Id-
10-13-2004, 08:53 PM
I've been working on it awhile and lately I've started back again just because I have tons of spare time due to time off at work.
About 2 months ago I bought a 92 240sx base 5-speed coupe from a friend of mine for $700. It had a slung rod through the side of the motor; the interior was tan and it looked and smelled like total ass.
It had new tires on it, the rest of the motor was in good shape, everything had been overhauled pretty recently; the stock exhaust was even in good shape. There was one hubcap missing and it had a ghetto paintjob done recently; it had pitting in the front bumper, and it was originally a gold car, now it was a silver car... the funky black trim around the car didnt help the looks either.
Now my philosophy for most things is you can almost always do it better when you do it yourself. I do have my limits though, but since I had a lot of time with this car (I still had my Lexus SC300 turbo as a daily) I decided to do everything myself.
The interior was the first thing I jumped at. There were SO many cigarette burns and butts in this car, I must have found 100-150 of them in the carpet, under the dash, UNDER the carpet, etc. The goal of this car was to make cheap but somewhat reliable power to keep me happy for a while. As I said, the interior color was brown, so I went to a local Nissan junkyard, and bought a black dash out of a 90 hatch, I got the dash, the console, the gauges, the instrument bezel, and an extra 240 electric fan for $75 total. I figure i can sell the instrument bezel and the extra gauges. There was one small nick in the dash that was nearly undetectable, and it would be easy to fix with some of that special glue to keep it from spreading. The dash looked REALLY dirty, but I had brought a special cloth to check it before I pulled it from the car. This dash came out SUPER clean, as did all the other parts. I bought some of the expensive dash spray paint and used it to paint the rest of the interior black, the doors and the rear trim. It looks pretty good except in spots where it scratched; but thats my fault for not enough coats and not enough drying time. I'll get all the other trim eventually I guess. I bought some carpet out of a 89 coupe that was sitting at a local junkyard for $50 and a hoodlatch (that i needed bad) for $5. The carpet was in spectacular shape and it was the rugged tweed stuff instead of the fluffy crap you get in the DOHC cars. I got everything swapped in, and had everything done except seats, I wanted S14 seats but I couldnt find any local and everyone online wanted WAY too much money; I knew I could get it cheaper.
Initially I wanted to do an SR20 swap, a friend of mine locally has a very nice setup with a T28 and he frequents these boards quite often. I was planning on getting a JARCO clip since it came with more stuff and always had better quality engines than anyone else (was also contemplating a 1jz swap into a MKIII at one point).
So I bought a 3" downpipe, and 3" catback off ebay, mandrel bend SS, tig welded, etc has a Apexi' N1 knockoff muffler, even came with a silencer, I remember from my SC300 days that you had to get a silencer seperate all the time. Bought it new total for $350 shipped,cant remember the brand. I then bought a undivided O2 dumptube for a T25/T28 turbo for $90. All these parts look really nice, have very clean welds and dont feel cheap at all. This is all planned for the SR20 swap of course.
Well lately with my current job situation, some BS if you ask me, I have been out of work for a bit and my saved funds are dwindling even after selling my turbokit off the Lex. So I needed a new DD to replace the Lex, so the KA24DE install became a necessity.
This was just a few days ago; but I went down to the same local Nissan junkyard and bought a complete motor from a KA24DE out of a 1992 S13. Same year and same color :) Both were MT, etc. I paid $500 for what I thought was a complete motor. I also found out that the white S14 he had been holding onto (wrecked front end) was still there and no one had bought it yet. He said he was parting it out and I said "I WANT THE SEATS!" He sold them to me for $60, got them home and cleaned them up and BEEYOOTIFUL, they sit so nicely in my car. I take apart the engine wrapping when I get home and find no accessories, no distributor, and a rusted clutch/flywheel. Oh well I say; I owe him $40 tax still, I'll take the money to him and pay but try to get a S14 MAF and some black backseats out of the deal thrown in :)
I get home, clean out the S13 interior AGAIN... then install the seats, and life was good; I could sit in my car again and it SMELLED GOOD!!! No cigarette butts, the entire interior (except seat belts) had been swapped from brown to black, and it looked really nice. I even had installed my new leather shift boot off ebay for $7 :)
The idea with the car now is to make it into a KA24DET :) I've found several manifolds that allow you to use all the SR20 aftermarket parts like the dumptube and downpipe, etc. I was ecstatic about this turn of events.
I went down to the local Harbor/Freight and bought an engine hoist; my dad said he'd split it with me because he needed one as well for his 67 mustang's motor overhaul (new heads, cam, intake mani, carb, etc). I bring it home and build it. I pull the engine out of the back of the truck and clean it up; stripped the old clutch off; still havent done the flywheel. I taped up all the electrical connections and got out some super strength engine degreaser and cleaned it twice. Then while it dried I stripped the engine bay of the wiring harness and left it up to the side. Got most of the junk off the radiator, removed the fuel lines, etc. After that I was tired; this was yesterday.
