1990 Talon TSi AWD Build (Long)

[bigboost]

This is my build thread from the DSM forum, it’s a little wordy due to it originally being on a DSM specific board, but there are lots of pictures if you’re not into the narrative type. This work was done over the course of about 6 months



Here is my 1990 AWD TSi build. Enjoy!

A DSM was my first car when I was 16 in 2003, and I think there has only been about a year or 2 since that I haven't owned at least one.

An old DSM friend of mine gave me a call and was in a bind and had to get rid of his car and in a hurry. So we arranged the deal and I left at 5AM and headed from Jacksonville FL to Charleston SC loaded it onto the trailer and headed home. Made it back to the shop in good time and dropped it off.

Here is the mod list

Engine

Stock Block & Head
ARP Headstuds
FP4R Cams
Kiggly Race Beehive Springs/Retainers
HTA86 Turbo
FP Inline Oil Filter/Restrictor
Tial MVR 44mm WG
FP O2 Housing & Dump Tube
FP Manifold
K&N Filter
Magnus Manifold
Intercooler Setup
Spark Tech COP
Custom 3” Downpipe/Exhaust
FIC 2150cc Injectors
Fuel Lab Inline Filter w/SS E85 filter
Dual Walbros in stock hanger
ARP Headstuds
Halman ES MBC
Ny-Trex Wet kit
Fuel Lab AFPR
Catch Can Setup

Drivetrain/Suspension

DIY Built Transmission
South Bend Clutch
ACT Streetlite Flywheel
Eibach Pro Springs
KYB AGX Adjustables
BFG g-Force Sport Comp Tires 225/50/16
Prothane Mounts
Torque Solutions DS Bushings
Shep Pedal Assembly
Shifter Base Bushings
Shifter Cable Bushings
Shifter Bracket Bushings
OEM Master & Slave cylinder



Tuning/Electronics:

ECM Link V3 Full
Speed Density Setup
PLX Wideband
Pro Sport – Boost, Oil Pressure & Oil Temp Gauges

Interior

Battery Box/Relocate
Mint Interior/Carpet/Seats/Plastics/Door Panels
Custom Gauge Bezel
E-PSI Shift Knob

Aesthetics

HID Kit
Hood Shocks
FP Manifold Blanket


Cooling

STM Oil Cooler
Fluidyne Radiator
2 12” SPAL Fans


AN Lines

-6AN Fuel Feed & Return lines
-10AN Turbo Drain
-4AN Vacuum Lines
-6AN Catch Can Lines
-6AN Coolant overflow





The car is in great shape exterior wise, but had a few issues that needed to be addressed. The previous owner had upgraded to 2G GSX front calipers, but the brake line fittings are different between a 1G and a 2G so I had to get some new brake lines made, it also had some shift cable bracket issues that I'm still working through.

First, I started accumulating parts for the project.

FP Intake, FIC 850cc Injectors, Fuel Lab AFPR w/Gauge

The car had a non-eprom ECU and I sent it off to ECMLink to have them convert it and install V3.

Picked one of these guys up during the Pre-Release pre-order for $750, what a masterpiece

Ported HTA68 from Forced Performance

I'll be using the cylinder head off of my GST, its been O-Ringed, has FP4R Cams and Kiggly Beehive springs.

So I pulled the engine out and set it aside, I haven't gotten to taking it apart yet.


Next we pulled the engine out of the gold car and put it on a stand to be cleaned up, and parts swapped.

The first big thing on the list of work is to do a complete wire tuck, brake line tuck, and fuel line tuck. Much more work than I had imagined, it’s actually still in progress, going to be working on it tomorrow.

So I didn't want to just get some cheap bs wire loom from the auto parts store so I went a little classy and ordered some Nylon Expandable Mesh Sleeving from McMaster-Carr.

