my 91 tsi buildup: "fun daily driver"

[Juhanis]

hello, i figured i'd start one of these threads to kinda document the process of building up my 91 talon tsi into a fun daily driver... here are a couple of pics of what i'm starting off with.

you can see my car's mod list under my profile... its kind of long to type it all out. but basically the goal of this car is to have all of the creature comforts and still be able to make a reliable 500-550awhp whenever i want to run e85. since its going to be a daily driver i plan to run it on 91octane. i also want this thing to be as reliable as possible, and able to be at home on a race track too. so, here's what i have planned.

1) replace broke budget rebuilt tre transmission
2) improve braking performance
3) improve existing pcv system
4) replace missing a/c
5) replace all missing interior parts (back seats, misc plastic interior parts, screws, plastic tabs).
6) install better speakers, and an amp that can get the job done. i'm not looking to win any stereo shows with it, so a couple of 8" subs and some new door speakers will work.
7) dyno tune for 91 octane, and e85 (i plan to max out my borg warner s258)

first off to tackle the transmission... so, here's what i have already purchased, but i need to wait a few weeks for.
Stage 4 Ultimate Ratio (DSM) – Jacks Transmissions LLC

next the clutch. since i have a friend who's shop is a vendor for spec clutches i'm gonna probably order up a twin disc from them... my goal is to get this before the transmission shows up, since i dont want to do this twice.

brakes, i'm picking up some evo brembo calipers and the brackets from a member on here. and then i'll probably pick up some stock evo blanks from napa since i've heard good things about them, and they're well priced. i should have all of this within the next few days i hope.

and then it'll get a nice well mannered all wheel alignment. so, i dont eat up my direzza's unecessarily. ofcourse i'm going to have to wear them a little more than normal since i want the car to handle too.

that's all i have for now, i'll start taking more pics once the parts start rolling in and going on!

 

[Juhanis]

so i've decided to post a few pics up of the parts that have been slowly coming in... so far i got a fancy catch can that came with nice -10 fittings and reinforced braided hoses. then i have all of the evo brakes, minus the 1g conversion brackets (still in the mail).

also while driving the car up my local stretch of twisty roads i noticed that my car would start to run warm after a few miles of hard driving. i determined that the cause of this was from the large front mount intercooler blocking the airflow from the radiator. so, i made a scoop from sheet metal.

the scoop did the trick, and its working quite well. coolant temps are down pretty much under every kind of driving, and now the car doesnt run warm at all. once i'm comfortable with the ground clearance, and confident that i wont have to adjust things anymore. the scoop will be painted flat black. jacks transmissions are still building my transmission, so, that's not here yet. i'm guessing it'll probably be another week or so before i get it. but its about time i go buy a twin disc clutch. i'm thinking of going with the act kit now. then i'll have to source some 3000gt rear trailing arms so that i can run the evo brakes out back. oh well, so far, so good.

 

[bigbird94]

Great looking car, keep up the good work.

 

[jesterkid99]

that is a sexy 1g!

 

[Rsawd95dsm]

What do you mean by "1) replace broke budget rebuilt tre transmission". Im just curios what you mean by that?

Regardless looks like a nice looking 1G

 

[Juhanis]

thanks for the comments guys. well, the transmission thats in the car was rebuilt by tre... but it was a budget rebuild, so i'm guessing that they basically just replaced the synchros or something, and maybe a couple of seals. because the transmission shifts like crap in 3rd. i cant wait for the stage 4 unit to show up, i'm tired to granny shifting.

after doing some research it seems my goal of 550-600whp is going to be a gamble on my current engine, since i dont have the wiseco hd pistons. i'm not even 100% sure that the turbo will even get me to that point. so, i guess as soon as i get the stupid issues resolved (leaks mainly) i'll probably have ted of tedspec tune it for max power. i'm also going to have a switch most likely to switch between e85 and 91 octane tunes since i plan to daily drive the car.

 

[tdykes1234]

Curious question...I see that you have an aftermarket BOV on there and I notice that it is still recirculating like the factory setup. My question is, does that BOV any louder as far as that famous "whoosh" sound or is it just as quite as the factory one?

 

[ALLOUT CL55]

That's one clean 1G you got there!

 

[ErikTande]

Very clean car, I love it!

