My S13 project, long - Zilvia.net Forums | Nissan 240SX (Silvia) and Z (Fairlady) Car Forum

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

Pacman · 10-13-2004, 09:13 PM

Sounds cool! I'm finishing up a project (KADE-KADE) this week to. Just be careful of all the little things that can go wrong. Sounds like you know what you're doing tho. I wanna see some pics!

Id- · 10-13-2004, 09:21 PM

back of the car parked

Id- · 10-13-2004, 09:26 PM

well crap i didnt realize we had 70k upload limit; at clublex we had damn near unlimited gallery space and unlimited upload space for random pics... oh well, i'm hosting them at my photos place at yahoo

http://photos.yahoo.com/jzmotorfan

uploading them all now, some photos are big... notice the old brown interior at the place where the console was, notice the cigarette butts that were under it!

FRpilot · 10-13-2004, 09:27 PM

congrats and all. but your story is hella long. someone write clif notes

Id- · 10-13-2004, 09:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FRpilot

congrats and all. but your story is hella long. someone write clif notes

hey now the title says "LONG" in it

I wasnt talking about my dick size there buddy... j/p

Redtop_240 · 10-13-2004, 09:58 PM

Doing the same......Im putting a 98 KA in my 89, building my 89 KA (SOHC) and boosting it.....For info purposes I'm not sure if you know about it or not but lotsa good info at www.ka-t.org ......

Some of the fastest KA guys are there and its a fairly new forum so they are all still friendly as long as you know how to use the search button...

Hope to see you there as well....

-Jeff

Id- · 10-16-2004, 07:36 PM

k got new pictures of the interior up

yesterday i didnt get anything done; day before i was kinda unavailable...
today i got the snapring pulled out and the shifter removed...
i got the rest of the downpipe removed off the car, got that one last plug behind the alternator removed
i moved the tranny harness out of the way and disconnected all the plugs
i got the mounts removed and pulled the engine out; let the tranny drip into an oilpan until it stopped

Pulled the tranny off the old motor, pulled the alternator, powersteering, waterpump pulley,etc off the old motor and installed them onto the new one...
i removed the distributor and clutch, cant install the distributor yet since its really dark now and i need good light to make sure i get the teeth lined up perfect...
will also remove the flywheel; which is in remarkable shape; tomorrow... seems that before the chick blew the motor, the guy that repaired it had done some good maintenance, new clutch, flywheel, belts, etc...

after pulling the motor i found that the driver side mount had been exploded from the rod ejecting out of the block

the rod was wedged inbetween the mount itself, and the frontside of the mount had torn away from the block; kinda crazy...
i've got the rod sitting around, i think i'll clean it and make it a conversation piece

its bent at a ~45-60deg angle and twisted a bit too... crazy... i guess thats what happens when you're on the interstate and you downshift from 5th to 4th but hit 2nd by accident...

Id- · 10-17-2004, 05:53 PM

Got distributor and flywheel/clutch installed today...
Dropped the motor in today! Got everything mounted back up; all that remains is reinstalling the harness and figuring out what to do with this small wire to the alternator (looks like a ground) because when i initially removed it, the screw had stripped and broke off; there's another screw that it looks like i can connect it to; but i'm not sure if its insulated or not...

10-13-2004, 08:53 PM	#1
Id- Zilvia Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hell on Earth Age: 44 Posts: 220 Trader Rating: (0) Feedback Score: 0 reviews	My S13 project, long 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 __________________ 95 Lexus SC300 5-speed -DD pimp car 92 Nissan 240sx base coupe -clean KA24DE swapped in -GTIR T28 -Big FMIC -565cc STi Injectors w/ Z32 MAF -J30 VLSD w/ subframe spacers -RPS Max clutch -3" turboback -PLMS Daughterboard on modded ECU

