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The last one I’m buying...

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Good time to update the build, as I’m finally able to begin putting my plans in to action.

The 11 hour trip back from Ft. Wayne to Arkansas gave me plenty of time to work on a list of to do’s.

1. Tires - the old were badly out of round from sitting and dry rotted like crazy. Out with the old, on with a set of General GMax, 235/50/16’s.
2. Flush and fill all fluids - done.
3. Replace all tunes related items: kept the original pieces, but replaced with Infinity speakers and a Kenwood Excelon head unit w/Apple Carplay. And an 8” powered sub in the back. Not for thumping as much as depth of sound.
4.Replaced the (now) sagging headliner. An easy job that made an incredible difference. Purchased the foam back cloth headliner material through Amazon. Carefully removed the old and put back the new.
5. Thoroughly steam cleaned the interior. Done.
6. Replaced the hatch prop struts. Done.
 
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Now it was time for more of the fun things. The drive back from Ft.Wayne (where I purchased the car) to Rogers was an 11 hour motion sickness experience. Everything in the suspension was shot: bushings, joints, struts, springs.

It all had to go!

Swapped out struts (replaced with KYB AGX & H&R springs), sway bars (with Suspension Techniques F &R), urethane bushings throughout as well as engine cradle, motor mounts, etc.

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After that, it was on to rehabbing the AC system. Arkansas summers are miserable without AC. PO had given me several pounds of R12 freon. Pulled a vacuum, no leaks, added my Freon and enjoyed several days of ice cold driving. I’m guessing at that point, some of the old seals gave up the ghost and I lost all the Freon. 🤬. Parked the talon except for those cool days.
 
Saw an ad on FB Marketplace for a ‘90 Eclipse GS-t that someone had been working on for some time. They wanted $1200 for everything. From the pics, it was almost too good to be true. I held off on doing anything for a few days then called the up. Found out it was legit, but it had sold the day before. Doh!

Months later, the same ad went back up, being resold by the person who had purchased it right before me. This time asking $2000. I verified that all of the parts were still there and went ahead and bought it.

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I ended up pulling everything that I wanted and sold the rest of. Was able to recoup my investment. Some things were cheaper quality items, but much of it was solid.

I ended up keeping the motor that was in the car. I tore it down and found that it had never been run after being built. All parts were coated in 7 year old assembly lube.

- Machined block
- AMS crank
- Ross pistons
- ARP products throughout
- Fully ported head (intake & exhaust) w/new valves and valve guides
- HKS cams
- Crower springs
- Revised lifters
- Adjustable cam gears
- OFH with braided lines to cooler
- New Gates timing components
- Magnus intake manifold
- Tubular header with a T3/T4 hybrid turbo

Took my time disassembling the motor, checking all of the parts and cleaning things. The oil pump gears had not been lubed correctly, the oil pickup hadn’t been trimmed, etc. This was my first motor build.

One of the best things to happen was finding this thread: https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/project-rely-on-ability-6-bolt-rebuild.276707/. Hands down one of the most helpful builds I’ve seen. Read through it several times and then followed it carefully. Ended up pleased with how it turned out!

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The guy that had been building the GS-t had been focused on drag racing. Not so much for me. I‘m working more towards a strong street car, so some of the things that were purchased had to go.

He had an oversized race Intercooler with 3” piping. And had cut the bumper safety bar. I calculated what sized IC I really needed and purchased one better sized. I’m still using the 3” piping, but the new IC allows me to keep the crash bar.

When I get ready to install it, I’ll be grabbing up some aluminum duct work to direct the air the way I want it to go. More to come on that one.

He also had the car setup on a GM MAF, but I’m moving towards speed density, so that will need to go as well.
 
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Purchased all of the parts for the CTS-v Brembo swap.

Several weeks ago I had test fit one of the calipers and found that there was no way it was going to fit over the 17” Drag rims I had. One thing to always check for is the shape of the barrel of the wheel. Mine had a step up in the center that was almost an inch tall, effectively making the wheel a 16” diameter rim.

