- Thread starter
- #26
Grd1043
Proven Member
- 33
- 58
- Feb 3, 2025
-
GTA,
ON, Canada
I had some real ups and downs over the last couple months, haven't been replying because I got pretty discouraged, but now I'm back on the wagon and going all in on this being my project car. Where to even begin!
Keyless Entry
Alright so I know this is silly, but one of the things I always wanted to do to this car is have it be keyless entry. The door locks are already powered. I just need to get a keyfob wired up to it. And I don't want just any keyless entry, I've ALWAYS wanted a car that made that classic 90s "double chirp" sound when you unlock it. I heard that sound in so many movies as a kid anytime anyone unlocks a "cool" car, and then every normal car I ever owned in my adult life the lock button just honks the horn. Lame.
Well...
it took some research, but I found a brand new "old stock" Viper security system that someone was selling on Facebook marketplace.
And I discovered THIS spaghetti mess under the dash that was in the car before... wow - so it was nice to get that all cleaned up! Found a lot of nearly-broken wire splices and stuff in the ignition wiring harness around the steering wheel, so it was fair bit of work with the soldering iron redoing them and getting it to a place I was happy with it. I'm glad I found all that.
Hehehe, it's so cute! I love it
. And now I'm not jamming the key into the door constantly anymore so that's nice too.
Okay! On to more serious stuff!
Ignition Coil / Power Transistor Issue
I was driving up to my friends to continue working on the car. Track day is coming soon! And we wanted to get some issues sorted out with the car. But on the way up there, my engine suddenly dies! It is shaking and shuddering, and the check engine light comes on and starts flashing. I pull over right away, we get out and try and figure out what's wrong, but the car barely runs when you start it and it's shaking badly... what the heck?
I end up having to get it towed up to my friends place so we can try and figure it out.
Well once we got a good look at it, my friend pretty quickly figured out the issue was an ignition problem. Two of the cylinders weren't firing. I managed to get the ignition coil pack out from the "tunnel" inside of the intake manifold where it lives, and we swapping the two coil packs around.... but it didn't change anything - the exact same two cylinders were not firing.
So that could only mean one thing - it's the Power Transistor.
The service manual has a whole rigamarole for how to test these and makes it sound really complicated, but it basically just amounts to connecting a AA battery to one set of terminals to cause the MOSFET switch to close, and then check for continuity on the two terminals and see if it the switch actually did close properly. If you don't get continuity when the AA battery is hooked up, then the transistor has failed.
I'm not sure why the manual specifically calls out that you have to use an analog multimeter - a digital one worked 100% fine for me at least... I made a little breadboard to be able to test it. This was my breadboard setup below. The "yellow" wire is connected to the AA battery's +ve, and the "orange" wire is connected to it's negative, and I can use those two wires to easily connect the battery to the various terminals on the power transistor and measure continuity with a multimeter on the other terminals. The little red LED was just wired in in parallel to the battery as confirmation for me that the battery was actually connected since I was taping the wires to it with some electrical tape and it was a bit of a janky setup.
Testing one coil... good
And then the other coil... bad!
Amazingly, I managed to find this listing on eBay - still selling an actual genuine OEM one for not too much money!
After installing that - it fired right back up. Back in business! Sweet!
Aftermarket FPR
So, I was having trouble with the car running really bad, really bogging, especially in first gear, like bad enough that I had to give myself extra time when making left hand turns.
I knew my car likely had an aftermarket fuel pump because I could hear the whine, but finally decided to take a look in the tank for myself. And yep, it's a Walbro 255. My car's got the factory fuel rail, injectors, and fuel pressure regulator, so I figured it was running super rich because of that.
I managed to find a used Aeromotive FPR and some AN lines. To make it fit, I removed the cruise control cables and re-did my throttle cable so it was directly connected to the pedal. Even made myself a cute little custom bracket to mount to the intake out of some scrap Dell Server rack rails that I cut with an angle grinder and painted.
