Pitfall

Decided to finally put together a build thread on that cars progress over the past 3 years. It started out as a bone stock 96 zenki with 113k miles and not a trace of rust anywhere to be found.


After some time i ended up with the car looking
like this... bn kit from Mr. Nathan ong
ABC exclusives, front 18x9.5+14 rear 18x11 +7
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Car looked good, it was time to make it faster...
Threw together a junkyard ka-t. T28, 370cc's, enthalpy.. you all know the drill. PLUS i kept A/C.
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The setup was pretty fun on track and wasn't exactly slow... but there was always the worry about a ringland giving out or a rod making a surprise entrance into my engine bay.

After about a year of running around sounding like an srt-4 neon. My good friend had an unfortunate tire blow out on his 05 gto, and the insurance totaled the car. He was okay, and the damage wasn't even that bad. Luckily the insurance was okay with letting the car come back to him for $3500, which i happily paid.
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Didn't take long before the ls2 was sitting pretty, awaiting its new cam!
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Had to get rid of this DBW crap. a decision that would cause me headache throughout the remainder of this swap... for anyone who wants to do this in the future. Make sure your ls2 is a 24x motor like mine, otherwise you need a converter which is far from cheap. Another problem is that the manifold has no where to bolt a throttle cable bracket to.
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Custom grind cam from Jeff at PSI specialties in geln burnie MD
I decided to go with an oil pan baffle from improved racing, dual stage titanium valve springs, new oil pump and timing chain, pushrods, etc. blah blah.
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Didn't take any photos, but i had a hell of a time with a few of the exhaust studs which broke off in the head despite my efforts. The last one broke my easy-out. That was a really bad day. Even tried welding to the stud to give me something to grab onto. No such luck. Ended up going through a bunch of diamond tipped cone shaped dremel bits. That was expensive to say the least... moving along.

Motor is clean inside!
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After a few months of ordering and gathering parts. It is more or less ready to drop in
spec stage 3 clutch that came with the car, i found in in the trunk before i sold the whole shell!
1200 is what the buyer offered, decent amount of money and its hard to argue with a $2300 ls2+t56, and anything else i wanted to hold on to (like a/c lines. hint hint). Plus It had to go from the driveway, neighbors and the HOA were less than pleased with a motorless totaled car in front of my house...

New flywheel, slave, master, tick speedbleeder to make my life easier in the future. Ebay throttle body to replace the DBW one. Also scored a 0411 pcm from the local u-pick a part for $40.
All the swap stuff is from daft innovations. I heard a lot of horror stories online and in forums, but all the local guys say they went that way and didn't have any troubles. Just order early because it takes a long time to get it all to your door... (like 2.5 months)
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This is were things started to get irritating. The GTO trans has a different shift assembly than a f-body version. This would have put my shifter in the back seat from what i could tell.
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And
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Versus...
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Working at a parts store has its perks here and there. Since the B&M that came with the car was nearly brand new... I ordered the f-body one a returned the GTO one, saying the wrong one came in the box.
I know its a D*** move, but I had no intentions of putting more money into this that I already have. Plus the GTO b&m shifter literally had 50 miles on it. oh well.

Out with the old... I know a lot of people like to hate on ka's, but this one treated me extremely well. never once did it break down or have an issue. I think in the 3 years I had it and beat on it, drifting around at summit and all, i only replaced the thermostat. This thing is a champ!
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Bittersweet moment....