So, back to the drawing board. Put the old brakes back on and went on marketplace again. For years, I’ve wanted a set of BBS rims. I found a kid locally who had a set of BBS RK rims he wanted to sell. 18”, 42mm offset, 5x114.3 and looking real rough. Originally on a Toyota Camry of all things. They were straight but ugly. I offered to trade him my 17” Drag wheels and tires and he jumped.

Got the wheels home and test fit one. I like it! When I looked more closely, it was clear that the rims had so many layers of paint that the ”rash” was just paint getting torn. Very little actual damage. Started sanding them. After 8 hours of sanding one wheel, I got smart(er) and bought some chemical stripper. 3(!) coats later, I realized that they were going to need to be media blasted to get down to the original metal.

While I was waiting to get the rims blasted, the great snowpocalypse of ‘22 hit. A solid 8 inches of the white stuff brought everything to a sliding halt. Which meant that I had time this weekend to put the CTS-v setup on the car.

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Well, with spring break coming up, I thought I might as well dive in. Full send. I started getting ever ready for the motor swap. My wife wandered out to the garage at one point and (after staring at everything I was doing) said “but your Talon actually ran!”, to which I replied, but it could run faster!!!

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Today was a good day - started out with removing the exhaust, transfer case and the motor and transmission. Spent a good bit of time cleaning the engine bay.

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Well, let’s just say that yesterday majorly sucked; the kind of day you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Got the motor and engine bay all ready for the swap, and then proceeded to spend the next 5 hours in total frustration trying to mount the auto tranny to the new motor. I read and then re-read everything I could find. I twisted the trans, rechecked the torque converter 7 or 8 times to make sure it was seated and it just wouldn’t go, like it was hung up on something.

Then I checked the crank. And got sick to my stomach. It’s a manual crank in my built block. The shaft (?) on the torque converter extends a 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch too far. So, back to the drawing board. I’m going to pull the head and swap it onto the stock block and go from there.
 
Well, let’s just say that yesterday majorly sucked; the kind of day you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Got the motor and engine bay all ready for the swap, and then proceeded to spend the next 5 hours in total frustration trying to mount the auto tranny to the new motor. I read and then re-read everything I could find. I twisted the trans, rechecked the torque converter 7 or 8 times to make sure it was seated and it just wouldn’t go, like it was hung up on something.

Then I checked the crank. And got sick to my stomach. It’s a manual crank in my built block. The shaft (?) on the torque converter extends a 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch too far. So, back to the drawing board. I’m going to pull the head and swap it onto the stock block and go from there.
Hold up a second. The manual and auto cranks are the same except the auto will have a bushing in the end. The cranks themselves are identical.
 
Hey Paul. I’m not sure if it shows up here, but this is where my difference is: on the manual crank, this indentation (don’t know the right name for it) is much shallower. On the auto motor, it was 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch deeper, so the torque converter was bottoming out. Am I missing something?

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Hey Paul. I’m not sure if it shows up here, but this is where my difference is: on the manual crank, this indentation (don’t know the right name for it) is much shallower. On the auto motor, it was 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch deeper, so the torque converter was bottoming out. Am I missing something?

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yes you are missing something. The autos have a bushing that sits above that line. Look at these pics.

The crank itself isn't different. You may be missing that bushing at a minimum. I'm not an auto expert but I've seen this bushing discussed. Usually going from auto to manual in stead of manual to auto as your'e doing.
 
👍🏽

Thanks for teaching me something new. Back to work!
Yes! Don't worry. Youre simply missing the bushing!! Order it, slap it on....and continue wrenchin!
 
Well, crap.

Actually, thanks to Paul, I got the pilot bushing out and swapped over to the new motor.

