New member, introducing my S14 Zenki

[warpanda]

Hello all! My name is Ruben and I recently got into the 240 game about 4 months ago. Fell in love with the s14, ever since a friend from high school took me for a spin in his sr20 swapped zenki. Now I'm turning 21 and two months ago I copped my first 240sx (God knows how many miles, est. 220-250K, stock ka24de, paid $3,500). I feel priviledged to join this board, considering I've learned so much the last few months just by lingering around and reading during my graveyard shift. Here comes the pics!

Removed the front lip which was hanging, and the ugly looking "eyelids" which was a failed attempt by last owner.
Sitting on some 16 inch enkeis I swapped with a friend (which helped me paint them bronze) F205/55/16 R225/55/16.


Needs a new exhaust considering the piping is only 2 inches, and trunk washers to lower the trunk a bit? Friend of friend identified the car specifically, which he witnessed the left rear end get messed up from a drift gone wrong a year ago. Funny thing is I used to know that kid..The chassis seems to have been well repaired when inspected under a lift though.


Everyone covers up plates, so I might as well too Better view of trunk, and huge unnecessary 3 inch muffler. I dislike the Ebay recaro inserts, but anyways I randomly bought a new passenger door panel (Either I find a drivers side since mines destroyed anyways, or go for Origin Lab door panel inserts? Reupholstery shop? Any thoughts?


Needs new tires in the front, and front bumper is missing a couple of screws to tighten it up! Drivers side corner light shall be replaced soon as well, hehe.


Came with NRG wheel (Though it is a bit too small, 325mm I believe?). I replaced the cluster, gotta love the SE one. Got extra lucky and found the radio trim! But... Now I need to glue up my shift boot


Destroyed door panel, waiting for a replacement in order to bolt up the window switch I copped for it as well.


And.. The engine A week ago two cylinders went bad, and I spun a rod bearing. Knowing the engine had bad compression thanks to the owner basically removing the cooling system (wish I would've known better); I still drove the vehicle hard. Now I'm going to do a full ka24de swap ($600) with a comp. test, because of the high cost of a rebuild.


Had to find a fan clutch w/shroud, which was unfortunately cracked so its a bit ghetto rigged battery terminals went bad, hood had a crack which I had welded, coolant leak fixed although a small one came up recently. The list goes on and on, but I still love my 240 Could've found a better deal, but the anticipation/impatience got to me.


Sorry for the long post! My goals are to daily it, but take it to the track to drift every month or so. To compliment this, I will buy a couple of things to reinforce the suspension along with coils, planning on boosting the KA (250-300 HP) after a proper rebuild, and do a 5 lug conversion for better brakes. Already got the hang of sliding towards the left (Damn open diff!) thanks to the drift bible Any thoughts or recommendations are highly appreciated, ANYTHING, trust me when I say I am rookie. Thanks for the time everyone.

[Bokeh]

I wish my paint was as clean as yours XD Sounds like a good start though, I'm a noob here myself but Welcome!

[Hijacker]

Welcome to the club!

[pepesilvia]

welcome! Zenki FTW!

[warpanda]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. Already have it parked at my buddies house, and I'm grabbing a s14 KA to swap in. Hopefully by this morning everything will be set up for the swap to be done by Sunday!

Zenki's FTW! One day I'm looking forward to some euro glass headlights, and its a wrap

[TurboSauce]

Welcome to the club, stick around and post more often

[mechanicalmoron]

Did you do a compression check to determine that you really have 2 bad cylinders? If an plugs or distributer or injector or two went, it will run and sound like hell.

Just saying. I assume you have, since you mention it for the next motor. But ehh, it looks like a cooling system that should do the job, to me. If you mean last owner removed the clucth fan and shroud, they don't do anything at all during normal driving, only when you idle for extended periods of time, not having them would NOT make you fry cylinders.

[warpanda]

Thanks turbosauce! (Whom I saw this evening at the school I work at ) Well, the guy which works for the small shop which I've been taking my 240 to, stated that he did a compression test and two cylinders had 0 PSI. I recently found out hes a habitual liar, and occasionally overprices for work, so I'm not sure if that statement is valid (To add to this, I already knew the engine was knocking horribly and told him to not test anything because I'd rather save for the swap, but he wanted to charge me for a "diagnostic" he supposedly did when I clearly said it was to not be done). I didn't pay ultimately, because all I asked for was a KA swap, so now my buddy is going to help me with it and I'm done dealing with that guy.

The car feels like it has more than half of its HP sucked away, and makes a HUGE knocking sound after 1.5k RPM. Also, with no clutch fan/electric fans, and only the A/C fan (which shouldn't even count as cooling the engine when I specifically switch on the A/C) the engine overheated on me about 5 times during the first couple of months. The hot weather down here in Miami also didn't help out the poor engine, neither the beating its taken with crappy timing (if that can be considered?). I unfortunately didn't know any better at the time, but thanks to searching online, and especially lurking around the Nicoclub; I've become more knowledgeable of 240sx's and have most of the basics down as of recently. Gotta give a shout out to my jobs midnight shift, wayyy too much reading

[TurboSauce]

1. Fix motor problems
2. drop it low
3. ???
4.????
5. PROFIT!

[mechanicalmoron]

1. Fix motor problems
2. drop it low
3. ???
4.????
5. PROFIT!

Because it just makes you cool, when you have to hit speedbumps while driving what feels like this:

[warpanda]

^Dayuuum. Now THATS stanced.

