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View Full Version : $900 Junky to Megasquirted ka swap


caseyculby
02-05-2013, 12:28 AM
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17 years old and quickly growing into the drift scene, I decided I wanted something fun to drive and easy to work on for a first car. After a full summer of working my but off at minimum wage and searching for cheap deals on craigslist, I came across a 90' s13 hatch going for $1,200. Lucky for me when I got there, a few problems were brought to my attention that I hadn't known about before. I leaky radiator, screaming fartcan of an exhaust, oil leak, crunchy transmission, all the goodies. But it drove alright and I was eager to get it. I talked this guy down to 900 bucks and drove it home the same day.
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So I drove the crap out of it for two weeks and it crapped out on me thanks to the cooling system. Blown head gasket, coolant spraying out of spark plug holes, not a good thing. So here I was, not knowing much about engines, pretty much stumped. Luckily for me, I have an uncle that is the CEO of a standalone manufacturing company, MegaSquirt | Engine Management System | Electronic Fuel Injection - DIYAutoTune.com (http://www.diyautotune.com), who was glad to help get this thing running again. So we towed the car up to his shop, and I decided to take advantage of this and swap in a dual cam ka. My uncle found a steal from one of the shops down the street for a lightly used one talking them down to $100.

We pulled the single cam out of the bay and I got to the prep work.
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Then started gutting the engine bay.
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There was a rusted out spot in the bay from the battery so we cut it out and did some work to it.
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After that we stripped down the other engine and sent the block and head to be resurfaced and honed.
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We went with single cam piston heads, giving the compression of 12:1
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We got the block and head back and I readied it for paint.
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Then painted and the assembly began.
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Went with two exhaust cams, supposed to give more upper end torque. Getting shim measurements were a pain in the nads.
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Clean looking engine.
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Besides me bench pressing the tranny while lowering it in, it went pretty smooth.

I took some Altima fans, disassembled them, trimmed, painted, then mounted on a Koyo Radiator.
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http://zilvia.net/f/attachments/builds-builds-only/50440d1360212719-900-junky-megasquirted-ka-swap-img_1001.jpg

caseyculby
02-06-2013, 10:21 PM
So now, it's been a month since I got it from the shop. My uncle had done a custom engine harness and tuck, all running through the new Ms3 Megasquirt system. We ran it on the dyno a bit and had it tuned within an hour. I got it home and had to get emissions passed on it, first try failed, went home, tuned it from my laptop in my driveway. Next day I came in, I passed.

ShadowMan
02-06-2013, 10:30 PM
pics too small

caseyculby
02-07-2013, 10:46 PM
pics too small

Any idea how to make them any bigger? This is from an Itouch. hah