First CA build!

[keegan0103]

Hope you like novels!

Hey everyone, I just as of 2 weeks ago bought another s13, this time with a ca18det! (I always wanted one) And its already blown up. So heres my story.

I met a kid who JUST bought his first turbo car and had no idea about anything car related. And according to him, the previous owner rebuilt the motor, and then added all these parts, now all it needed was a tune. I bought the car, and began to look into it more.

He mentioned some "spare parts" at his house. Go pick them up, and turns out he has a FULL swap (disassembled) head, block, stock ecu, transmission, and most of a harness! stock turbo, manifolds, etc etc.

Honestly the car ran like butt.

It has some sort of upgraded injectors (theyre yellow?) and a z32 (n62) maf. According to noob kid he was told they were skyline injectors, I did notice a dsm resistor box. I havent looked in the fuel tank, but there is a standalone relay (triggered by the damn cig lighter of all things) So im assuming a 255 for the time being. Theres a sard fpr, fancy manifold, with an ebay turbo which I THINK I figured out that its a gt3076. Its big and laggy as hell. The stock tach doesnt work, and the supercompracecar 5 inch tach reads wrong all the time. 3 inch straight pipe from the turbo back to a cheap rice can

Coilover sleeves installed UPSIDE DOWN omgwtf

It has nistune! Type 1 board to be accurate (unknown at the time of purchase, and the kid didnt know either)

So I hobble it home and start noticing things.

1st, the oil pump area leaks.
2nd the cooling system bubbled after you turned it off (yay already fuxked headgasket)
3rd the crank sensor was turned all the way to the left
4th the intercooler piping had blown off.

So I move the cas back to the white lines that were drawn on that area
Torqued down the head (some were undertorqued by ~20 ft lbs)
And cleaned up the intercooler piping

WOAH it runs! In fact, it was a hair faster (on highway pulls) than all my friends SR powered cars that were "tuned" on safcs
It seemed to be boost cutting pretty bad (hitting a fat fuel cut then continuing to climb revs)

So I started looking for anyone that can tune nistune in my area.
2 mornings later start it up and listen to 3 rod bearings knocking away. Baller rebuild you did previous owner dude.

Run and pick up some rod bearings, swap them in in a day (dropped the subframe and pan) and it runs great.
for another week
till I spin more bearings
again

fml

So since im overall sad about this motor, ive decided to park it, build my other motor and make a reliable DD with some balls.

The goal is simple. Make mid to upper 3xx om pump gas (about 360whp)


Now for that, ive been searching and taking notes for the past few days and heres my parts list.
Upper enginne gasket set (ca18de)
Clevite 77 mearing set, because Ive noticed a bias against acl race bearings due to them spinning
OEM piston rings
water pump
oil pump (mine on the bad motor looks brand new, so can I open it up and see if its still usable?
Timing kit
ARP rod bolts

As far as machine work goes:
Hot tanked block with all passages cleaned
Resurfaced block
Check rods for roundness
Polish and check crank for roundness
Check main bolts for stretch (I heard they can be reused if not stretched)


Ive heard if used peoperly the oem head bolts and headgasket will suffice for these power levels, but my question is the bottom end. Will I need a rod and piston combo for this power level? I plan on reusing my stock pistons and rods if they are good.

As far as break in, what should I do since the car runs poorly now? Im afraid of doing all this work, and then messing it up because I cant get a good break in. The harness is already cut and setup for a z32, so going back to stock systems isnt that much of an option. Maybe figure out my setup and have someone make me a basetune, JUST to break it in, and after 1000 miles get it dyno tuned?

[float_6969]

Supposedly the stock head bolts are TTY (meaning they shouldn't be re-used) The FSM doesn't explicitly state this, but the torque procedure is the same as what you would use for a TTY bolt. Plus the price of a set of ARP's isn't too bad.

Stock head gasket is fine. I've been running Felpro's for years and never had one fail.

It wouldn't hurt to replace the rod bolts as well, as they are comparatively small and there is a hypothesis floating around that they are the cause of the CA's rod bearing failures.

Main bolts should be fine, but you always want to check them for stretch.

Stock rods are fine for your power level, even more.

Stock pistons are probably OK, but if the engine needs bored out, you'll never find 8.5:1 oversize pistons in the US, and will have to go forged.

I thought you said it runs well? It sounds to me like the rod bearing issues are to do with the rebuild and not the tune. I would rebuild the motor and run it the way it is now until it's broken in.

[keegan0103]

Ok, well to be on the safe side, Im ordering new oem head bolts, and ill pick up a felpro gasket. Do/did you use copper spray?

IArp rod bolts will be purchased as well

It ran well (as in the tune was just ok enough to daily) then I started having lots of mechanical issues

[boost_boy]

You can use copper spray as it won't hurt. And don't worry about the main bolts, you haven't stretched them.

[float_6969]

I used copper spray the first HG I put it, and then haven't done it on the last 3 I put in, so I don't think you need it, but it won't hurt either.