a couple ka rebuild questions

[waxdnuggz]

Okay guys I'm looking to throw a ka into my 91 shell to drive it till I finish my lsx swap. Its gonna be about 8 months before I will be dropping the lsx in.

I have found a few ka's for around 100 a few with blown head gaskets. I figured I'd do a decent overhaul on it for reliability reasons

I'm thinking of doing a valve job resurfacing the head and full gaskets of course.

Here's my questions that I can't find a good answer to. In a rebuild that I have no interest in boosting just reliable driving when should I replace the pistons and is there a quality company that sells rings that you guys trust for a stock rebuild and do they need to be gapped?

And most are going to say buy one that runs already but I'd rather have one taken apart and gone thru not only that I'd rather spend an extra 200 making it reliable then 100 every other week towing it home

[daemonyk]

Hey Skippy, welcome back

To my understanding, and from what I've read, for a stock rebuild, no need to change pistons unless they're damaged. For a stock build, stock rings are fine, too. Also pretty sure gapping is only needed when over-boring the cylinder and installing larger pistons, which it sounds like you won't be doing. It's not like the stock parts are inferior for a normal DD, if all you're putting together is a stock KA just get some OEM rebuild stuff, and you'll be fine. Price range seems to start out at around $500, give or take, for a full proper KA rebuild kit (gaskets, seals, pistong rings, oil / water pumps, timing parts, etc...) IIRC.

Also, you can sometimes find NON blown, high milage KA's for like 150-200, so for a little more you can have an engine that has less chance of having additional problems from overheating, and the high milage won't matter since you're planning / willing to rebuild the whole thing anyways.

Anywho, keep looking around, maybe you get lucky and find a good deal

[waxdnuggz]

Thanks man that was exactly what I was looking for. I've found a few with high mileage but everyone thinks for some reason they have gold. For ex. A guy here in fl tampa to be exact has a ka with 217k and wants 500. That's crazy. I've replaced head gaskets on a ka but never fully rebuilt it.

Other then a warped head what else should I look for on an overheated engine? The head is off so I can inspect the cylinder walls for scoring from trashed pistons or rings.

Thanks

[daemonyk]

I know alot of central FL all too well. Tampa and Orlando love to hike up the drift tax. It's a little further away, but try searching in places like Ocala, Gainesville, Cocoa, Titusville, Melbourne, Palm Bay. In those areas I see running KA's with trans for like $200-300, in many cases the engine is fine, and was pulled purely for an SR/RB/whatever swap, rather than because it was overheated or broken or damaged. Maybe broaden your search if you can

As for rebuilding, it's basically just one cylinder bank of a V8. All of the procedures are in the FSM, follow them carefully and you pretty much can't go wrong.

Warped head / block, and cracked head / block would be deal-killers as far as I'm concerned, for a stock DD temporary engine. T-stat / hoses would get replaced anyways. Not really 100% sure what would be essential to check for, esp if the engine is going to be rebuilt anyways. Maybe someone else has some ideas