complete newbie, where to start with ka-t?

[chmercer]

ok guys, im a retard and i know very little about engines, mostly i read on suspension and other things. But currently i have 1200$ to spend and was wondering if this was enough to get a ka-t kit together?

all i want is to be around a stock SR in hp rating. so for turbos somthing like a t25, t3/t4 would be fine for what i am doing. (right?)

i am looking at a guys post who is selling a good condition z31 t3 turbo that has turbo elbow and new vaccum lines for the wastegate, new gasket for between mani and turbo, aluminum oil inlet flange with oil inlet restrictor (whats an oil inlet restrictor for? again, im a retard), aluminum oil outlet flange, and the gaskets for these. Also a JGS manifold kit, he says its the one with the exhaust manifold flange, t3 flange, and 8 90 degree bends and 1' of pipe. havent been able to find a pic of one of these fully assembled. but i figure for my purposes it should work fine. the mani is halfway welded, i would get it finished at a machine shop or somthing.295 + shipping for all this stuff. good deal?

so besides that stuff, i would need a stronger fuel pump, IC and piping, bov, and injectors. (anything else?)

fuel pumps, walbro 255lph used is 50 bucks give or take.

intercooler i could get starion core or an ebay brand core for 150-250$ i figure. does anyone know a good way to go about getting the piping made? how much does a muffler shop charge for this usually? any info on this would be helpful.

blowoff valve, i could get turboxs or gsx or whatever blowoff valve used for 50$ or so.

on fuel injectors i was told red top injectors would work fine for this, does anyone know a place that sells rebuilt ones or somthing? and how much do these ususally cost? like 150-200?

also i will probably get s-afc instead of doing hacked maf. so thats another 150-200.

does my info sound correct? is there anything else i would need to buy? i suppose silicon couplings for the IC piping, anything else?

SORRY FOR THE NEWBIE POST, I LOVE YOU ALL

[240Knightrider]

Well first I would say search but I think thats rude so im not just going to say that.

you have to build up the engine, some have turboed with stock internals but most have blown their engine. Get forged rods, pistons, and other forged parts, you can find these to your left. In all honesty spend the $1200 on the parts you need to build the engine then work on the turbo kit.

[chmercer]

thanks for the advice.. yea i have been searching, just trying to confirm some things. i am gonna leave the internals stock, the motor only has about 80k, and i only plan to run like .4 - .5 bar. before i do it i am going to replace piston rings and headgasket though to make sure my compression is good.

[Structure240sx]

there is no need to build the engine, none at all. people always remember bad stories people have not the good ones. theres plenty of people out there running lots of boost for a long time on a ka. if you blow a stock engine you will also blwo the forged engine unless you fix your tunning problem

honestly search. i know your not a newbie to this site. i do belive you can put together a turbo ka for $1000. get that manifold and turbo it will do good. i would jsut get an fmu for $100 so you wont have to tune the safc for those injectors and you will save money. buy mandrel bent pipes from jegs, summit, etc. for your intercooler pipping. find a bunch of silcion on rubber couplers. get an older supra, volvo, starion, etc, frount mount.

good luck hit me up on aim if you need any help

[chmercer]

good deal, thanks for the info.

[240Knightrider]

you said yourself you blew your STOCK engine from overboost at only 10psi, I dont know about you but thats not a lot of boost. That doesnt make sense for you to say that. If you want to make any sort of decent power without MANY MANY hours of Tuning the engine, then its a good idea to go ahead and work on getting the internals done. there is one guy that has over 600hp on stock internals, BUT he has spend A LOT of money and time on tuning the engine for it.

[chmercer]

i dont want 600hp or whatever. this is a budget thing, more of a learning experience than anything else. after driving ka24de, im sure i will be amazed even if all i get out of it is like 40 extra horsepower. i plan on running more like 5-7 psi. and even if i wanted to rebuild the motor i dont have the money right now. thanks for the concern though.

[240Knightrider]

im telling ya man if thats all the power you want then just upgrade the fuel system get headers, intake. Look into getting a performance chip. Then you should have a decent motor and still have enough for springs and shocks.

[chmercer]

wtf dude no reason to get snide. im not gonna blowing my own horn and **** but i have plenty of (non engine, mind you) mods on my car and i drive it in events regularly. I just have some spare cash lying around and i thought it would be fun to try a turbo project instead of finishing out my sus links. i am not going for top quality show winner engine here, i just want enough power to have fun. and 200hp out of an NA ka24 would cost me way more than 1200$ last i checked.

if you have any good info regarding my question i would love to hear your input, because i really dont know a whole lot about engines and any information is good information. thanks

[240Knightrider]

Wtf, maybe I misunderstood you. I did not realize you already had mods. I never said to make some show winner engine. I was talking about making it to have the power you wanted. As not being able to give a na ka more than 200hp with only 1200 that is simply not true.

I was only trying to help you out. Didnt mean to PISS you off. Hope it works you for you.

[chmercer]

sorry i thought you were making some crack about the shock and spring comment.

