Marc Hallman's 1992 Eagle Talon was named the "Tenacious Talon" in its February 97 feature in Turbo Magazine.  This Talon was one of the first in the 12's while retaining the stock Mitsubishi TDO5 14b/6cm Turbo (I share that accomplishment with my friend John Shepherd since we did it on the same night only moments apart from each other).  With this turbo, the car blasted through the 1/4 mile traps at 12.57 @ 108.8 mph.   Not bad considering that it had a bone stock motor, 7.8:1 compression first generation pistons (unlike some people that put 8.5:1 compression second generation pistons in and call it a stock motor) & bone stock unported head.  Well gee, what did it have, you say???

     Well it all started in the summer of 94 with a Dynomax cat-back exhaust system, A K&N air filter, and a bleeder valve boost controller.  With boost set at 17 psi and pump gas, mid 13 second timeslips were a reality with the best pass being a 13.54 @ 100.1 mph.  A good pickup in horsepower from a few mods over its 15.29 @ 87 mph stock performance.

     Over the next winter, a goal was made to get the car into the 12's with the stock turbo.   Under the direction of David Buschur of Buschur Racing, I started with the exhaust in an attempt to achieve this goal.  The Dynomax was swapped for a Buschur Racing stainless steel 3" cat-back system.  Next, the stock downpipe was upgraded to a Buschur Racing 2 & 1/2" unit.  Now with the new free flowing exhaust, David suggested that we do some porting to the exhaust manifold, turbine housing and O2 housing.   After all the attention was paid to exhaust components of the car it was time to add a little extra fuel to the mix.  An intank high-volume fuel pump was installed to take care of the extra fuel requirements.  Finally, the last thing that was changed was the boost controller. 

     After riding in John Shepherd's car with the exact same mods, I noticed that his turbo hit a lot harder and sooner than mine.  I asked what he was using for a controller and he showed me.  It was some kind of adjustable one way check valve that restricted the signal to the wastegate actuator and really made a huge difference on spoolup time vs. a bleeder valve.  The only trouble with this controller was that it had to be completely disassembled to be adjusted which made it undesirable.  Well, I thought about it for a while and being somewhat mechanically inclined I came up with an idea.  My dad had a few good suggestions and after a lot of hunting I was able to make my own controller that was externally adjustable.  What a difference it made over the old bleeder valve I had been using.  David liked the idea so much he wanted me to make a kit that he could sell.  So over the summer I worked on it and through the next couple of years I kept perfecting it, which is known as the Hallman Manual Boost Controller today.

     Well, with all of these mods in place the Talon was able to run mid 12's during the summer of '95.   I can say that by now I really had been bitten by the "need for more speed" bug, bad.  Over the next winter, I decided that I would replace the stock turbo with a Mitsubishi 16G compressor wheel upgrade and a 10 degree clip on the stock turbine wheel and a 7cm turbine housing.  I also added an ATR external wastegate.  I decided that it was time to do a little modifying on the stock intercooler at this time as well.  I cut off the 1 & 7/8" inlet and outlet and replaced them with 2 & 1/4" and got a Buschur Racing 2 & 1/4" upper intercooler pipe.  I also picked up a used HKS VPC so that I could eliminate the restriction of the mass air system and be able to dial in my air fuel ratio.  With these mods in place and about 22 psi of boost on Cam II blue race gas I was able to run 12.11 @ 111.33 mph.

So close to 11's and not having much patience, I swapped the 16G turbo for a 20G half way through the summer.  With the addition of the 20G turbo I was able to squeak a tiny bit more performance out of the car.  The car ran an 11.96 @ 114.6 mph.  But actually the car felt laggier and less responsive, not like the other 20G equipped cars that I had ridden in.  So I learned that the 20G with a stock intercooler was not a good combination even though I did pick up a tiny bit at the track.      Once again I made a plan over the next winter to get the car sorted out so I could get the full potential out of the 20G turbo.  Are you seeing any sort of pattern here???