Stripped the front end down and pulled the Engine Harness and the Chassis Harness from the car, and began going to work. By the time everything is said and done, only the Injectors, Igniter, Coil Pack, TPS, CAS, O2 Sensor, and GM-MAF plug will remain on the Engine Harness, and Only the Headlights, Running Lights, Turn Signals, and Alternator plug will remain on the Chassis Harness. The fusebox under the hood will be relocated to underneath the dash. Here are some pictures of the nightmare that is a factory wiring harness!

Doesn't look much like a 1G anymore does it?

1 of the 2 Harness's with loom and electric tape removed, god what did I get myself into.

Vic Vs Rat Nest - FIGHT!

FML

Chassis Harness Stripped and Shortened

Engine Harness Stripped, needs trimming I say!

Still got a little bit left to remove and get the lengths right, but so far here is all the wire and loom that have been removed from the factory harness. Because Race Car

We were having a hard time coming up with exactly how long each plug needed to be, and we wanted to be on the money so as little as possible could be seen, So we set one of my empty blocks in the engine bay with two motor mounts and a jack, set a spare head on top, and put my Magnus intake, fuel rail, injectors, and throttle body on to do an accurate mock up. Man this things gonna look sweet when its done.

Here is a sneak peek at what the connectors look like finished w/sleeving and shrink tubing done. Pretty excited!

 

[bigboost]

Headed back out to the shop today for a half day session on the car made a lot more progress on the harness. One of my Christmas gifts was a GoPro HD Hero2 Motorsports and I wanted to play with it so I set it up to take a picture every 30 seconds for the whole afternoon. Put it into a slide show, and sped it up and added some catchy music lol. Its not too exciting but It was a good excuse to play with my new toy.

Wire Tuck Time Lapse 1 - YouTube

The two best spots are at 2:35 and 3:30 , that's where you actually see some of the progress we made today.

The engine harness is almost 100% complete, and I have all the measurements for extending and routing the chassis harness,

As most of you know the factory the chassis harness does a loop from one side of the car across the radiator support, and into the fender well to the cockpit. Since we relocated the fuse box to under the dash were running 2 separate sections of wire, one to the passenger side and one to the driver side, of which all the wires are in the fender well fastened with "P-clamps" , and only a small amount near the headlight is visible.

Here are two stills of what the finished engine harness looks like. The MAF and O2 plugs are not included on this section of the harness; they are being routed with the chassis harness in the fender well.

Got alot done, the chassis and engine harness are completely done short of mounting it inside the car, but we hooked it all up, signals, headlights and running lights work, starter fires, fuel pump kicks on, injectors and coil fires when CAS is rotated by hand and the ECU syncs with my laptop so thats a big load off of our shoulders, I'd say combined we have at least 40-50 hours of labor in the wire tuck alone, so it working first try with no troubleshooting required is excellent!

The motor bay was painted black by the previous owner and I just don't like the way it contrasts with everything so I wanted to try to paint it the color of the car, or at least as close as I could get. But first, I wanted to eliminate the 30 or so bolt holes left over from all the factory wiring, as well as the large holes for the chassis harness, A/C lines, wiper motor, and heater hoses.

Started off by sanding down all the holes, and tack welding small pieces of steel over the larger holes.

After that I filled the holes and gaps with bondo and sanded them as smooth and flush as possible. The firewall is anything but smooth or flush so this was much more difficult that I had originally imagined, it took some time, but I was able to get it to a state that I felt was acceptable.

Next comes the sandable filler primer.

I saw some Krylon "Camo" paint in a "Khaki" finish that I figured I would give a shot. Got back to the shop, sprayed some next to the factory paint and it matched pretty damn well!

Don't mind the pictures, for whatever reason they make the paint look much lighter than it actually is. It almost looks yellow in the photos, but it’s much closer to Khaki color in person.

Im very pleased with how clean the firewall now looks as a finished product. The only things that will be mounted on the firewall will be the Booster/BMC , the CMC, throttle cable and my AFPR.



Now, onto the engine, aside from a few odds and ends it’s basically ready to run, We dropped the engine into the car but I haven't gotten the pictures off my friends camera yet. But here is some right before we dropped it in.