[Drift Machine]

you said yourself you blew your STOCK engine from overboost at only 10psi, I dont know about you but thats not a lot of boost. That doesnt make sense for you to say that. If you want to make any sort of decent power without MANY MANY hours of Tuning the engine, then its a good idea to go ahead and work on getting the internals done. there is one guy that has over 600hp on stock internals, BUT he has spend A LOT of money and time on tuning the engine for it.

I see.....So by your reasoning you don't need to tune your engine if you have 'upgraded internals'. No offense, but I have been running 6 psi since april, granted it's only been a couple of months I have had no problems with my car related to it being turbocharged or it showing any signs that it's wearing and going to blow.

[240Knightrider]

well yeah if you stay at that PSI then the internals would be just fine but my arguement was that he said there are a lot of stock internals KA running high boost. but what type of horsepower are you getting out of your KA. I am only saying if you want power like the SR or above 250 your gonna want higher boost and with higher boost means changing internals.

[240Knightrider]

But with any engine that has higher horsepower tuning is a must. But more tuning is needed to run higher boost with stock internals so you dont blow it up.

[ziggy682]

Okay, 240Knightrider, I have a question for you.

Do you own a KA-T?

If the answer is no, than everyone should disregard every one of your posts about the subject, because it is your opinion, and not fact.

I personally own a KA-T, which I built myself, so I happen to know a bit about the subject.

Your telling him to spend $1200 building the engine with "forged rods, pistons, and other forged parts". Well, KA's already have forged rods stock, and I'm not sure what "other forged parts" you're talking about. The point is, he is looking "to be around a stock SR in hp rating". Do you know how much a stock SR puts out? I can tell you, it's about 160-170 hp to the wheels. Do you know how much boost it takes a KA to make 160-170 hp to the wheels? Not much...certainly not enough to justify spending $1200 to build the engine with "forged rods, pistons, and other forged parts".

If Structure240sx blew his engine overboosting at 10psi, he probably didn't have enough fuel to support 10psi. If you blow a stock engine from detonation, you will blow a built engine nearly as easy from the same detonation.

As far as your other reccomendation that he "just upgrade the fuel system get headers, intake. Look into getting a performance chip" let's look into that statement a little further.

Intake-A good investment.Headers-Don't know why he would need multiple headers when one header would be just fine.Fuel system-Why would he need that in an N/A application. Seems like a waste of money to me.Performance Chip-Who makes a "performance chip" for the KA? Oh, you must be talking about those Ebay performance timing mod resitor thingies. Yeah, those things work great.With your recommended mods, there's absolutely no reason for him to go turbo. He'll have atleast 250 to the wheels with those mods.:rolleyes

As far as your talk of the N/A KA with more than 200 hp to the wheels, show me one single dyno of an N/A KA making that much power. I've never seen one, and if I did, it would most certainly have more than $1200 into it. 200 hp to the wheels is about 240-250 at the engine. That's nearly a 100 hp gain without forced induction. Good luck with that.

One last quote. He said "all i want is to be around a stock SR in hp rating." You said "if you want power like the SR or above 250." Hmm, I don't think you read his post very well before replying. He only wants around a stock SR power level. Who said anything about 250 or above? Chmercer never did.

The point is, he will be just fine on a stock KA running the 5-7 psi that he wants to run. At that boost level, he will make clost to 230 hp to the wheels, wich is quite a bit above what a stock SR puts out, so I think he'll be plenty happy at that power level. At that boost and power level, it is a complete waste of money to drop $1200 into building the engine, because it will run fine as is. How do I know this? Because I'm running 7 psi on a stock KA with 189,000 miles on the stock, never rebuilt engine. Guess what? It runs just fine.

Sorry, I don't mean to be so rude. I just get tired of people giving out advice based on their opinion, wich is based on some thing that they read on the internet. Personally, I never give out advice unless I have experience with the problem. Not internet experience, or something I read, but real, actual, get my hands dirty experience.

Thanks for listening.

[wangless]

i dont know much about ka-t's, but after reading that i was like wow. good job ziggy682, on explaining everything

[GEO]

He blew his engine on 10psi because ti was spiking to large PSI numbers on a not so good FUel system.

[Drift Machine]

well yeah if you stay at that PSI then the internals would be just fine but my arguement was that he said there are a lot of stock internals KA running high boost. but what type of horsepower are you getting out of your KA. I am only saying if you want power like the SR or above 250 your gonna want higher boost and with higher boost means changing internals.

In no way does the KA need upgraded internals to have power like the SR or hit 250 horsepower, whether that is based at the wheels or the crank.

[Drift Machine]

But with any engine that has higher horsepower tuning is a must. But more tuning is needed to run higher boost with stock internals so you dont blow it up.

You seem to be acting like tuning is an ability that is only granted to certain people. It's not that hard, granted I'm not running high boost it took me about 20 mins including the time need for data logging and loading the graphs onto my computer to do my own tuning. And if you want to get more time specific, add another 20 mins onto that for the time needed to weld in the extra O2 bung for my wideband.