     Well part of the plan included a nice big and efficient front mount intercooler.  The Buschur Racing unit was the best quality on the market and it used a great core as well, not to mention the 2 & 1/2" polished stainless steel plumbing.  The system has an optional 3" cold air inlet pipe which I installed as well.   Next I swapped the ATR external wastegate for an HKS unit that Buschur Racing mounts to the exhaust manifold (very nice!).  I then installed a Buschur Racing 3" downpipe, so I now have a full 3" exhaust.  With the increase in air flow it was once again time to increase the fuel system.  I installed the, you guessed it, Buschur Racing upgrade fuel system kit which consisted of the following: sx fuel pump (capable of supplying enough fuel for a 1000 hp and 90 psi of fuel pressure), -8an braided stainless steel fuel line, and an EFI fuel pressure regulator.  I also put a set of 550cc fuel injectors in along with an E-Prom upgrade for the VPC.  To compliment the VPC I added an HKS GCC II which acts like a graphic EQ for turning your fuel curve at various RPM levels.   Finally I added a Crane HI-6DI² ignition box and magnacore plug wires.

With all of the new changes the 20G turbo really came to life.   It is amazing how bad the stock intercooler really hurt it.  My best 1/4 mile performance with this combination was an 11.54 @ 120.0 mph.  Oh, by the way, it is still the same stock motor and head that I ran my mid 12's with the stock turbo.      I also did some other interesting tests with this combination as well.  I had a G-Tech meter in the car at the strip and was checking 0 to 60 times.  On an 11.57 pass with a 1.75 sixty foot I had a 3.4 second 0 to 60.  By the way, the G-Tech registered an 11.58 on that pass.  I would say that's pretty close.

     Currently the 11.54 @ 120 is my best ET and mph which was run on 5-16-97.  Over the winter of 97-98 I made a ton of changes.  So many that nothing other than the fuel system remained the same.  I wanted to mess around with a totally new combination.   I first built the motor, JE pistons, Crower Rods, balance shaft removal, and extrude hone head with stainless steel valves.  I installed HKS cams, 272 exhaust and 264 intake.  Then I put a Buschur Racing sheetmetal intake on with an RC engineering 70mm throttle body.  I had Todd Day at Technomotive modify my ECU.  He installed a socket for the E-Prom and then reprogrammed the ECU to work with the new throttle body and moved the rev limiter from 7500 RPM to 9000 RPM.  On the turbo side of things I installed a Turbonetics T-66 ball bearing turbo.  The installation was made possible through the use of a custom header designed and fabricated by Jeff Bogart of B.R.E Engines.  I fabricated all of my own intercooler plumbing out of stainless steel which I had polished, including a 4" cold air inlet.  I decided to go for a serious clutch, so I installed an ACT 2600lb pressures plate and a full face organic disk.

It sure looks impressive!  But what did it run???  Well I can tell you that it looks faster than it ran.  I made 4 passes at the strip with this combination and decided I was fighting a losing battle that I wasn't sure that I wanted to continue to try and win.  I ran a 13.7 @ 115.9 mph at 20 pounds of boost.   I never got the car to come off the line hard, I was running 2.1 sixty foots.   I never got the car into second gear once on a 1-2 shift.  These Trannys don't like to shift at 9000 RPM!  So with all of that I was still able to run almost 116 mph but with no ET because of the poor sixty foots and lack of shifting potential.  I was picking up 35 mph from the 1/8th mile to the 1/4 mile.  Hey its about all I can say that sounds impressive!

     Well, the '99 season is almost upon us and I have made a few changes since last year.  I went back to an exhaust manifold and a good old 20G Mitsubishi turbo.  My goal now is to just get the car back into the 11's and have a very fun street car to drive.  I have always been into the Street Machine idea with my car but last year was bordering too much on race car if I wanted to work out all of the problems and see if it could be made to work.  So...  I abandoned the idea and donated the parts to someone else for their project.  So you may see this setup on some other car, some other day.   Who you ask???  Well that is a secret.

     I will keep this page updated as the 99 season gets rolling along so check back later to see what's new.