 

[Juhanis]

thanks again for the kind words! the bov is pretty damn quiet... it barely even makes the woosh sound. the most obvious sound that my car makes is the typical borg warner sound when the turbo begins to spool. today, i installed the front evo brakes. i ordered the brackets from kmv (i think that's his name) on here. well, i had to do quite a bit of grinding to make things fit... the brackets themselves needed to be notched and then the calipers needed a large bit notched out. it took me a few hours of steady grinding to get things to clear. doing the calipers was the crappy part. you can kinda see all the shavings on the ground in the pic. i'll take pics of the brakes with the rims installed tomorrow probably after i get the car all washed up. and then next are the rear brakes after i get my 3000gt trailing arms. but for now this will do. here's a pic of the install... oh yeah, i found out my jacks transmissions unit is on its way in the mail. i also purchased a quarter master twin disc clutch.

here are a couple more pics showing how it looks on the car.

 

[captainapex]

That is sexyyy. I like the combo with brembos n the evo wheels.

 

[sax_man]

That thing is super clean and gorgeous.

Just a heads up. Having that scoop routed like you do is probably going to affect the performance of your front mount because any air that's forced behind the intercooler is going to make it difficult for air to pass through the intercooler. The thing is it might not be a problem now, but if you're looking to push your turbo to the limit it will cause you problems. The last thing you want is your core to heatsoak while the motor is at the edge.

The best way to keep your coolant and intake temps down would be to duct the intercooler to the radiator. There are some good thread on here with instructions, and it can be done fairly easily and cheaply. Just search for fmic ducting or radiator ducting and you should find what you need.

Good luck with your build, and have some fun.

 

[Juhanis]

that's kinda what we were thinking of doing with that problem. the scoop i guess sounded easier to do at the time. it does work great, but i would like to have the ground clearance back in the front. the rest of the car pretty much clears the worst speed bumps i can find otherwise. and the evo front brakes are working awesome, the car stops very nicely. even on the stock booster/master cylinder combo the pedal feel is very nice. my jacks transmissions unit arrived the other day, so, i'm just waiting for my twin disc... after that i may pull the whole engine/transmission so i can fix the oil leaks with the engine, and replace my steering rack too.

 

[flaatr]

Your car

That front part of the fender liner is toast... I was gonna tell you when you were doing your brakes that I have a spare drivers side you can have.

Might have the passenger side too... I got to look.

-Raffi

 

[91stocker]

Wow those brembos look amazing behind those wheels. Do want...

 

[Juhanis]

soon there are going to be more updates... the twin disc i bought before had its price increase and it wasnt reflected in the ebay auction i purchased it from. so, they refunded my money (without me really knowing). so, yesterday i bought another twin disc. hopefully it should be here within a week, its coming from wisconsin... so, after that shows up, i'll get it on the lift and get to work. i have the jacks transmissions unit sitting in the box and 4 quarts of genuine mitsubishi oem tranny fluid waiting for the install. i never thought that stuff would cost so much. i also plan to install a brand new oem mitsubishi clutch master cylinder to make sure everything stays in proper adjustment and nothing drags. well, there's my to do list. now to execute.

raffi, i'd greatly appreciate that. haha. i'm too lazy at the moment to pull the old crappy ones out. would you happen to also have an oil pressure sender? mine took a crap like a week ago. if not... i may get something aftermarket, the stock gauge sucks anyhow.

 

[flaatr]

soon there are going to be more updates... the twin disc i bought before had its price increase and it wasnt reflected in the ebay auction i purchased it from. so, they refunded my money (without me really knowing). so, yesterday i bought another twin disc. hopefully it should be here within a week, its coming from wisconsin... so, after that shows up, i'll get it on the lift and get to work. i have the jacks transmissions unit sitting in the box and 4 quarts of genuine mitsubishi oem tranny fluid waiting for the install. i never thought that stuff would cost so much. i also plan to install a brand new oem mitsubishi clutch master cylinder to make sure everything stays in proper adjustment and nothing drags. well, there's my to do list. now to execute.

raffi, i'd greatly appreciate that. haha. i'm too lazy at the moment to pull the old crappy ones out. would you happen to also have an oil pressure sender? mine took a crap like a week ago. if not... i may get something aftermarket, the stock gauge sucks anyhow.

I do have a spare sender... but you really want an aftermarket gauge. The factory gauge is worthless with its slower than continental drift movement.

Give me a call later.
-Raffi

 

[92AWDHX40]

I love those brembos i got those on my things to do list in the near future. Looking really good.

 

[buhay6]

I never thought I'd like the look of a 1ga but you sir have made me.....i'll leave that blank!