Today I pulled the valvecover off the new engine and inspected it; cams look to be in REALLY good shape, they look new as does the valve cover gasket, etc. I scrubbed the valve cover clean with degreaser (AGAIN), let it dry, then painted it red with 2 coats of some high temp engine enamel, then 2 coats of hightemp clear coat. Leftover stuff from when I was going to paint my 300zxTT's calipers red and decided to sell it instead. Tomorrow after it dries well, I'll get a grinding wheel out with the dremel and clean the lettering off on the cover. I also installed new NGK platinum plugs, not going to run much boost and I like the near unfoulability of platinum.
I also pulled the AC compressor off the mounts and moved it out of the way, removed the radiator and fan, disconnected the heater hoses, disconnected the power steering lines, removed the stock catback exhaust and removed two nuts off the stock downpipe before it got dark, the 3rd one was a hoe and I needed a longer extension anyway.
Its supposed to rain tomorrow too so bleh... I still need to disconnect the driveshaft, disconnect the slave cylinder, remove the last nut on the downpipe (and that AIV BS is goin in the garbage), remove the shifter, and drain the transmission.
After that I can pull the motor. Once pulled I gotta get all the accessories, and the distributor (with correct timing) installed on the new motor with new belts. Planning on drilling oil return and tapping oil send and capping both off for now to make it easier for later. May order manifold SOON depending on how other things go in the immediate future with the job. And I need to pick up a set of 370s, I've got so many spare parts myself, I'll be able to either trade or sell them on ebay. If i can get a S14 MAF for my problems of having no accessories or distributor on my new motor when promised, I'll be good to go; I think I'll do the hacked MAF setup just for now until I can afford a custom rail with 720s and an enthalpy ecu + z32 maf...
I figure I'll be happy with 250rwhp on a T25 :) base model 92 shouldnt weigh that much (especially with the heavy-ass stock exhaust gone) goal for the car is to be in the 13s for under $2500, I'm at ~$1780 right now not including cost of the hoist. All i need is a manifold, turbo, S14 maf to hack and maybe an intercooler.
anyway, pics are to follow; dont have pics of the motor yet, but i will do them tomorrow if it doesnt rain too bad
About 2 months ago I bought a 92 240sx base 5-speed coupe from a friend of mine for $700. It had a slung rod through the side of the motor; the interior was tan and it looked and smelled like total ass.
It had new tires on it, the rest of the motor was in good shape, everything had been overhauled pretty recently; the stock exhaust was even in good shape. There was one hubcap missing and it had a ghetto paintjob done recently; it had pitting in the front bumper, and it was originally a gold car, now it was a silver car... the funky black trim around the car didnt help the looks either.
Now my philosophy for most things is you can almost always do it better when you do it yourself. I do have my limits though, but since I had a lot of time with this car (I still had my Lexus SC300 turbo as a daily) I decided to do everything myself.
The interior was the first thing I jumped at. There were SO many cigarette burns and butts in this car, I must have found 100-150 of them in the carpet, under the dash, UNDER the carpet, etc. The goal of this car was to make cheap but somewhat reliable power to keep me happy for a while. As I said, the interior color was brown, so I went to a local Nissan junkyard, and bought a black dash out of a 90 hatch, I got the dash, the console, the gauges, the instrument bezel, and an extra 240 electric fan for $75 total. I figure i can sell the instrument bezel and the extra gauges. There was one small nick in the dash that was nearly undetectable, and it would be easy to fix with some of that special glue to keep it from spreading. The dash looked REALLY dirty, but I had brought a special cloth to check it before I pulled it from the car. This dash came out SUPER clean, as did all the other parts. I bought some of the expensive dash spray paint and used it to paint the rest of the interior black, the doors and the rear trim. It looks pretty good except in spots where it scratched; but thats my fault for not enough coats and not enough drying time. I'll get all the other trim eventually I guess. I bought some carpet out of a 89 coupe that was sitting at a local junkyard for $50 and a hoodlatch (that i needed bad) for $5. The carpet was in spectacular shape and it was the rugged tweed stuff instead of the fluffy crap you get in the DOHC cars. I got everything swapped in, and had everything done except seats, I wanted S14 seats but I couldnt find any local and everyone online wanted WAY too much money; I knew I could get it cheaper.
Initially I wanted to do an SR20 swap, a friend of mine locally has a very nice setup with a T28 and he frequents these boards quite often. I was planning on getting a JARCO clip since it came with more stuff and always had better quality engines than anyone else (was also contemplating a 1jz swap into a MKIII at one point).
