"The Goon" Build (KA Datsun)

[Zero-Offset]

Verrrry bitchin looking dime mang.
I can respect all the work it takes, working on an older car!

And i love it with the hood off! Just something more 'intense' about a car without a hood!
I took mine off to work on my car, and went for a cruise with it, and got quite a few head-turns!

[el ocho]

I love this car, and co-sign that the no hood looks sick. Also love the oil cooler.

[WagDatto]

I've got one hell of an update for the followers on this thread! I've made a lot of progress and tracked it, I've just been too busy to update.

About a year ago (a little over), I rattle-bombed my car. It's been holding up surprisingly well! Very little fading on the roof, and minor imperfections here and there, but overall it's been good. That being said, I took a lot of shortcuts. I masked everything off, rather than removing most of it. Also, I did the entire top half in red, the lower half in white.

I finally took apart the door panels and whatnot, and prepped the window sills for paint. I color matched the window sills red, and then painted the door panel trim gold. Because the motor is gold, the steering wheel is gold and the shift knob on its way to me is gold... I think minor trim pieces look good matched!

Before:

After:



I've seen a few pictures of wagons that black out their window pillars. Because of the huge chrome trim piece and the massive black weatherstripping around the rear cargo windows, it looks pretty decent! I started today by masking, sanding/prepping and spraying the rear passenger door pillars black. And that's when UPS came. A box straight from Canadia! I did the right thing and found a Bluebird grill! It was in good shape, it was all there, and the price was low enough for me to afford! Yippee!! These are the pictures he took before sending them to me.





I cracked open the box, and got to cleaning, leaving the rest of my pillars unpainted! I started to sand, clean and prep for refinishing.

Before:

During:

Bezel Painted (before trim):

Bezel Painted (after trim):

Grill Painted (before trim):

Grill Painted (after trim):


I ran over to Phil's house and we mounted it up!






It's CRAZY aggressive! The top part sticks out further than the bottom part of the grill, so all I need now is a badge or two to slap on it and call it a day! It's 100 times better looking than the old grill, in my opinion, but I'm going to hang on to the old one, obviously.

The motor got moved to my brother's house, so I can finally get rid of the old gasket materials and start putting things together. I need a new head before I can make too much progress, but when I get one, I'll be sending it to get ported/polished

[WagDatto]

I ran outside this morning to take a few day time pictures. God, I'm in love with my car again.



I like this pic. You can see the pull I had to do on the rear wheel wells... Hello, desktop background!

[silnismo]

Lookin good!

really digging the setup.

[landins13]

im diggin the hood. gangsta grilles

[WagDatto]

Thanks for the props, guys! For the time being, I'm done working on the OUTSIDE of my car. I need to focus on the motor. It's over at my brother's now, so I can use some air tools and get some real progress going. Before too long, I'll need another head (S13 preferred, but I'll make whatever I can work!). If anybody has one either stock OR port/polished, let me know. Still waiting on my adapter plate to be ready before I can mock up the Eaton, but I have plenty of other things to do in the mean time!!

[89singlecamnoob]

hadn't checked in on this build (or the forum, for that matter) but your build is lookin' absolutely bitchin', man!

[racepar1]

LOL!

The oil cooler mounting is awesome! TOTALLY old skool! I LOVE it! You just need to get some wheels that actually fit the ginormous BRE flares.

[WagDatto]

Okay, lots has happened, and I didn't even update on Zilvia because I was so mad....

My motor used to run good. Like, it pulled hard, sounded great, and never stumbled at low rpms. Over the past few months, I noticed a change, so I wanted to check things out and see if it would be an easy fix.

I bought a compression tester, just to make sure things were tip-top. Things WERE tip-top! Compression was 180psi across the board! Unfortunately for me, that's when things STOPPED being tip-top....

The motor wouldn't start back up. I pulled the spark plugs and cleaned them, and the car did eventually come back to life... but not the same way it was. It would sputter BAD any time you blipped the throttle.

