Still good? or Toast?

[socal72]

picked up a 90 240 hatch a few days ago and the person i got it from really baked it bad blew head gasket and maybe messed up other things because when i pulled the upper intake off and looked in i found the lower intake full of a mixture of coolant and oil more oil than anything. should i just proceed with a head job or just replace the motor any opinions would be a great help....oh yeah forgot to mention it s been sitting in this condition for a solid year know!

[jdm213]

its cheaper to get a new ka with lower miles like form a 95 and up like i did. same thing happened to me. if you rebuild the head itll cost you like $3-400 approx. and im sure its been abused. you can get a new engine for like 300 or maybe less if you lowball lol

[Walperstyle]

Find a pre 1995 KA and swap the whole works, then take that current engine and build it up to destroy SR's. aka, KA-T.org - The Home of 1000+ whp/7 sec Turbo KA's (http://www.ka-t.org)

[SmogSUX]

On the cheap if the valves aren't leaking you can just have the head milled for $50 then buy a regular headgasket for about $40 or less. Oh yeah and new oem head bolts are like $50. Minus labor and fluids it costs less than $200. I just did it and had just the head resurfaced and bought an ebay gasket kit. Car runs fine now.

[D.Adams]

KA blocks are prone to cracking when highly overheated. I cracked my block over heating it because my gauge was fucked and my OEM radiator had pin holes in it.


I would do what Walperstyle said and get a new KA. not worth the hassle of rebuilding that one.

[socal72]

thanks for all the feed back guys. i got in touch with the previous owner and he said he overheated really bad put some water in it and ran even more to get it home really pushing it pinging and smoking like a train till it finally stopped on him because it was so hot. im thinking its safe to say that its toast right? on another note i found a complete rebuilt ka with a 6month warranty with exchange from a place called (Kar King) for like 1400 you think thats a deal? i also found a few 240's locally in the 1000-2500 range. what should i do?

[Emericask8er7439]

1400 is way too much for a ka. The warranty nice but kas can be had for much much cheaper

[sirfallsalot243]

For $1400 you could buy 4-5 KA's off the forums and still be under the budget.

[Emericask8er7439]

exactly or buy
a ca18
sr20
or rb20

[sirfallsalot243]

$1400 wont get you an SR, but itd definitely be a good start on putting a swap together.

CA or RB20 is definitely possible in that pricerange tho.

Hell, for $1400, you could probably replace the KA AND boost it.

[Q.Smooth127]

whats your budget amount socal72?

if you're willing to spend up to that $2500(only basing from you saying that $1000-$2500 for local 240sxs), maybe you should just buy an SR20det swap

[socal72]

so 1400's to much even for a rebuilt, ok now i know what im dealing with now i know what direction i need to go in .thanks for the info bro's. any of you guys live in the socal area?or in the inland empire area maybe you guys hook me up with somebody who does the swaps you guys are talking about or with just another good running motor. lmk..........scratch that location question just looked at where you guys reside and your nowhere near socal except for one of you but maybe you guys know someone else on this forum that might live out here?