[Drift Machine]

Back to the original question of being able to go turbo for 1200 bucks. Yes, it's very possible. If you are only looking to make about the same horsepower of a stock SR, then I say just pretty much follow what the guys who are running z31 T3s did.

Woah 3 posts in a row, I'm a loser :pface

[240Knightrider]

You seem to be acting like tuning is an ability that is only granted to certain people. It's not that hard, granted I'm not running high boost it took me about 20 mins including the time need for data logging and loading the graphs onto my computer to do my own tuning. And if you want to get more time specific, add another 20 mins onto that for the time needed to weld in the extra O2 bung for my wideband.

I never said tuning was hard and was limited to certain people. Please re read the post. The point meant that if you want any serious hp on stock internals you will have to Tune the engine a lot longer than 20 minutes, and so is any real effort to tune your engine.

[chmercer]

ok so does what i said up top sound good? am i missing anything? i realised i will need to get oil return lines. is there anything else i forgot to mention?

[240Knightrider]

NO I dont own a KA-t but that doesnt justify anything. I would by now if I had the money. I have done a lot of research on these engines (SR and KA). All I was trying to do is help him out. I misunderstood his whole question and didnt not fully realize what his expectations were. Never again will I try to help someone. Bottom line though, you want good horsepower that you dont have to worry so much on engine internals and still want to run high boost 15-20. You need to change internals. Thats all I was stating.

As for the many different forged parts for the KA. Do a wider search to find out. You can forge more than just the rods, and pistons. Im out.

[240Knightrider]

Read this thread good info in there.

http://www.nissaninfiniticlub....71133

[ziggy682]

As for the many different forged parts for the KA. Do a wider search to find out. You can forge more than just the rods, and pistons. Im out.

And those many different forged parts would be...?

[Drift Machine]

I never said tuning was hard and was limited to certain people. Please re read the post. The point meant that if you want any serious hp on stock internals you will have to Tune the engine a lot longer than 20 minutes, and so is any real effort to tune your engine.

Alright sorry you are right, you never did say that.

But hell since he has a S14 all he will need to do is get 370cc injectors and hack his MAF.

[sil80drifter]

those many other parts would be forged steering wheel and super hardened shiftknob, yo.

well said, ziggy.

sil80

[Red-KAT]

I was running 8psi on my stock engine for the 1st 3 months...

Now I'm at 10psi with no issues on my stock engine...

I also took about 5 mins of my time and did a freeway tune to 10.5/1 afr under boost...

Car runs like a champ.

I told the E-Manage I was running 440cc injectors and I'm still a little rich... I'm guna take it to a dyno again so I dont get my *** pulld over.

TIP: The way I changed my AFR is I brought my car up to 3500rpm's while parked and then just changed the injector size to a larger one so it would take out more fuel all the time... I just changed it untill it was 1.5 AFR higher... This worked very well due to the fact that the car keeps the AFR as close to 14.7 as it can during normal driving... But at full on gas the AFR went from 9.0 to 10.5/1...

Easy as pie. I only had to hit the freeway twice... once to get an idea what it was at... and once to see if the idea worked... Someone on NICO gave me this idea and I thank them very much!

Dont try this if you dont have a wideband system... Its not my fault if you blow up your car...

[Jookmasta]

well for 1200, u could quite possibly acquire all the parts needed if you do some diligent and i mean diligent hunting. id budget for 1400 or even 1500 to b safe. ur next task will be installation. if you can do it urself, more power to ya or if you and a friend can do it, more good times. but, if u dont know how to do it, u may run into installation costs and i can say for the down south area that it isnt cheap at all. just trying to give ya the heads up as you piece together ur puzzle.

[Projex240]

i agreewith alot of what is said here and alot of what is not said. For 1200 you can put a turbo kit together no problem, but youll ahve to cut corners, and possibly lose out on a few very importnant things. lets start withthe main componants.Turbo--z31 is like 150 bucks form the right guy--you said like 300--so thats a good deal.injectors--370--dirt cheap-100 at mostmanifold---jgs--260 shipped--make it fit how you want it to fit. z31's fit better bottome mount due to dp configurationyou need oil feed lines and return line--jgs has a kit for thsoe too--95 shippedintercooler-200 for a starion 99% of the time--get one cheaper---if you can.piping--like 150 bucks couplers--50-100so here we are at 1200.no way to tune fuel(afc200), no fuel pump(95 on ebay), no down pipe50 exhaust shop custom), no bov(greddy type s-200) no flanges gaskets(160 +/-)clutch probably wont want to stand up to it unless you have a good one already since you do track events.im assuming you have an exhaust. you need a test pipe--or a dp that goes all the way to your exhaust.odds and ends like worm gears for the couplers, filter for the turbo--your maf wont take alot of abuse from the turbo from my exp--but it may....ask some of the others about that. realistically, you could put a turbo on for a 1200 price tag, but it may not be as reliable as you are looking for. The ka is alot tougher than people give it credit for alot of times--but remember--if you take shortcuts, you always have ot give up something--you dont want it to be reliablity. Especially as hard as racing, drifting can be on a car at times.Good Luck!

-Josh