I started checking things, and found a bad injector. I replaced it, and tested the TPS. That came up bad, too, so I replaced it with the one from my spare motor. Then the car stopped starting... In fact, the car stopped turning all together.

I ended up replacing the bad injector with an injector with a torn O-ring... So I flooded my motor with gas to the point where the cylinders were hydrolocked with fuel. Epic fail......

I replaced the injector again... I dried out my cylinders, and the car still wouldn't start!

The compression immediately after I spit fuel from the cylinders was low... but it was because the lubrication/oil on the cylinder walls was washed away from the gasoline that flooded my motor. However, the car still wouldn't start...

I cranked the motor a few times, then cleaned the spark plugs... I cycled through that way for a few minutes, but decided it couldn't be fouled plugs.

At this point, I'd replaced a bad injector, the throttle position sensor, and spark plugs/wires and it hadn't changed anything. I'd already tested the MAF, and it was known to be good. The only thing I could think, since I was getting fuel and the compression was good enough, is that it must be spark related. Hooking a timing light to each of the wires proved that it was a distributor issue. I replaced the cap, and that didn't fix things, so I bought a used dist. from a buddy and hooked it up.

Immediate progress, the car started to stumble to life and smoke out the exhaust (presumably all the fuel in the cylinders from not enough spark!!). Finally the car started running, and after a few sputters, it was revving just like normal!!!

I changed the oil (it smelled HORRIBLY of fuel!!), cleaned the spark plugs once more and re-tested all the injectors just in case, and everything is good to go. The car has been running WAY better than before, it's a noticeable difference from what it felt like over the past few months.

Now it's time to fix the issue I had with my tires rubbing in the rear. Because I'm so low with zero camber (silly Wagons!), I'd been hammering the wheel wells out, with good success. However, I still had a little more pounding to go... Before my car broke down, I'd bought a heavier sledge, and it was time to use it... I went to town, nailing down all the little bumps and creases that could cause an issue... to the point that I separated the "sleeved" metal at the top of the arch! When I went to close the door, I laughed because this is exactly what I'd wanted to happen! I ended up having to "flare" my door a little bit to get them to close!

Flared door! Huzzah!

Clearance


A few months ago, I started a few projects with painting that I never got around to finishing. Yesterday, I started finishing them! The first was "blacking out" the window frames. Since wagons have a giant black weatherstrip around the rear cargo windows, as well as a giant chrome "loop" surrounding the side windows, my brother suggested that it would look awesome to paint the window frames black. I did the passenger rear door a while back, but never finished the rest... Yesterday, I painted both sides fully, and it makes the car look longer and lower. I like it a lot. I'll post better pictures later on.

Blacked out


The other project I started was the insides of the doors. When I painted my car red/white, I left the interior alone. Everything was still Pea Green inside. I decided it was finally time to finish things off.

Before:

After:



Today, I decided to finish off the interior by carrying the red/gold around the cargo area, as well as paint my wheel tubs black to clean things up a little.

However, no Zilvian is worth a penny without a good mean in his belly... So I made myself a hearty breakfast. I make a mean omelette, in case you were wondering...



Then I got to painting....

Before:

After:




No, the painting is NOT done, nor will I finish it any time soon... To be completely honest, I love the way it looks now, even though it isn't finished. I need to set some time aside later this year to have someone hammer out the dents in my roof. Then I'll finish the painting on the inside and get a black headliner installed with some sound deadening on the roof. The roof makes a TON of noise, and that's what I'll probably focus on soon, is getting some tar mats up there.

That's it for today, let me know what you think!

Again, the reason I went with gold is because I have a gold shift knob coming in, my steering wheel is gold...ish, and my motor that I'm STILL building is gold. It stands out as a good contrast to the rest of my car, I think!

Plus I'm painting my engine bay white... GASP!!

[wannabdr1ftr]

looks good...makes me want to get a Datsun

[WagDatto]

How do eggs, cheese, peppers and mushrooms make you want a Datsun?

