That's one way to spend Saturday evening (Talon content)

Ripping into the Talon, that is. My wife graciously allowed me to use her garage space to work on the Talon while parking her car outside, so I who am I to say no to that?

Pulled off the bumper and the FMIC to find that whoever fitted the FMIC obviously hadn't bothered with checking the a/c evaporator. I'd guess about a third of the evaporator was a mess of bent fins from the usual stone damage. No wonder air had problems getting through to the radiator, so I spent an "enjoyable" couple of hours with a piece of plastic straightening the fins in the hope it'd increase the airflow to the radiator. Given that the FMIC was off I also re-routed some of the intercooler piping so it didn't cover the bottom of the radiator in the hope that this will allow me to fit a bigger a/c fan later on, if I decide it's worth fitting another turbo and exhaust manifold.

Ah yes, the turbo - the ducting to the FMIC has a nice coating of oil in it so I guess the turbo might not be that long for the world anyway. In a sense I'm glad I didn't take the Talon to the track earlier this year...

So the plan for today is to refit the intercooler - it needs to be repositioned a little as it was rubbing on one of the a/c pipes - and finally get started on the ducting from the intercooler to the radiator surround.

Sounds good so far. Post pics.

What turbo is on it?

The turbo is supposedly an FP Green "spec" turbo, but doesn't really carry any identification marks like plaques from FP...

Well, I finally got my act together yesterday and put the ducting on. The ducting is mainly sheet aluminum and the gaps are bridged with the typical HVAC metal tape.

Partway through fabbing up the ducting:

Ducting and piping for the intercooler in place:

Different perspective on the ducting - yes, I know there are a couple of gaps at the top, but they're mostly covered by the hood, plus they're fairly small:

The big gap was actually underneath the car, it looks like all the OEM shielding has been removed and there was a 2" gap between the intercooler and the crossmember that provided a convenient way out for the air that should have gone through the radiator and a/c evaporator instead:

I also put in a better ground for the coolant temp gauge, but unfortunately that didn't solve the issue of the gauge reading low . Oh, and a new vacuum line for the boost gauge - someone had "extended" the original line with a bit of rubber hose, some hose clips and silicone sealant. Oops.

The duct actually seems to work, we went for a run and the datalogger didn't show any unreasonably high temperatures going uphill under load. In general, it also seems to run something 5-10F cooler during normal operation.

Next try, take it up the 8 mile grade to work and check if the coolant temp still behaves.

8 miles ought to be a good test..

Good luck.

hope it turns out for for you, the mods look like they will be helpful too.