Once that was done, I made another custom bracket for the FPR, and got that plumbed in, and finally was able to set my base fuel pressure to ~37PSI
Took it for a quick test drive, and it felt quite a bit better! But... still not 'great'. The car feels like it's really fighting itself when I am at like 5000RPM and it loses all it's power. I was pretty sure my exhaust is way too restrictive and that's causing some major problems for me... it's some kind of cobbled together 2.25" exhaust that has the CAT deleted, and I've been looking around for a better exhaust for a while but haven't come up with anything that doesn't cost thousands of dollars. Not much I can do at the moment.
AFR Gauge and getting ready for Track Day
Well, either way, I figured the next step is I have to know what my AFR is. I did just monkey with the fuel system... so I wanted to be able to see if I'm still running rich or god forbid I'm somehow running lean now. I figured I'd try my hand at welding on a bung onto my stock exhaust. One day I'll get a better exhaust, but this way I can at least get some AFR readings and a bit of practice with the welder.
For my first time mig-welding anything of actual importance... I think it came out okay! I even managed to plug up a couple little pinhole leaks.
My dash had these four holes drilled in it from when I bought it. I figured there was probably a boost gauge or something was there before. A friend of mine donated me his AEM AFR gauge from his motorcycle, and I managed to run the wires for it into the car so I could see some AFR numbers finally!
Took it for a few drives, and with a little bit of tweaking of the FPR now I'm at ~10.5 at WOT in first gear, and then in second and third I'm at more like ~11.5 at WOT. It runs 14.8 at cruising and idle. Track day was this weekend, and me and my friends were going to the road course at Cayuga! I know I'm not gonna be setting any records, but I just want to feel how the car feels in the corners a bit and just drive it a little finally. Now that I know my AFR is in a reasonable range, I put everything back together and got ready for the weekend!
Except... it was never meant to be.
Last Minute CV Boot issue as Track Day Weekend Approaches
Just days before the track day weekend, I'm looking everything over, and I find a bunch of grease and goo around the front-right control arm. The CV boot for the front right axle is torn
. Well.... I can't go to the track like that! I scoured everywhere I could find, and Napa had a replacement boot. Tunrs out it wasn't the right one (it was 'round' and I needed one that has the three 'lobes' on it), but I figured hell with it, I'll try and get it on so at least I can do my track day weekend, and I'll replace it with the correct one from Rock Auto later.
See that fluid leaking out from where the axle is? that's going to become important later....
I was so pleased with myself! I took the whole wheel hub apart, took the axle out, replaced the CV boot, and got it all back together in a day! JUST in time for track day! High fives all around, we went to bed late that night, excited and ready for track day.
Transmission failure on track day
The next day we hit the road and start heading down to Cayuga. It's a ~2 hour drive to get there. We're on the highway, everything seems fine at first. But then, I start to notice that the shifting is getting... mushier? Harder to put in gear. Things are sounding a little louder than normal.... somethings not right. Then I hear a "clattering" of some kind of metal breaking loose under the car, and my speedometer drops to 0KM/H.
Oh shit.
We pull over on the side of the highway. Pop the hood and my transmission is smoking hot. Fluid leaking out everywhere. It's sparkly and silver... what the hell happened? I was right near an exit, so we limp the car off the highway into a parking lot. I'm dribbling transmission fluid all the way there.
We leave the car there, and I hitch a ride with my friends to Cayuga. We had a fun day at the track, but my poor Talon never made it.
Later that evening on the way back, we got CAA and towed it home, gutted and defeated.
Post Mortem the Next Day
I was sure I must have messed up that axle putting it back in and the transmission leaked all it's fluid out.
When we got it home, I couldn't get the axle out it was stuck in the transmission. It took tons of prying and heaving and FINALLY it came:
On no it is not supposed to have that extra piece on it... is that a bearing??
Yup it's a bearing. The whole bearing and seal and everything is just gone.
...and the transmission sadly is toast.
The story continues! This does eventually have a happy ending... but I'll write more about that soon!