Haha, yeah, it's turning out okay... I've had such few problems with my car that a little issue here and there are okay in my book!

[wannabdr1ftr]

Originally Posted by WagDatto

How do eggs, cheese, peppers and mushrooms make you want a Datsun?

everything about it...especially the peppers

[ManoNegra]

Looking good
Is that a compressor/gun dyi paint job or rattle can?
looks pretty good in the pics
(I need to do some body work and paint my dd pos)

[WagDatto]

Everything on my car is rattle canned... Inside and out!

[David B S12]

ka datsun ftw

your ka datsun is way more rad then mine though

bozoku styling is ftw too, love the oil cooler

[WagDatto]

Thanks for the props, guys. I post everything up for a few reasons.

A) I'm a ham, and love being the center of attention.
B) I like to document everything that's going on, so I can go back and see what went wrong or duplicate it on another build.
C) I know you guys like it (for the most part!), and I know having everything documented will help people doing the same thing as me.

Now what are opinions on wheel color?! I plan on doing the flares later this year, and I AM FOR SURE buying Diamond Racing Wheels unless something comes along for cheaper (doubtful!). My main goal is wheels to stand WAY out, but not be so obscure that they're annoying.

I was thinking something like Mint Chocolate Chip green (like the ice cream) or a bright Teal blue, like Teddy's S13... I like both of those choices because they're wild, but not so much that people would be all "WTF!" I've been leaning more toward the Mint color because it's a bit more subtle...

Any other ideas for colors or suggestions for what I've got in mind?!

[Om1kron]

no more teal cars kthx... but it is your car do what you wish my man.

[David B S12]

lavender frost please

[WagDatto]

Originally Posted by Om1kron

no more teal cars kthx... but it is your car do what you wish my man.

Ew, I'd never paint my whole car Teal. Looks great on those, but it's way too much for what I want. I'm talking about painting my wheels....

[WagDatto]

Originally Posted by David B S12

lavender frost please

Sorry, no purple on my car. Gold is acceptable in touches, but purple is not my thing.

[thisisastickup]

ohi, I'm doing this swap as well in my '71 2-door. I'm on Ratsun, too, I see you there sometimes. The car is looking great, you should be expecting a PM or two from me when I start putting my engine in.

[WagDatto]

Sure! Hit me up any time. PM me here or on Ratsun. My build thread is on there too, same screen name. I've done the swap a few times, it's down to a science for me! I'd be willing to lend any support I can.

[WagDatto]

Today was eventful. Phil and I cruised down past Stockton to meet at Kirk's house and snag some Datto parts that he needed GONE! We got there and literally WADED through fox tails to get to the roadster and the 2 door that he had out in the middle of his field. We loaded what we needed into the car, hauled it out front, and snagged all the little parts that were still usable. Sadly, the car was NOT still usable, so Kirk had some fun with his Bobcat...



It was sad seeing the roof being punctured by the claws, but it made me feel better seeing the roof hold the weight of him trying to smash it! Makes me feel safer in case I, OR ANYBODY ELSE rolled their Dime (god forbid!).

We did get a slew of 2-door doors and misc parts... including a SWEET hood that someone used wood screws to put on a mustang hood scoop... At least they used the windshield heater vents from a Datsun 510 as the air scoops.... Sadly, the hood USED to be in pretty perfect shape, but now it has some wicked holes cut in it... Ah well, we'll use them!

Phil's 2-door came with a '68 grill... in nearly-perfect shape! It was pretty filthy, though, and needed some love.. and the badge could use a new coat of paint on it, too! I offered to lend a hand, because honestly, I think it's fun to try my hand at restoring things like this, and my Bluebird grill.

Before:




Progress:



Mechanic Kitteh does NOT approve!


I also re-painted a Datsun grill badge... No idea what it's off of, but I painted it silver, and then painted the D red today. The shape kinda looks like a superhero mark... Super Datsun!

