springs. Previous owner didnt do anything to adjust that horrid rear camber either.
Overall dirty as heck.

It's time to pull that old motor.

Welcome to your new home, buddy.
A few things were damaged on the trip though. The j-pipe was bent and the alternator adjustment bracket was bent which leads me to believe that they bumped it against something during transit. All good, I pulled those parts from the original motor.

What a greasy mess. I pressure washed it a bit but its definitely still has some grime in the engine bay. This summer I may get deeper in to it.

Another thing I found is on the driver side motor mount bracket on the car one of the studs was broken, so previous owner welded a nut and bolt in its place. It worked but the nut protruded and didnt allow the poly mount to slide in. Had to grind the nut head down all the way for it to fit.

Some progress. Previous owner said this transmission was good but I discovered that the transfer case was being held on by 3 bolts and when I degreased them, someone had written "TAP" in orange on both of them. Not really sure whats up with that. If anyone has seen that before feel free to chime in. I replaced both axle seals on this transmission.

Weird.

After doing putting in some work we finally have a running car.

It still needs a ton of work. Second gear grinds, probably should have expected that. Boost leaks, intermittent fuel cut off. I have a pile a parts waiting to be installed this spring to help rectify all of this. I didnt take a lot of pics during the swap but I will make sure to take more to document the build. I have ripped out the aftermarket turbo timer and remote start system so now the igntion is broken. Fuel upgrades, ECU swap, and other odds and ends to do. Will update once I start making more progress.

 

[Mech Addict]

Nice posts! I respect your intent to keep it sort of stock. Is your new car a true Canadian (“Normal” front seat belts)? You got a great deal on it, anyway, so hopefully that leaves budget to fix all the stuff that p/o’s messed up. But you may never understand WHY??!!!
Good luck. Keep us updated on Progress.

 

[Harrison Scholten]

Not alot of good condition 1gs left here in alberta, good to see that number going keep us posted

 

[Widgmaster]

Could those letters ... TAP .. be the marking of an auto wreckers signature ... Like in my town SAW ... Sarnia Auto Wreckers

 

[Harrison Scholten]

Could those letters ... TAP .. be the marking of an auto wreckers signature ... Like in my town SAW ... Sarnia Auto Wreckers

You're most likely right, in alberta almost every pick and pull will mark any part they sell with either a logo, or PO number

 

[Mech Addict]

Tim's Auto Parts?, Tom's Auto Parts?, something like that makes sense for TAP. My car had lots of paint-pen markings on the back side of most interior panels, and cary mfr dates that are well after the build date of the car itself. One owner must have removed and discarded them, only to have someone else replace them later with wrecker parts.Fortunately everything mechanical was left alone. What's your latest on the build?

 

[thebrownman1]

Hey guys its been a little while since I posted last. Spring and summer is the time to get out and do stuff so progress has been so so.

When's we last left off the car was in a running state but still had tons of things to do. I ripped out the remote start and turbo timer. I'm only running this car in the summer so no need for all that.

Ugh what a mess

I soldered and wired everything nicely with heat shrink.
I also re did the wiring for the radio.

Were jammin now. I bought a cheap ass radio from the local electronics store.

 

[thebrownman1]

Nice posts! I respect your intent to keep it sort of stock. Is your new car a true Canadian (“Normal” front seat belts)? You got a great deal on it, anyway, so hopefully that leaves budget to fix all the stuff that p/o’s messed up. But you may never understand WHY??!!!
Good luck. Keep us updated on Progress.

Haha yes! This car has normal seat belts. It's so much nicer. I think people want to make cheap power without doing the maintenance honestly.

 

[thebrownman1]

Tim's Auto Parts?, Tom's Auto Parts?, something like that makes sense for TAP. My car had lots of paint-pen markings on the back side of most interior panels, and cary mfr dates that are well after the build date of the car itself. One owner must have removed and discarded them, only to have someone else replace them later with wrecker parts.Fortunately everything mechanical was left alone. What's your latest on the build?

This is probably true. This transmission is not in the greatest shape. It grinds second unfortunately .

 

[thebrownman1]

Remember when I told y'all about how the previous owner let the engine leak so bad that the grease on the body could have acted as a rust inhibitor? Well the rear end didnt get the same treatment. I used good drivetrain fluids on the tranny and transfer case. I reckoned if I wanted to play with it Id have to do he rear end too. And boy its a good one.

Peep the rust. The rear end got it good. Looks like something has been leaking. At first I suspected the cover gasket but on closer inspection I found the plug was loose with some rtv acting as a washer. Jesus christ walking on a swimming pool. What are these people doing.

All this rust will have to be addressed in the fall/winter. One of my buddys from work has a shop with a lift in it. I will be dropping the subframe and attacking the rust head on.

I cleaned up the rear end ad used Red Line heavy shockproof. It's a 4 bolt and I wont be inspecting it further this season. The goal is to get it ready for September street car challenge so all rear end stuff will have to wait until winter.

 

[thebrownman1]

I still have more updates but its getting late. Fixed some interior bits, fuel upgrades, intake upgrades and more to come.

 

[thebrownman1]

I've been posting a bit on the "what did you do to your DSM today?" So I figured I'd update here with pics.
In my last post I was changing the fluids to participate in a race and it didn't end well. A lot has happened since then.
That transmission came from an 89 Galant C51PH, I bought parts for W5M33 and instead so they didn't fit. Cue the year long search for one. Did a few upgrades in that time.

 

[thebrownman1]

Ebay fmic. Cxracing stuff. It works with a bit modification.

 

[thebrownman1]

Went to the race but did terrible as expected. Couldn't shift into second at all.

 

[thebrownman1]

After this is when I decided to do the transmission but I didn't find out the extent of the differences between W5M33 and C51PH. Input shaft was smaller, aluminum transfer case. Prevoius owner must have broken the tranny and replaced it with this Galant drivetrain to get it going then broke that too. Broken shift fork, worn synchros.

 

[thebrownman1]

Since the car was going to be down for while I find a W5M33 tranny and tcase I did some upgrades. Powder coated intake mani, 16g, 1000cc injectors, clutch

 

[thebrownman1]

Found the knock sensor was garbage

 

[thebrownman1]

Tube o2 and 16g

 

[thebrownman1]

Found some leather seats and decided to do some rust repair and rebuild the rear subframe

 

[Mech Addict]

that’s a lot if work while waiting for a tranny. Any luck on that part?