Keyless Entry
Alright so I know this is silly, but one of the things I always wanted to do to this car is have it be keyless entry. The door locks are already powered. I just need to get a keyfob wired up to it. And I don't want just any keyless entry, I've ALWAYS wanted a car that made that classic 90s "double chirp" sound when you unlock it. I heard that sound in so many movies as a kid anytime anyone unlocks a "cool" car, and then every normal car I ever owned in my adult life the lock button just honks the horn. Lame.
Well...
it took some research, but I found a brand new "old stock" Viper security system that someone was selling on Facebook marketplace.And I discovered THIS spaghetti mess under the dash that was in the car before... wow - so it was nice to get that all cleaned up! Found a lot of nearly-broken wire splices and stuff in the ignition wiring harness around the steering wheel, so it was fair bit of work with the soldering iron redoing them and getting it to a place I was happy with it. I'm glad I found all that.
Hehehe, it's so cute! I love it
Okay! On to more serious stuff!
Ignition Coil / Power Transistor Issue
I was driving up to my friends to continue working on the car. Track day is coming soon! And we wanted to get some issues sorted out with the car. But on the way up there, my engine suddenly dies! It is shaking and shuddering, and the check engine light comes on and starts flashing. I pull over right away, we get out and try and figure out what's wrong, but the car barely runs when you start it and it's shaking badly... what the heck?
I end up having to get it towed up to my friends place so we can try and figure it out.
Well once we got a good look at it, my friend pretty quickly figured out the issue was an ignition problem. Two of the cylinders weren't firing. I managed to get the ignition coil pack out from the "tunnel" inside of the intake manifold where it lives, and we swapping the two coil packs around.... but it didn't change anything - the exact same two cylinders were not firing.
So that could only mean one thing - it's the Power Transistor.
The service manual has a whole rigamarole for how to test these and makes it sound really complicated, but it basically just amounts to connecting a AA battery to one set of terminals to cause the MOSFET switch to close, and then check for continuity on the two terminals and see if it the switch actually did close properly. If you don't get continuity when the AA battery is hooked up, then the transistor has failed.
I'm not sure why the manual specifically calls out that you have to use an analog multimeter - a digital one worked 100% fine for me at least... I made a little breadboard to be able to test it. This was my breadboard setup below. The "yellow" wire is connected to the AA battery's +ve, and the "orange" wire is connected to it's negative, and I can use those two wires to easily connect the battery to the various terminals on the power transistor and measure continuity with a multimeter on the other terminals. The little red LED was just wired in in parallel to the battery as confirmation for me that the battery was actually connected since I was taping the wires to it with some electrical tape and it was a bit of a janky setup.
Testing one coil... good
And then the other coil... bad!
Amazingly, I managed to find this listing on eBay - still selling an actual genuine OEM one for not too much money!
NEW GENUINE/ OEM J722T MD149768 88921608 for DODGE EAGLE MITSUBISHI PLYMOUTH | eBay
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for NEW GENUINE/ OEM J722T MD149768 88921608 for DODGE EAGLE MITSUBISHI PLYMOUTH at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.ca
After installing that - it fired right back up. Back in business! Sweet!
Aftermarket FPR
So, I was having trouble with the car running really bad, really bogging, especially in first gear, like bad enough that I had to give myself extra time when making left hand turns.
I knew my car likely had an aftermarket fuel pump because I could hear the whine, but finally decided to take a look in the tank for myself. And yep, it's a Walbro 255. My car's got the factory fuel rail, injectors, and fuel pressure regulator, so I figured it was running super rich because of that.
I managed to find a used Aeromotive FPR and some AN lines. To make it fit, I removed the cruise control cables and re-did my throttle cable so it was directly connected to the pedal. Even made myself a cute little custom bracket to mount to the intake out of some scrap Dell Server rack rails that I cut with an angle grinder and painted.