I ordered all the misc AN and Banjo fittings I needed yesterday and they should be here by the weekend. Still need to get the flywheel stepped and a bunch of other small stuff but at least all the road blocks are out of the way. Here are the pictures of the motor in the bay. I still can't get over how clean this is going to look.

Better shots of the engine outside.

Re-painted lower subframe, installed mounts, booster, bmc, and cmc.

The fittings should arrive tomorrow so I can run my -6AN fuel feed and return and keep on rolling.



Finished running the engine and chassis harness, ran braided hose for the fuel feed and fuel return lines, put the clutch/flywheel and transmission on, and finished making the front brake lines and clutch line. HOPEFULLY will be running next weekend, but I'm not holding my breath.

Still have a few things to take care of like mounting the FMIC, all the fluids, installing STM oil cooler, install exhaust, drive shaft and tcase. And a laundry list of other small things, but certainly very close to being on the road!

First task, mounting the Fuel Lab inline filter, and -6AN feed and return lines. Using self tapping screws & adel clamps I ran the feed down the driver side and the return down the passenger side. We decided to run return on the passenger side because there really isn't a great place to mount the AFPR on the driver side, and to avoid having to run a return from the AFPR mounted on the passenger side, all the way back to the driver side.

The inline filter is mounted near the driver side rear wheel well.

Next was running the remainder of the chassis harness, MAS cable, and O2 sensor plug.

In order to hide as much as possible the wires are routed in each sides fender well.

We used the hole for the factory front brake line in the strut tower to run the ECMLink GM-MAF cable to the MAS, talk about a perfect fit!

The O2 sensor plug was extended to be run into the drive side fender well, out the hole for the factory wiper reservoir, and mounted with a large adel clamp.
The headlight harness's are about the only wires from the chassis harness even visible so they are loomed as well.

The sensors for the coolant temp gauge and ECU coolant temp were relocated to the rear of the thermostat housing to reduce clutter and visible wire as well.

Don't mind that random plug that's wrapped around the braided hose, its for the TPS and will not look like that when finished.

The injector harness's are run from under the intake manifold, we rotated the injectors in such a way that very little of the harness is exposed. The coil pack is mounted to the block using the bolt holes from the factory AC compressor bracket and the wires will be routed the same way they are from the factory.

Here are a few random pictures of the bay as a whole.

 

[bigboost]

Got the car fired, the car runs great with V3 and the MAF cable, finished installing the FMIC and STM Oil cooler. Still have to make an engine ground, and once we take the car for a drive to make sure everything is good under driving conditions loom and route all the wiring that's under the dash. It's a mess right now, but will be taken care of soon
enough. Still need to adjust the coil pack location under the intake manifold. I even bought 2 sets of spark plug wires to use the 2 longest ones and I still can't get them to route in the factory location so don't mind them, they won't be like when its done.

Giving nothing else appears in the finishing touches I hope to have the car on the road by this weekend. Here are some pics and video of the car running. Man I love the sound of a 4g63 with a lopey *** idle! (The Link is at the bottom)
PS: I'm going to take the FP manifold off and coat it. I was under the assumption that it was coated to begin with and wasn't going to rust. I can't stand the way it looks now.

DSM Start & Idle


Heres a comparison pic of the motor bay we were modeling the project off of. Got pretty close !

I was never a fan of the "Hyundai" valve covers, or at least this one, the newer ones that have the "shaved" look are nice, but I just wasn't a fan of the one on the car. So we took a stock one, drilled out the holes for the VC breather and PCV and installed 1/8 NPT to -6AN adapters to run braided line for the Catch-Can. I had to order some more fittings to complete the install so its not 100% yet, thats why the other line just runs over the intake instead of to the catch can.

Here is the brake line routing and finished product. Also you can see the barbs we ran through the fire wall so I could mount the MAP sensor and Boost sensor inside the cockpit. And if you look closely you can see the clutch line running straight down, its routed underneath the engine along the passenger side cross member and comes up directly to the slave from underneath.

