Even though the Talon is up for sale at the moment I am taking the time to still try and fix all that is wrong with it, just in case I have to use it.  In case you haven't been following this project my 6-bolt AWD DSM needed a massive transplant, the transmission was shot, the oil seal on the center diff was leaking, the torque converter was siezed and the engine was 'bout ready to pop.  The previous owner had the bottom end replaced with a rebuilt short block that wasn't rebuilt all that well so I figured instead of just rebuilding it I'd replace it with a factory spec, unmolested engine.  Since everything else needed to be replaced I just bought a full engine and transmission set with wiring harness from a Japanese-Spec Galant VR-4.

The engine itself is in and running, however it does not idle right at all and needs some work.  The oil feed line for the turbocharger is leaking, the turbo itself I think might have a bad seal on the compressor side.  The exhaust manifold is cracked, the emissions system is fully deleted but a few vacuum leaks result because of it, and it has various stripped out bolts for two of the three front-end drive shafts (driver's side CV and Prop shaft at the Diff) leaving an ever present risk of dropping a driveshaft in motion.  At first I thought with the idle that the idle set screw was knocked out of place during transport since the engine was not in a full crate and took a decent hit in transit, however I later determined that a wiring set that wouldn't match between my 1Gb wiring harness and the GVR4 engine was not the transmission temperature probe like I initially thought, but in fact the pulse generator controlling the idle speeds depending on the transmission's condition.  As a result the car idles out of gear at the sort of speed it would in gear at a stop light, and in gear it sputters to a stall if you don't have your foot on the gas.  Today I pulled apart the old GVR4 wiring harness and removed the wiring running from the pulse generator to the ECU since I was unsuccessful trying to remove the old pulse generator from the old transmission so hopefully I can just run the wiring to the ECU and make the proper tweaks with little or no issue.

Sometime soon, weather permitting, I'm going to do a full vacuum leak test on the full intake system (charge cooler included) as well as engine vacuum system to isolate and fix any leaks.  The oil leaks and exhaust leaks are going to wait as my other car is knocking pretty hard and the motor is going to pop sometime within the next year and I'd rather not risk being without a car again, and since those leaks don't really hurt the performance as much they can wait unless they get worse. 

I will keep you updated, it's starting to look like I'm going to have it for quite some time yet, I might just turn it into a full time project car again.

Tags: DSM Repair Rebuild