Once that was done, I made another custom bracket for the FPR, and got that plumbed in, and finally was able to set my base fuel pressure to ~37PSI
Took it for a quick test drive, and it felt quite a bit better! But... still not 'great'. The car feels like it's really fighting itself when I am at like 5000RPM and it loses all it's power. I was pretty sure my exhaust is way too restrictive and that's causing some major problems for me... it's some kind of cobbled together 2.25" exhaust that has the CAT deleted, and I've been looking around for a better exhaust for a while but haven't come up with anything that doesn't cost thousands of dollars. Not much I can do at the moment.
AFR Gauge and getting ready for Track Day
Well, either way, I figured the next step is I have to know what my AFR is. I did just monkey with the fuel system... so I wanted to be able to see if I'm still running rich or god forbid I'm somehow running lean now. I figured I'd try my hand at welding on a bung onto my stock exhaust. One day I'll get a better exhaust, but this way I can at least get some AFR readings and a bit of practice with the welder.
For my first time mig-welding anything of actual importance... I think it came out okay! I even managed to plug up a couple little pinhole leaks.
My dash had these four holes drilled in it from when I bought it. I figured there was probably a boost gauge or something was there before. A friend of mine donated me his AEM AFR gauge from his motorcycle, and I managed to run the wires for it into the car so I could see some AFR numbers finally!
Took it for a few drives, and with a little bit of tweaking of the FPR now I'm at ~10.5 at WOT in first gear, and then in second and third I'm at more like ~11.5 at WOT. It runs 14.8 at cruising and idle. Track day was this weekend, and me and my friends were going to the road course at Cayuga! I know I'm not gonna be setting any records, but I just want to feel how the car feels in the corners a bit and just drive it a little finally. Now that I know my AFR is in a reasonable range, I put everything back together and got ready for the weekend!
Except... it was never meant to be.
Last Minute CV Boot issue as Track Day Weekend Approaches
Just days before the track day weekend, I'm looking everything over, and I find a bunch of grease and goo around the front-right control arm. The CV boot for the front right axle is torn
. Well.... I can't go to the track like that! I scoured everywhere I could find, and Napa had a replacement boot. Tunrs out it wasn't the right one (it was 'round' and I needed one that has the three 'lobes' on it), but I figured hell with it, I'll try and get it on so at least I can do my track day weekend, and I'll replace it with the correct one from Rock Auto later.
See that fluid leaking out from where the axle is? that's going to become important later....
I was so pleased with myself! I took the whole wheel hub apart, took the axle out, replaced the CV boot, and got it all back together in a day! JUST in time for track day! High fives all around, we went to bed late that night, excited and ready for track day.
Transmission failure on track day
The next day we hit the road and start heading down to Cayuga. It's a ~2 hour drive to get there. We're on the highway, everything seems fine at first. But then, I start to notice that the shifting is getting... mushier? Harder to put in gear. Things are sounding a little louder than normal.... somethings not right. Then I hear a "clattering" of some kind of metal breaking loose under the car, and my speedometer drops to 0KM/H.
Oh shit.
We pull over on the side of the highway. Pop the hood and my transmission is smoking hot. Fluid leaking out everywhere. It's sparkly and silver... what the hell happened? I was right near an exit, so we limp the car off the highway into a parking lot. I'm dribbling transmission fluid all the way there.
We leave the car there, and I hitch a ride with my friends to Cayuga. We had a fun day at the track, but my poor Talon never made it.
Later that evening on the way back, we got CAA and towed it home, gutted and defeated.
Post Mortem the Next Day
I was sure I must have messed up that axle putting it back in and the transmission leaked all it's fluid out.
When we got it home, I couldn't get the axle out it was stuck in the transmission. It took tons of prying and heaving and FINALLY it came:
On no it is not supposed to have that extra piece on it... is that a bearing??
Yup it's a bearing. The whole bearing and seal and everything is just gone.
...and the transmission sadly is toast.
The story continues! This does eventually have a happy ending... but I'll write more about that soon!
Last edited:
We took a sweet drive through some quiet twisty roads outside of town, got some food, and celebrated all of us having our cars all working at the same time for the first time in years.
my favourite colour.