 

[Juhanis]

^^ . nothing too exciting to report... still waiting on my second attempt at buying a twin disc. i ordered a new head gasket since my car has an external head gasket oil leak from the previous owner. the brakes work awesome, but i do have an issue with the pedal travel after hard driving. its not brake fade either, it happens after hard cornering usually. so, i'm going to do some more research into the braking systems on these cars and also couple that with my own diagnosis. i have a feeling its something related with the master cylinder... or maybe i have a worn out wheel bearing in the front causing the wheel to move ever so slightly while hard cornering causing the pistons on the caliper to compress slightly. i'm impressed with the gas mileage this thing gets when i'm not boosting. its somewhere between 21-25mpg on the highway. and under normal driving, i never notice the brake issue. i still have to look into the 3000gt rear trailing arms since the last guy that was supposed to call me fell through. although cool at first, buying parts then waiting for them is annoying.

 

[Juhanis]

time for a real update... well, i got the transmission and the twin disc installed. the car shifts much better than it did. i still wouldnt call it silky by any means, but a vast improvement. i only managed to snap 2 pics since i was in a major rush getting this thing done since we were working after hours at my buddys shop.

here's the jacks transmissions "ultimate ratio" stage 4 unit with all of the stuff swapped over from my old transmission.

and here's the twin disc all torqued down and ready for its new home inside the bellhousing.

so, everything went fairly smoothly until we noticed that my tcase wasnt fitting the new transmission... somehow, a miscommunication happened and the wrong shaft went onto the new transmission. well, i got desparate and got on craigslist and got in touch with someone who's actually on this forum who had the 23 spline case. he was super cool/helpful and was able to meet up with me right away. so, i traded him my old transmission for the tcase. that was pretty badass that happened the way it did. without that tcase i wouldn't have been able to get the transmission swap done as fast as i needed to. well, now to tackle the other issues... oil leak, and the power steering leak, and then ducting the intercooler to the radiator.

 

[Juhanis]

well time for another update... so, lately i've been loving the new tansmission/clutch combo. i'm totally happy with the gear ratios i decided to go with, they made a big difference when hauling ass up my local twisty mountain roads.

latest problems, well, the power steering pump decided it wanted to start leaking all over my alternator. so, since the pump leaked so much, it pretty much died. then as it spilled its life blood, my alternator started to die too and then my dash warning lights started to all light up at once when i was idling from time to time. so, this was a sign to me to get that crap out of there. i bought a brand new pump, and alternator (100amp model). since my old alternator wasnt quite dead, i pulled it completely apart and cleaned it inside and out. so, for the $30 core charge i got to keep my now cleaned/properly working old alternator as a spare. plus my leaky head gasket is gonna go soon as well, the replacement waits in the trunk =). the twin disc is a noisy little bastard, but it grabs like crazy.

next plans, since i've had to back down my redline (to 7800rpm i think). because i was losing boost at anything over 7500rpm, and there are no boost leaks to be found. so, now i'm looking into a new intake manifold since my research tells me the stocker is a restriction at 7500rpm and over basically. so, i'm probably gonna go with a jmf race model with either my stock 1g throttle body or maybe a slightly larger one. i dont want to go too big on either, because i dont want my driveability to suffer too much. also my stupid stock spark plug wires keep arcing through the wires themselves. so, that's another issue i need to address, a cop setup is probably in my near future as well. i relocated the stock coil pack in hopes of keeping this arcing problem under control. it didnt help really, so, either dump money into some baller wires i guess, or go cop. i'll probably go cop, i like the simplicity of it, even though i dont like the fact i'll be using the stock ignitor for the coils. i guess we'll see how it does whenever i get around to doing it. i'll try to snap some underhood pics today since things have changed/moved around a little bit.

recent underhood pics, there are still things i want to address... but one thing at a time.

 

[flaatr]

New plug wires are you friend... Moving the coil pack may bandaid the problem but in the end the problem will still be there. A lot of people use NGK wires. They are relatively cheap and OEM quality. I went with Accel on mine. COP is a good choice but a much much larger investment.

-Raffi

 

[Juhanis]

i ordered some stuff tonight for the talon that should make things more exciting... first, a sheet metal intake manifold. and second, a 5 gallon jug of torco fuel accelerator so that i can start running my 100 octane tune which made 380whp before the intake manifold. oh yeah, and some accel wires. since i'll be running 1qt per 10 gallons of 91 octane that should put me at 103 octane. i'll probably run a couple more psi on the 100 octane tune. that coupled with the 100 octane tune should put me well north of 400whp.

 

[flaatr]

Torco = Snake oil

Good choice on getting the wires... Just to be clear, when I said NGK were cheap I meant inexpensive. They are good wires but the Accel wires are better!

If you're coming out tonight I'll see if I can dig up that cover for your valve cover... BTW, do you still need the oil pressure sender ### I have a couple laying around?

I need to start my build thread on my white 90... my black 90 thread is officially dead (much like the car that was hauled out for scrap a couple of days ago FINALLY!!!)

-Raffi