Still couldn't get the transmission to mount up, the torque converter wouldn’t go in the last click. It was sitting flush with the edge of the tranny. Finally got it on and bolted in, and put back in the car and was starting to clean up for the night. That’s when I noticed that my flex plate was still sitting there ready to be bolted in. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Took the motor and tranny out AGAIN(!!!), pulled the trans off, bolted the flex plate up, torqued correctly and then went to mount the trans back up. That’s when I noticed that the torque converter was stuck - wouldn’t spin at all - and that it was closer to 3/4’s of an inch in from the edge of the transmission. Ito jammed in good - I can’t spin it or get it to release off.

Does it sound like I’ve ruined the front pump?
 
Guess this is long overdue for an update!

Quite a bit has changed since March. I pulled the motor back out and found that - great job genius 😡 - I had cracked the front pump. Ended up finding a used FWD auto trans for sale in Tulsa , bought it and swapped out the pump. This time, I was careful to seat the converter without forcing it. 1 problem down, seemed like 500 to go!

Having to buy the trans meant that I had to sell my built bottom end to pay for it - a bummer for sure, but I’m not convinced that it would have been the best setup for a daily anyway. So, I mounted the trans back to the original block, swapped on the built head, and finished up the motor build. The “Rely-on-ability” thread was a life saver. I‘ve never built a motor before, so that thread and my manual were just what the doctor ordered.

With the motor buttoned up, it was time to get it back in:
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With it finally back in, it became clear that the T3/T4 hybrid/tubular manifold/wastegate setup that I had on it wasn’t going to work. The turbo setup was part of the parts haul that I had picked up, but had been intended for a car without power steering or AC.

So…back to the drawing board. Again. I ended up buying an FP manifold and picked up a big 16g. Back in buidness!

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Since then, it’s been tying up loose ends, etc.

I replaced my AC components and started mocking up my intercooler:
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‘Took time out to replace my fuel filter with a billet one (and switched the lines to braided), mounted my fuel rail, installed my FIC 850’s and an aeromotive FPR. Also refinished my stock intake in black crinkle finish, fabbed up a bracket and mounted my FPR to the back of the intake:

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Focused back on my intercooler piping. I had picked up a universal pipe set locally and really didn’t want to spend what people were asking to buy pre-bent sets. I feel like it turned out pretty dang good:
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Mounted the 3” GM MAF and HKS blowoff valve at the same time:
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Went ahead and swapped in the aluminum radiator with shroud and fans. It gave me a couple more much needed inches of space to run my J-pipe and intercooler pipes. Man, I’m glad that job is done!

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Paused for a few days to work on getting my Dsmlink set up. Couldn’t for the life of me get it to connect. After checking everything, I finally threw in the towel and bought a new cable - and it worked!! I was able to connect and go through some of the most basic settings.

While I was waiting for the new cable, I installed my Innovate MTX-L and new boost and fuel pressure gauges. Check another thing off of the list - literally. There were so many things that needed to get finished that I made a list and taped it to the windshield.

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I ended up not going the CTS-V caliper/rotor swap direction. The BBS wheels that I had were going to need a significant amount of work - repair, refinish, etc - not to mention buying new tires. When I ran the figures, it was cheaper to go with the Outlander brake setup and keep my stock wheels/tires. So, that’s what I did. Swapped in the bigger rotors, the outlander calipers, braided lines and the 3G master cylinder.

When I purchased the race car project, the PO had run AN 8 feed and return lines for the fuel. Major overkill for me. As he had never run the car, I took the lines and repurposed them. I relocated my trans cooler to the passenger front corner and ran braided lines to it:

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Then did the same to the oil cooler, just on the drivers side:
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And that pretty much brings this up to date. Still need to attach a few vacuum lines, etc, but honestly, I’m just about ready to start it. If I’m being truthful, I’m terrified that it’s going to grenade.

Any of you Midwest guys want to road trip and be moral support for when I start it? I’ll pay gas and beer…

😃

Bryan
 
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