Kyle's AWD Spyder Project - Big Money

[bigboostingst]

Hey all-

I've been a long time lurker and occasional poster on this site and I figured it was about time I started up a project thread of my own. I've been playing with DSMs for about 7 years now and I'm finally moving on to my dream project (an awd spyder). Unfortunately I recently graduated from college and got my first “big boy” job as a software engineer, I also purchased my first house, so I don’t have as much car time as I once did.

That’s enough of the boring stuff, here is the Evo I sold to fund this project:



This is the 98 Eclipse Spyder Gst that I will be using as a money pit for the next few years (sorry about the crappy cell phone pictures):







The car made the trip back from Mille Lacs without any major issues despite the wealth of problems I knew of when I purchased the car. This spyder was totally stock and in pretty good shape. Rust was my main concern when I was searching for the perfect spyder. It goes without saying, but this one has NONE.



By the time I got the car home, I was already sick of fwd so I decided to start looking for a good 5-spd awd donor car with the lsd rear or course. After a couple days of looking I ended up buying a really clean 95 Eagle Talon TSI AWD (almost a shame to rip this beauty apart):

[4seasons69]

That talon looks really clean too! Should be a fun project!

[TjXiong]

Nice. Did you do the awd conversion? Anyway if still and ever want to get rid of the stock rims ill take them off your hands.

[scheides]

Looks good man! Shame to rip that red one apart but I'm sure it has its own issues

Originally Posted by TjXiong

Nice. Did you do the awd conversion? Anyway if still and ever want to get rid of the stock rims ill take them off your hands.

Pretty sure that's the point of this thread :P

[bigboostingst]

Thanks guys, it’s been a fun project so far. Yep, you are correct scheides the talon had plenty of issues and this thread will be used to track the awd conversion and the addition of many go-fast parts. I will be making a for sale thread and yes I would be willing to sell the chrome Spyder rims and tires feel free to send me a pm.
Here is my progress so far:


This first pic is where the Talon/Eclipse will be staying for the next few weeks:





Here I popped the awd rear subframe out of the talon:





Next was the rear subfame and gas tank on the Eclipse:





Here are the two gas tanks side by side:





After all these parts were out and moved aside it was time to drill out what felt like a hundred spot welds and prepare to weld the awd driveshaft brackets into the spyder:





Then I stripped the spyder frame down to the metal so I could do some welding:

[blageo23]

Make sure when you are welding those pieces back in you have the driveshaft in place. When I did mine the rear one was not on the correct spot.

[TjXiong]

Lol, I meant to say if you are doing the AWD conversion yourself. It appears that you are pm sent.

[TkrPerformance]

will be a fun project. I had fun making mine awd back in 2000

[95talonracer]

Wow you did yours in 2000?

[Alpha D]

Like a Boss !

[bigboostingst]

Unfortunately I already welded the rear mount before I read your comment blageo23, I checked about 10 times to make sure it was all lined up. Fingers crossed.

Well, since the awd swap is going so nicely I decided to buy my car a little "treat". It is a built 2.3 6 bolt with wiseco forged pistons, crower rods, acl race bearings, and arp hardware.

[bigboostingst]

I got the 7 bolt out, now I just need to gather a few more pieces and drop my built 6 bolt in.

[bigboostingst]

AWD gas tank mounted:



Fuel nozzle swapped:

[Goat Blower]

Wow, looks good.

[bigboostingst]

I picked up a few parts to get me through the built 6 bolt swap...

[bigboostingst]

I think it's about time for an update.... This project has been sucking up all my time but has been progressing quickly.

Oil port mod since I will be mounting the 2g head on my built 6 bolt block.



Assembled 2.3 stroker shortblock with ARP's:



Assembled longblock (no the timing belt wasn't tensioned yet...):



Aaaand it's finally time to toss it back in (AWD trans mounted):

[bigboostingst]

I also parted out the talon... I couldn't believe the amount of interest in dsm parts in the Minneapolis area. Literally everything of value sold.





I scrapped the remainder of the car, it was definitely nice to get my garage space back!

[bigboostingst]

I also took some time to to replace the lower ball joints, as you can see they were in great shape :/ ... I'm surprised I even made it home with all 4 wheels attached after looking at one of them.



I also took the time to rebuild all of the axles, made a mess of the beer pong table.

[C3L1CA]

Nice progress!

Maybe I missed it but what turbo did you end up getting and have any power goals in mind? Should be a sweet build once you're done with it!

[bigboostingst]

Dropped the new engine in:


Mounted the AWD driveshaft:


After wiring up the 6 bolt CAS and connecting the various sensors, belts, exhaust, etc. it was FINALLY time to fire up the beast!!!! It started right up and idled smoothly on the first twist of the key. So I started the break in process with a spirited drive to the gas station:


I have since put about 50 miles on the car and have not come across a single issue. I did a compression test and came up with ~175-178psi in each cylinder so I think it's time to toss more money at it (so I can go pick on some corvettes).