So I bought a 3" downpipe, and 3" catback off ebay, mandrel bend SS, tig welded, etc has a Apexi' N1 knockoff muffler, even came with a silencer, I remember from my SC300 days that you had to get a silencer seperate all the time. Bought it new total for $350 shipped,cant remember the brand. I then bought a undivided O2 dumptube for a T25/T28 turbo for $90. All these parts look really nice, have very clean welds and dont feel cheap at all. This is all planned for the SR20 swap of course.
Well lately with my current job situation, some BS if you ask me, I have been out of work for a bit and my saved funds are dwindling even after selling my turbokit off the Lex. So I needed a new DD to replace the Lex, so the KA24DE install became a necessity.
This was just a few days ago; but I went down to the same local Nissan junkyard and bought a complete motor from a KA24DE out of a 1992 S13. Same year and same color :) Both were MT, etc. I paid $500 for what I thought was a complete motor. I also found out that the white S14 he had been holding onto (wrecked front end) was still there and no one had bought it yet. He said he was parting it out and I said "I WANT THE SEATS!" He sold them to me for $60, got them home and cleaned them up and BEEYOOTIFUL, they sit so nicely in my car. I take apart the engine wrapping when I get home and find no accessories, no distributor, and a rusted clutch/flywheel. Oh well I say; I owe him $40 tax still, I'll take the money to him and pay but try to get a S14 MAF and some black backseats out of the deal thrown in :)
I get home, clean out the S13 interior AGAIN... then install the seats, and life was good; I could sit in my car again and it SMELLED GOOD!!! No cigarette butts, the entire interior (except seat belts) had been swapped from brown to black, and it looked really nice. I even had installed my new leather shift boot off ebay for $7 :)
The idea with the car now is to make it into a KA24DET :) I've found several manifolds that allow you to use all the SR20 aftermarket parts like the dumptube and downpipe, etc. I was ecstatic about this turn of events.
I went down to the local Harbor/Freight and bought an engine hoist; my dad said he'd split it with me because he needed one as well for his 67 mustang's motor overhaul (new heads, cam, intake mani, carb, etc). I bring it home and build it. I pull the engine out of the back of the truck and clean it up; stripped the old clutch off; still havent done the flywheel. I taped up all the electrical connections and got out some super strength engine degreaser and cleaned it twice. Then while it dried I stripped the engine bay of the wiring harness and left it up to the side. Got most of the junk off the radiator, removed the fuel lines, etc. After that I was tired; this was yesterday.
Today I pulled the valvecover off the new engine and inspected it; cams look to be in REALLY good shape, they look new as does the valve cover gasket, etc. I scrubbed the valve cover clean with degreaser (AGAIN), let it dry, then painted it red with 2 coats of some high temp engine enamel, then 2 coats of hightemp clear coat. Leftover stuff from when I was going to paint my 300zxTT's calipers red and decided to sell it instead. Tomorrow after it dries well, I'll get a grinding wheel out with the dremel and clean the lettering off on the cover. I also installed new NGK platinum plugs, not going to run much boost and I like the near unfoulability of platinum.
I also pulled the AC compressor off the mounts and moved it out of the way, removed the radiator and fan, disconnected the heater hoses, disconnected the power steering lines, removed the stock catback exhaust and removed two nuts off the stock downpipe before it got dark, the 3rd one was a hoe and I needed a longer extension anyway.
Its supposed to rain tomorrow too so bleh... I still need to disconnect the driveshaft, disconnect the slave cylinder, remove the last nut on the downpipe (and that AIV BS is goin in the garbage), remove the shifter, and drain the transmission.
After that I can pull the motor. Once pulled I gotta get all the accessories, and the distributor (with correct timing) installed on the new motor with new belts. Planning on drilling oil return and tapping oil send and capping both off for now to make it easier for later. May order manifold SOON depending on how other things go in the immediate future with the job. And I need to pick up a set of 370s, I've got so many spare parts myself, I'll be able to either trade or sell them on ebay. If i can get a S14 MAF for my problems of having no accessories or distributor on my new motor when promised, I'll be good to go; I think I'll do the hacked MAF setup just for now until I can afford a custom rail with 720s and an enthalpy ecu + z32 maf...
I figure I'll be happy with 250rwhp on a T25 :) base model 92 shouldnt weigh that much (especially with the heavy-ass stock exhaust gone) goal for the car is to be in the 13s for under $2500, I'm at ~$1780 right now not including cost of the hoist. All i need is a manifold, turbo, S14 maf to hack and maybe an intercooler.
anyway, pics are to follow; dont have pics of the motor yet, but i will do them tomorrow if it doesnt rain too bad