And with all the hurdles installing the 2G GSX calipers out of the way, I could finally drive it! Proof that it moves

Phase 1 Complete! Car is 100% back together, registered, tagged, insured, and full of 100 octane fuel!

I haven't taken too many photos of the car yet so I'll post the 2 that I do have. Had a buddy of mine make my UICP, moved the BOV as close to the TB as possible, and put the bung for the IAT on the underside so you can't see it, got my matching couplers in the mail, as well as the fittings for the catch can.

Ahhh, sweet rejoice, finally my goodies from FP showed up, I even took a half day at work to ensure that I was around when UPS showed up, signature required of course.

FP HTA86 , for those unfamiliar its essentially a GT3586 in their FP30 style bolt on housing.
Tial MVR 44mm w/dump(being extended to run next to the side exit)
FP Inline filter/restrictor
2.5" to 3" V-band transition flange to go from the 2.5" V-band on the turbo to my 3" V-band side exit.


Beyond excited to get this bad boy on, I'll post pics when its installed.

Been a while since I updated my thread so here goes. Got my HTA86 , Tial MVR, FP O2 Housing on and a rough tune on 24psi and pump gas, going for 30 on 100 octane this weekend for a dyno day.

Also kept having problems with vacuum lines blowing off at high boost and didn't want to just ziptie them so I made the plunge and convered to -4 AN vacuum lines. Kinda pricey but they look great, and no worries of spiking 40psi on a stock bottom end anymore.

Went out for a photoshoot with my friend yesterday, the weather ended up being terrible so we didn't get all the shots we wanted, but the ones we did get came out phenomenal.

I'll be back with dyno numbers soon, enjoy the pictures!

Time for an update! Car has been running great after going to a non-protruding spark plug (BR8ES) gapped at .020 , aside from having to replace the plugs every few hundred miles..

Transmission rebuild

Disassembly

Guts removed!

Case cleaned up nice!

2nd Gear slider , there are supposed to be sharp edges on this, look pretty flat to me lmao. No wonder it won't shift

3rd Gear slider , not as bad as 2nd, but still pretty beat up.

Pretty sweet mount IMO haha

Rebuild Kit w/double 2nd - Not really much to it surprisingly.

Double Synchro Second

Assembled Intermediate and Input Shafts

Forks and Rails in!

About to seal her up !

Finished Product! We'll see how she shifts tomorrow afternoon!

Here is a picture of the Dyno Graph, and a link to the YouTube video. This was a baseline dyno, and the car was running terrible, it kept mis-firing after about 6,000 RPM which you can see/hear in the video. I tried closing the gaps on the plugs but still had no luck.

I was also having issues with my ECMLink Boost Solenoid, I had the duty cycle backward so the WG was staying open at low boost making my spool-up pretty terrible, hence the low TQ numbers.

I ended up switching to non protruding 8es's and the problem went away.

I haven't been back to the dyno as of late, but just judging by the ability of the car to make 447 AWHP running like doo doo I think it should easily be over 500 now considering how well its running now.

Dyno @ KMS Drift Event - YouTube

 

[bigboost]

Been a while since I've done anything with the car, been kinda tight on funds lately

First off, upgraded to the close-ratio double synchro Evo 3rd and 4th gear, transmission will be going back in soon, which is the major thing keeping it from running.

But I've also been doing a lot of work with the interior relocating my gauges and WBO2, hiding wires, and just generally cleaning up the inside. As the few of you have seen the car in person, it looks fantastic on the outside, interior, not so much. The car was practically 100% gutted when I got it, had 2 different seats, a dash, and some ratty carpet that's it.

Slowly but surely I've been collecting great condition interior pieces from friends and the forum and I'm almost done. I'm planning on driving the car to the shootout in Ohio so I didn't want the car to look like ****, not to mention without a radio for the long drive from Jacksonville. I put some front door speakers in and a basic Pioneer CD/USB player in along with a good portion of the interior. I even managed to get my hands on the elusive 1g hatch cover! Here are a few shots, I need to get a few misc odd's and ends before I put the front seats and center console in, and I'm driving to Orlando tomorrow to pick up a mint rear interior!