10-13-2004, 09:26 PM	#4
Id- Zilvia Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hell on Earth Age: 44 Posts: 220 Trader Rating: (0) Feedback Score: 0 reviews	well crap i didnt realize we had 70k upload limit; at clublex we had damn near unlimited gallery space and unlimited upload space for random pics... oh well, i'm hosting them at my photos place at yahoo http://photos.yahoo.com/jzmotorfan uploading them all now, some photos are big... notice the old brown interior at the place where the console was, notice the cigarette butts that were under it! __________________ 95 Lexus SC300 5-speed -DD pimp car 92 Nissan 240sx base coupe -clean KA24DE swapped in -GTIR T28 -Big FMIC -565cc STi Injectors w/ Z32 MAF -J30 VLSD w/ subframe spacers -RPS Max clutch -3" turboback -PLMS Daughterboard on modded ECU

10-13-2004, 09:58 PM	#7
Redtop_240 Zilvia Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Virginia beach, VA. Age: 45 Posts: 207 Trader Rating: (0) Feedback Score: 0 reviews	Doing the same......Im putting a 98 KA in my 89, building my 89 KA (SOHC) and boosting it.....For info purposes I'm not sure if you know about it or not but lotsa good info at www.ka-t.org ...... Some of the fastest KA guys are there and its a fairly new forum so they are all still friendly as long as you know how to use the search button... Hope to see you there as well.... -Jeff __________________ JDM JUNKYARD.NET

10-16-2004, 07:36 PM	#8
Id- Zilvia Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hell on Earth Age: 44 Posts: 220 Trader Rating: (0) Feedback Score: 0 reviews	k got new pictures of the interior up yesterday i didnt get anything done; day before i was kinda unavailable... today i got the snapring pulled out and the shifter removed... i got the rest of the downpipe removed off the car, got that one last plug behind the alternator removed i moved the tranny harness out of the way and disconnected all the plugs i got the mounts removed and pulled the engine out; let the tranny drip into an oilpan until it stopped Pulled the tranny off the old motor, pulled the alternator, powersteering, waterpump pulley,etc off the old motor and installed them onto the new one... i removed the distributor and clutch, cant install the distributor yet since its really dark now and i need good light to make sure i get the teeth lined up perfect... will also remove the flywheel; which is in remarkable shape; tomorrow... seems that before the chick blew the motor, the guy that repaired it had done some good maintenance, new clutch, flywheel, belts, etc... after pulling the motor i found that the driver side mount had been exploded from the rod ejecting out of the block the rod was wedged inbetween the mount itself, and the frontside of the mount had torn away from the block; kinda crazy... i've got the rod sitting around, i think i'll clean it and make it a conversation piece its bent at a ~45-60deg angle and twisted a bit too... crazy... i guess thats what happens when you're on the interstate and you downshift from 5th to 4th but hit 2nd by accident... __________________ 95 Lexus SC300 5-speed -DD pimp car 92 Nissan 240sx base coupe -clean KA24DE swapped in -GTIR T28 -Big FMIC -565cc STi Injectors w/ Z32 MAF -J30 VLSD w/ subframe spacers -RPS Max clutch -3" turboback -PLMS Daughterboard on modded ECU

10-17-2004, 05:53 PM	#9
Id- Zilvia Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Hell on Earth Age: 44 Posts: 220 Trader Rating: (0) Feedback Score: 0 reviews	Got distributor and flywheel/clutch installed today... Dropped the motor in today! Got everything mounted back up; all that remains is reinstalling the harness and figuring out what to do with this small wire to the alternator (looks like a ground) because when i initially removed it, the screw had stripped and broke off; there's another screw that it looks like i can connect it to; but i'm not sure if its insulated or not... __________________ 95 Lexus SC300 5-speed -DD pimp car 92 Nissan 240sx base coupe -clean KA24DE swapped in -GTIR T28 -Big FMIC -565cc STi Injectors w/ Z32 MAF -J30 VLSD w/ subframe spacers -RPS Max clutch -3" turboback -PLMS Daughterboard on modded ECU

10-13-2004, 09:13 PM	#2
Pacman Zilvia FREAK! Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Ohio Age: 37 Posts: 1,149 Trader Rating: (1) Feedback Score: 1 reviews	Sounds cool! I'm finishing up a project (KADE-KADE) this week to. Just be careful of all the little things that can go wrong. Sounds like you know what you're doing tho. I wanna see some pics!