And turbosauce, you already know whats up

I'm stuck in the struggle, came across a s13 KA24DE for sale, its already in a hatch and comes with the manis/starter for $450. Seems a bit overpriced, but if the compression reads good I'm thinking why not? Any thoughts?

[pepesilvia]

^Dayuuum. Now THATS stanced.

And turbosauce, you already know whats up

I'm stuck in the struggle, came across a s13 KA24DE for sale, its already in a hatch and comes with the manis/starter for $450. Seems a bit overpriced, but if the compression reads good I'm thinking why not? Any thoughts?

how miles on the motor? and will you be using the trans from this motor?

[warpanda]

My own trans, and I'll have to check that out when I go to take a look at it. It should be a plug and play swap, correct? Not sure on this..

[mechanicalmoron]

Bear in mind that if it's coming out of an automatic car, you'll need to swap some parts out with yours, such as the TPS.

That aside, I think you'll have some issues putting an obd1 motor on an obd2 harness. They have slightly different emissions configurations, I think. And the s13 motor has a slightly different head, and distributer. I don't know if the stock computer will learn the different head safely (I guess probably, since it can apparently handle various cam swaps. But it probably won't be tuned as well as it would be)

I'm sure it's quite possible and all, shouldn't be a big deal. But be aware that there are some differences you may have to work around, or that may need parts off your old motor.

[warpanda]

The KA24DE swap never happened, one guy bailed and the other had 30/160/120/(180?) compression, so there was no joy. My friend knows how to swap in a 1JZ, and to be honest, I gotta go big and go home because finding a good condition KA24DE in Miami is no easy task. I'm close to reaching the amount of cash it takes to swap one in, so I'm most likely going to jump into that. Seems like a better idea than a S14 SR20 anyways

Buddy is ok with keeping the car parked at his house, its only a matter of time. I'll be sure to post up any updates as time goes on.

Meanwhile, any ideas or anyone with any personal experience with 1JZ/2JZ's care to share some insight on them?

[TurboSauce]

Trying to lift a 2j with 3 people is a task that requires a long break afterward.
2jz vvti in stock form is very fast. Harder to wire in, more expensive.
1jz's in auto trim in a Soarer are Very fun.
2jz's in auto trim in an aristo is nearly as fun

[warpanda]

Copped this baby from JDM of Miami. S14 SR20DET full swap with downpipe for $2,320.00

I also got...

- An engine wiring harness from wiringspecialties.com (No transmission harness available, going to swap some sensors/use KA's transmission harness? Not sure on this, need to speak to my friend so he can elaborate on what hes going to do with it unless some fellow members can help explain the trick?)

-Aluminum radiator w/fan shroud and 12 inch E-fans ($200 Cxracing)

-3 inch FMIC kit ($200 Cxracing)

-Greddy R BOV (From friend)

Still in need of a clutch kit, leaning towards F1 racing stage 3 or 4 (although they're cheap and may not last long, I definitely need one to temporarily solve the problem, because the OEM one is worn out). Need radiator hoses, and thats pretty much it... maybe a walbro fuel pump (may use the stock one for now).

Swap should be done by next week, I plan on keeping it all stock for a good while at 7 PSI. I know I need to work on perfecting my driving, and little to no drifting until I touch my suspension. I plan on taking it to the track in the near future to drift, so I want to slam it on some good coilovers, and weld that diff. Then I'd love to aim a little higher, upgrade the injectors(buddy will sell his 555c nismo's)/clutch & flywheel(Spec or ACT w/ fidanza)/Z32 MAF/255 fuel pump. Any other recommendations guys?

I appreciate everyones insight, this community is baws lol..

On a serious note though, this friggin car has me broke and my family thinks I'm retarded.

[TurboSauce]

On your last comment: I say welcome to tuner cars.
Keep everyone updated.
and Good luck.

[warpanda]

I'm back! Finally obtained more parts needed for the SR swap. Tommorow morning I'm going over to my buddys house, and the swap shall commence! I am extremely eager to watch how its done, and bother my friend with millions of questions in order to learn the fundamentals of engine swapping. Its always been a fascination of mine to learn this, (unfortunately I've never been mechanically inclined, which will soon change) I doubt I'll even be able to sleep tonight

I've obtained...

- Isis radiator hoses
- Megan racing flex downpipe

No clutch for now, I am down to zero dollars and am HOPING that the OEM clutch still has some meat left at least for the next couple of months for me to afford a high grade clutch (Made up my mind on an ACT).

I believe this is all I need for now, my buddy did mention tonight that I need an elbow in reference to the downpipe? Can anyone offer some advice on this? I already thought that my SR20 would come with it, but when he mentioned that I needed the elbow (which connects to the turbo?) I already had to leave so I didn't have time to ask about this more in depth. From my knowledge I should already have EVERYTHING needed for the engine swap.

[TurboSauce]

any updates?

[s14wayzz]

Looks good. Elbow? Does he mean the downpipe? Basically if you dont see a pipe coming off your turbo's exhaust housing then you need one lol.