I'm also waiting on my new vent bezel, I've been searching for a triple gauge vent bezel for a long time and they are all discontinued, fortunately I found the freelancer on here that makes them.

It will be nice to finally have an interior as nice as the exterior of the car. I'm going to get the windows tinted soon too, tired of rocking a fish bowl!

Sorry for some of the pictures sucking, the light coming into the garage wasn't working with me.

215K Goin strong!

I finished up the interior today short of my gauge bezel that should be here next week, sorry for the horrible quality, guess my Iphone doesn't like taking pictures in low-light settings haha.

Just got my gauge bezel back from glowryder, it looks excellent, and I couldn't be happier with the service provided. It did take a little longer than his 2 week estimate, but he kept me up to date and never left me in the dark so I have no complaints in having to wait a little longer.


My interior is finally 100% completed, just in time for the Shootout!

Dynoed the car today - was happy with the results, this dyno is known to be harsh/read low, and for whatever reason, this shop has zero fans to put in front of the car so my IAT's were through the roof, into the 130's.

Still managed to squeek out 508whp and 380ft/lbs on a ~32psi and a conservative tune.

Will be back for more soon!

More parts!

Hitting the 1/4 mile this weekend, hoping to break into the 10's @ 130+!

I've had nothing but trouble with my transmissions, which I think has to do with a clutch drag issue that I"ve posted about that I just can't seem to shake. I picked up an auto shell to do an auto swap because I'm tired of dealing with the BS.

When I went to the track I was on an old stock trans that didn't shift worth a damn, I really just wanted to see what my car would MPH. I took it easy out of the hole and had to shift super slow so I had a rather embarrassing E/T compared to my MPH haha.

I ended up running 12.3 @ 130, was satisfied giving the situation but I'm sure the car has even more in her being able to shift quickly and not fall out of boost, as well as leaving the hole hard.

Can't wait to be Auto.


Still in process of swapping to Auto so no real updates, but here is a small shoot that a local auto group called Fearless 904 did on my car.

And that’s where she sits right now, still haven’t completed the auto swap, all of my money has been going to the new garage and furnishings.

I’ll be sure to update this thread with any progress. Hope you enjoyed.

 

[1upmoto]

nice, makes me miss my 1g

 

[GRN96WS6]

My younger brother has two of these, I sure wish he'd get one or both of them running again. They are damn fun little cars.

 

[Seiler]

Pretty slick build! I'd do the same thing with a 1991 if I ever had the funds/free time. I love the pop-up headlight look. Thanks for sharing!

nice, makes me miss my 1g

Does not make me miss my 2g. That car was such a piece.

 

[Elvenhome21]

You guys that say you miss you 1g or 2g are freaking nuts. Do you not remember how much time you spent fixing the thing compared to driving it!? Yeah I miss driving mine to but not fixing the dang thing every week.

 

[bad_idea]

A buddy of mine in high school had one. It was a fun car. I myself am a muscle car kind of guy, imports baffle me. That looks nice. Why does it have a Hyundai valve cover in one picture and a Mitsubishi valve cover in another?

 

[Elvenhome21]

Hyundai used the 4g63 in some of there cars. Its virtually identical to the DSM version. only difference I remember is it uses a crank sensor instead of cam sensor for timing.

 

[bigboost]

Hyundai used the 4g63 in some of there cars. Its virtually identical to the DSM version. only difference I remember is it uses a crank sensor instead of cam sensor for timing.

Some of the old Hyudais had N/A 4G63 engines which have the same block/head castings, but all of the internals are weak. So, you can get the Hyudai valvecover and it is a direct swap on an Eclipse/Talon/Laser.

I wasn't a fan of it so I put a stock one back on.

 

[Gamble]

Miss my 2g. Made 452awhp
A very clean 1g. Good work. As I was reading it I was thinking the hta68 is waste, go bigger. Then saw a bigger one. Great work.