Before:


Today:


Then the real fun part about my day was cleaning/sanding/painting the roof of my wagon... Ugh! The noise my car makes while I'm driving is enough to give me a headache after long enough, and it's really rattley. Most of the rattling comes from the roof, so I figured that if I put some paint on it, it'd help dull it up a bit! So I picked up another can of that "truck bed liner" stuff I used in the engine bay, and I got ready... There was still some fur up on the roof from the original headliner and sound deadening, so I had to go to town sanding it and prepping for paint. Which means in 103* heat... inside my car with only shorts, a bandana, a beanie and some sunglasses, I had to let crust and fur rain down on me... and then paint... pointing up..

Needless to say, I'm STILL covered in paint, even after scrubbing as much as I could away in the shower! But it turned out gooooood! I never thought about how hard it is to get a good picture of the roof of a car, but it's damn hard! I need a fisheye lens!!



My little brother was home, and I wanted to spend some time with him, so he did me the favor of printing out some things from the computer, and helping me cut them out to make some stencils! We only did a few, I wanted to leave room for more patterns and stencils in different sizes and whatnot, but it adds some character to the interior!

Front


Back


That's it for tonight! I washed my car, and now I'm letting it air out, because I've already lost enough brain cells for one day! I'll take a drive later tonight so I can see if it helped any with sound deadening.

What ya think?!

PS. Anybody know what car the badge is off of?

[bardabe]

haha i like your build man looking good I need to get a daily -_-*

[WagDatto]

Originally Posted by bardabe

haha i like your build man looking good I need to get a daily -_-*

Thanks for the love, I'm putting my "buy a Ruckus" plans on hold, and I'm focusing on the motor. I need to get paid and watch my pennies for the next month. I happened into a good deal on a full Thomas Knight kit, so I think I have to jump on it. That means I need to yank my crank from the motor, and take the head in somewhere, too, so I can get them modified! I just need new main bearings, and I'm going to reinforce the oil pan, too (in case I decide to go lower!), and the motor can actually start going back together soon....

[kingkilburn]

I have been searching for real solid info on a super charged KA. I will definitely be watching this thread.

[WagDatto]

Today was an "accessorize the 'goon!" day for me. I got 3 new stickers on the glass, got a wheel polished, started to bang on my fenders to smooth them out a little, and installed some sweet new interior parts!

I went and picked up some paint stripper, and got the old clear coat off one of my wheels. I hit it with some 1500 grit to clean up the minor scratches and oxidation that was forming. Then I got to polishing with my sweet little buff ball. I love Mother's products!

Y'all can find your OWN pictures of what they looked like before... Here's the one I "finished" polishing and re-painted the Phillips screw spokes and outer windows. I'm not going for perfection, but it turned out smexy!!


So when that was done, the mail came and I got my latest eBay purchase! I bought TWO 3" extensions for my shifter, and a Hurst "pistol grip" shift knob for the hell of it. I figure if Bosozoku means going a little on the impractical side of things, this would be the PERFECT way to do it!!

Peeking out...

First Gear

Second Gear


Test drive! Thanks for filming, Kait... Thanks a LOT for showing how trashy I look in stunna shades, a wife beater and barefeet... Peep the SWEET heel-toe!


Now you guys know what it's like to ride shotty in the 'goon. Not as brutal as I try to make it out to be! Although filming from a blackberry phone... not as good on sound quality as the real life is!

I'm gonna try to get at least one more wheel done tomorrow, and see how things go... I'm also replacing my battery terminal connectors with new ones. These old guys just don't have the clamping force I want on there!

What do you guys think?

[NME-S14]

Your car, Oh my phuk is money. Just needs a bubble shift knob.
Get your ka looking like this too.

[WagDatto]

The only thing I like about that KA is the wire tuck. It's a clean engine bay. I don't like all black, and I don't like the silly intake going in front of the motor. It's called heat soak... I prefer cold air in my intake mani.