Cannot decide what to do with the KA? Need advice!!!

[TogueDrifter]

I have a 1990 240sx, with a 93 KADE in it. I have a valve train problem, It makes a claking sound which sounds like a hydraulic lifter. I'm not sure weather to rebuild the head to stock again, because later on I could possibly turbo it. I could just upgrade the valve train and get it ported polished, new cams, valves lifters the whole bit, and be N/A. Or just go SR. I have hook ups with the SR prices and it's the best bang for the buck. But might be pushing it with my budget. Plus gas prices are rediculous in LA! N/A would be cool, but it costs a pretty penny to get good power. Or keep it stock and pay what I can afford in a month or 2, oppose to borrowing money. ANY Input is appreciated.

[Dattebayo]

Use it as a hat.

It is quite fashionable I have heard...

[neagan]

Hey T/D,

I see your quandry. How much are you in love with your car? Is it something you see yourself keeping forever even when it reaches the age/mileage where it starts nickle and diming you half to death?

I think your idea of playing with the head might be the best of the options you presented. I'm basing that on your financial info. Changing out the engine is going to cost money. there's just to many 'extras' that pop up when doing that.

How good are you at seat of the pants feeling of 3-4 horsepower changes in your ride??? Some people arn't sensitive unless it's 15-25 horsepower add-ons. The reason I ask, is that playing with the valve drivetrain is fun if you're sensitive enough to notice the subtle changes.

Buying a used head, figuring out what type of compression you can play with for shaving the head, the smoothness of a good porting and such. If you could talk a machine shop into letting you be there when the work is done is a fantastic way to learn about gasket matching. Then you don't have to tear the head off of your running car until your actually ready.

There's a lot that can be done for not much more money than a basic head work job. You don't need to spend $900- $1500 for some really hot head work.

Just figure out what the long term goal for your car actually is first before you lay any money out.

Also, you might want to check to see (in case you already havn't) if there's any sludge build-up in your valve train. Many people who've used cheap oils such as Penzoil get major sticky/gummy goop all over the head and a thorough cleaning actually makes a significant improvement in the valve train. Might be worth pulling your cover off and getting that checked along with your valve clearances. Just some thoughts, Nitro

[TogueDrifter]

I want to autocross, canyon, and drift for fun. I'm not sure what shaving thehead would do because I believe my pistons are not stock, from a compression test, and a leak down test I got low copmression. 105-110 across, and the leak down held 100% of the air. I don't know what shaving the heads would do with the compression. So as far as that goes, I dunno if it's worth it... I want to keep putting 87 in is bascally what I'm getting at, If I could help it anyways. Turbo is harder t maintain, but it would be awsome! I dunno, I need to keep thinkin bout it.

[240marcuSX]

shaving the head would raise compression, pretty much making it a good idea to run higher octane.

turbo would require highrer octane as well.

[TogueDrifter]

I know it would raise comp. I just don't know by how much because the pistons are not stock. I don' tknow the current comp. ratio so it creates curiosity to what it would do, or where it would end up. I don't want to end up using higher octane.

[neagan]

See, that's the fun of eeking out performance and horsepower; knowing where you're starting from and where you want it to go. You need to research what the starting points of your engine's performance ratio's are first, otherwise you're wasting our time with useless questions.

That may sound harsh, but go back and read a few pages of some of the prior posts. You will find post after post of someone who wants to be hand fed all this information, yet they won't take the first steps to putting that information to work. If you're going to eventually pull the head to get ANY work done, shouldn't you be willing to figure out what your engine's baseline stats are?

If you're concerned about manipulating octane ratings then you still need to understand what it is you're starting with so you can modify just enough to ride that octane level fence without falling over it, yet close enough, so that if you want, you can add a can of '104 Octane Boost' to drive in the next level.

By pulling your head you will need to have it 'decked' before reinstalling it. That means some of the head surface material will be shaved off anyway. By knowing this info you can then decide what thickness or strength of head gasket you'll need.

From what was mentioned earlier, it just may be that all it needs is a good cleaning, tolerances checked and valve lash reset. \Also, you can learn a great deal about how your engine is performing if you go to the trouble of 'indexing' your spark plugs and learning how to REALLY-REALLY 'read' the plugs. It might give you a better clue as to why you think you've got low compression when your compression score variences are so close to each other.

Come up with a budget for the head and engine, and let's match that up with your1-3-5 year plan for the car. Then with that info we can truelly be useful to you. Hopefully this was a help and not a hinderance! Nitro

[TogueDrifter]

Ya I'm still trying to decide my long term... you can prob. imagine how much your mind can change from one thing to another. I'm gonna look for aftermarket valves, springs, lifters & retainers. If you know of any let me know.

[mmatl16]

go rb. nothing beats a 6-cylinder turbo sound

[TogueDrifter]

And they cost how much?