 

[BJ42LX]

I'm going to take the FP manifold off and coat it. I was under the assumption that it was coated to begin with and wasn't going to rust. I can't stand the way it looks now.

What did you coat the exhaust manifold with?

 

[JDon99]

Looks clean! I was into dsms for about 10 years, I've owned a bunch of 1g's, a few 4g61t colts, and a gvr4. My last project before I got out was a 4g63 swapped d50 with a th350 trans, ford 8.8 rear and an hx35. All of the fabrication was done by myself with the exception of the JMF SMIM, here are a few pics:

 

[bigboost]

That is awesome! I always wanted to do a D50 or a Mighty Max with a TH350/400. Looks great! I've considerably slowed down as far as investing money into the car, but I still love it, and don't know if I'll ever get rid of it.

 

[1upmoto]

You guys that say you miss you 1g or 2g are freaking nuts. Do you not remember how much time you spent fixing the thing compared to driving it!? Yeah I miss driving mine to but not fixing the dang thing every week.

Hey, my 1g was waaaaay more reliable than my Evo...but then again I was making like 600 horsepower less lol.

 

[1gdsm]

Really clean 1g build, I hope my Talon comes out half as clean as yours. Good job

 

[DennisH2014]

Excellent build, I can't wait to tackle on something like! I've got a 1995 Talon ESi as well that I plan to turbo in the future; I'll have to check back for inspiration!

 

[kbradley4333]

nice build, i just moved to jacksonville and im amazed at how clean most cars that old are! everything was rusted to **** in maine

 

[V-10 Killer]

Awesome build man, I never owned one of these cars but always enjoyed the way they looked. I love the attention to detail. Thanks for sharing with us. I'm currently butting a single turbo on my 98 TA.

 

[shocwav3]

Awesome build. The devil is in the details

 

[bigboost]

Thanks guys.

I've never really been attached on a level like this to any of my project cars. I think I'll be taking this one to the grave with me.

 

[Wanna Ride]

Not my particular type of car, but as a lifelong car/truck/bike guy... Gotta really appreciate the dedication, planning and execution of your build. Very impressive! I'm always curious to see what enthusiasts of other auto-genres come up with, as it opens eyes to thinking outside the box, seeing what else is out there, and how others approach their obstacles.

Again... very nice work!

 

[turbotalon1g]

Nice work, I love it.

I actually found this because I'm pondering a wire tuck on my 1g.

 

[Ronniexj]

Clean work, I had a mint 1g TSI... ended up wrecking it. Sad day. Great memories though!

 

[RivennHewn]

(Long) but worth it.

Enjoyed reading all of it.

Thanks for posting.

 

[Toxicscrew]

Nicely done.

I had a 1G for about a month once, didn't feel right. Had 2 2Gs, loved those cars. 97 GSX - very mild mods, totaled it out& then a 95 Tsi AWD-nicely built for autox/street, sold it to some kid who killed it. I had the FP manifold on the 95.

Wouldn't mind having the Jeep & the Talon back again. More so the Jeep though.

 

[Nele]

Nice work, very clean and classy!

 

[BJ42LX]

Bigboost,

Back in post #13 I asked about the exhaust manifold coating. What/who did you use for that? It looks great.

 

[lilcraigford]

Very nice build! I love the unassuming exterior. I don't see too many of the first generation cars up my way, in the "wild" at least. They still have a strong presence at the track though! A kid in high school had a first generation Talon TSi, but it had lived a hard life through New England winters. That car was succumbing to rust pretty badly when I saw it last, years ago.

 

[Catadj78]

Nice build! I didn't read everything, just looked at the pictures. Looks like a ton of money!
I had a Conquest turbo that was stock, never got around to modding it as I was obsessed with my 300ZX TT at the time.

 

[bigboost]

Bigboost,

Back in post #13 I asked about the exhaust manifold coating. What/who did you use for that? It looks great.

Sorry man must have gotten lost in the posts.

It's VHT 2000* Flameproof paint that I put about 5-6 coats on it.