Intro turned hopefully epic build thread
#69
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Little Rock, Ar
Posts: 107
Total Cats: 24
Yes thats my 97 talon in the garage. Had it for about 6 years now, running on and off over those years. Built motor, turboed 420a. It's pretty quick but I started doing a bunch of work on it last July and never got it finished up and then bought my miata in December and haven't touched it since lol. I need to get her back up and running and painted.
#70
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Little Rock, Ar
Posts: 107
Total Cats: 24
Well I spent the weekend driving it around and then chasing a misfire on cylinder number 3. Turned out to be a loose injector clip :-/
After I got that figured out she was running like a champ the rest of the weekend until I got to the muffler shop Monday morning to mate the downpipe with the rest of the exhaust. As I'm pulling it on to the lift it starts running rough like it was on 3 cylinders again and sounded different. Anyways I let them finish and then pull it outside and pop the hood to find the number 3 spark plug and wire had popped right out! Threads in the head were shot. Shame on me for not checking those threads when I first received it from the guy on ebay.
That led to this and a spark plug repair kit. This is only temporary until I find a good deal on a 99+ head. Did all this yesterday.
Got the threads fixed and put it all back together and couldn't get it running right for the life of me. I worked on it all night and finally gave up and then came back this morning with a clear mind. I must have redone and checked the timing 6 or 7 times and It was perfect everytime. Still ran on 3 cylinders. Took a break from that and changed the oil and oil filter and then went to think about it again.
When the spark plug came out the first time the spark plug wire had fallen on the exhaust manifold while they were doing my exhaust and melted some of the rubber insulation. Thought about it for a minute and thought, hey I bet its arcing to the cylinder head instead of the spark plug since electricity takes the path of least resistance so I grabbed an older "good" spark plug wire and put it on and fired it up. Ran like a dream......
Moral of the story, if your frustrated and can't get your car running right after working on it all day, take a break and grab a beer and then come back and look at it again. Lol
Everything seems to be running great again. Lets hope it stays this way so I can get on with tuning it.
After I got that figured out she was running like a champ the rest of the weekend until I got to the muffler shop Monday morning to mate the downpipe with the rest of the exhaust. As I'm pulling it on to the lift it starts running rough like it was on 3 cylinders again and sounded different. Anyways I let them finish and then pull it outside and pop the hood to find the number 3 spark plug and wire had popped right out! Threads in the head were shot. Shame on me for not checking those threads when I first received it from the guy on ebay.
That led to this and a spark plug repair kit. This is only temporary until I find a good deal on a 99+ head. Did all this yesterday.
Got the threads fixed and put it all back together and couldn't get it running right for the life of me. I worked on it all night and finally gave up and then came back this morning with a clear mind. I must have redone and checked the timing 6 or 7 times and It was perfect everytime. Still ran on 3 cylinders. Took a break from that and changed the oil and oil filter and then went to think about it again.
When the spark plug came out the first time the spark plug wire had fallen on the exhaust manifold while they were doing my exhaust and melted some of the rubber insulation. Thought about it for a minute and thought, hey I bet its arcing to the cylinder head instead of the spark plug since electricity takes the path of least resistance so I grabbed an older "good" spark plug wire and put it on and fired it up. Ran like a dream......
Moral of the story, if your frustrated and can't get your car running right after working on it all day, take a break and grab a beer and then come back and look at it again. Lol
Everything seems to be running great again. Lets hope it stays this way so I can get on with tuning it.
#76
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Little Rock, Ar
Posts: 107
Total Cats: 24
Got about 100 miles on it now and have hooked up the wastegate finally. Still being easy on it with conservative timing and not going above 6k rpm. Logs showing around 6-7psi with only about 60% throttle and letting off around 5.5k. This is on a 8psi actuator. I think I need to adjust it a little more to add some more pre-load since I think it should be spooling quicker given the 11:1 compression and 1.8 engine. She pulls pretty good though, still running a bit rich but I am having a buddy of mine help me tune it tomorrow so hopefully we can get it dialed in and add in some timing. Oh and all this extra torque is amazing
Not sure if I like this hks ssqv. Its one of the cheap ebay ones that I grabbed off my other car since I had to redo the intercooler piping. It flutters with anything under about 5psi, above that and it seems to work ok. I think I will be going back to my type RS bov that I had on it before. It worked like a dream and sounded good to boot.
Not sure if I like this hks ssqv. Its one of the cheap ebay ones that I grabbed off my other car since I had to redo the intercooler piping. It flutters with anything under about 5psi, above that and it seems to work ok. I think I will be going back to my type RS bov that I had on it before. It worked like a dream and sounded good to boot.
#78
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Little Rock, Ar
Posts: 107
Total Cats: 24
A couple issues I ran into with it. 1 the number 1 runner is so close to the water pump inlet that it was tough to get the hose on it. First start up it started melting the hose a little bit I have wrapped it in that DEI heat tape stuff as a temporary fix and its been fine so far but I'm going to have to take that water pump inlet off and cut it about an inch shorter and have it rewelded to get that lower hose away from the manifold.
Second issue was with their downpipe. It fits ok but I had to remove the little ear off of the transmission to get it to clear. It also very slightly hits the firewall at certain rpms. I haven't messed with that yet but I'm hoping I can turn it just a little bit since its a v-band downpipe so it will stop rubbing the firewall.