Well my name is Matt I live in the land of 10,000 lakes. I've always been on the site and can usually find what I need. So thanks for that everyone, but i decided to put up a build (putting together the car) thread. Bought the car about a month ago for $500 from friend. Came with most 5spd swap parts, 95 KA motor, and a tranny, harness' and a bucket of parts. Decided to make it my DD so I am just trying to get it all back together for now. Anyways enough chit chat here's some pictures.

Here is when I looked at it:


dropped in the garage:


first night i pulled the whole dash/interior,out easier for the clutch pedal and brake pedal replacement.




lets just say brake lines are not my strong suit, secure and no kinks.


here is the latest pic, haha of the motor tranny and the front of the car.


so thats progress as of now, just waiting on some parts to get her rolling again.

Hey Matt! Glad you finally decided to post.

I think your pics are probably set to "private" and are on a secured site - don't have access to see them.

Oops! forgot to share the folder, should be fixed now.

I've got a quick question about a driveshaft. My car did not come with one, and i picked up a non ABS 5spd driveshaft, would I need to find another automatic convertible driveshaft, or is there another driveshaft I can get to combine the two and work?

c-milk wrote:I've got a quick question about a driveshaft. My car did not come with one, and i picked up a non ABS 5spd driveshaft, would I need to find another automatic convertible driveshaft, or is there another driveshaft I can get to combine the two and work?

5-speed driveshaft won't work. Just find any s13 automatic driveshaft and it will work.

Then i would have to still combine the 5 speed and automatic one regardless right?

If you're swapping in a 5MT, then you have the correct shaft.

Sweet, yes i am doing the 5 speed swap. Will I still need to get an automatic driveshaft and use the back half, or will the non abs work on its own?

With the 5spd swap you would just need the 5spd driveshaft.

The regular rear diff is non-abs so would need the non-abs driveshaft. This would only change if you are putting in a VLSD rear diff, then you would need the abs driveshaft.

Alright, I just wanted to make sure I get all the right pieces before I start putting that together. Thank you!

It's been a little while since I have posted. I have been really busy.

Anyway long story short, bought a new motor, dropped it in, waiting on my ignition coil/igniter to arrive.





I have one big problem, I have a mystery plug on my harness. It's a white plug I between the ecu plug and firewall. I have seen places that say it is for cruise control but no definite answer. Also I thought it may be the plug for my dash but there is a brown plug on the other side of the ecu I already plugged into that. One last piece to the puzzle, none of my dash lights or anything switch on when I turn my key to acc.

Also in the picture above there is a black plug with a blue relay, on the chassis harness near the ecu, I can't figure out what it is.

Thanks for all the help

I *think* the foam-wrapped plug is for ABS. You should be able to find it on the FSM wiring diagram. Not the easiest read but it will be there.

Also look on Wiring Specialties website - they have diagrams to help ID plugs on harnesses, might help.

sorry about my last post. it was kind of vague.

any who, tore apart the motor that came with my car, because I had some suspicions about it.

found many symptoms of a blown head gasket:




Because I was already committed to getting this thing going I started the search for a new motor. Found a good one about 4 hours away. Only problem was I don't have a truck...
No worries I'll make it fit!



Then got that one home, and did the typical maintenance on KA's.

After minor maintenance I started on the auto pilot bearing...that was really fun. Tried every trick and finally resorted to using a dremel.

Broke this guy:


Then I had success after about a week!


After that fiasco things moved very quick.

Dropped the motor in, in about 15 minutes.


After that I had a couple little snags along the way, I had to solder two points on the TCU



Then I had only one headlight coming on, took the light switch on the column of and cleaned it up and it now works great!

I was even able to drive it around past weekend.

Now It should be a good daily driver!

AT pilot bushing - that thing sucks! I drill 'em out now, all around the edge, then use a punch to break it up and push it inward. I have never had any tool work (or the fill it with grease method) on 4 or 5 swaps.....

Well first drive to work (30miles) made it to work fine, on the way home my radiator blew. Top Plastic split, so i ripped it apart, drained the radiator and gross brown sludge came out. That's what i get for buying a used radiator i guess, also did a compression test just to be safe and it came out good.

So I bought a new radiator, thermostat, water pump, and front main seal. Flushed my coolant system to clean out any gross gunk that was in it. Put it together bled the system, stays at normal operating temp now, but now i have a big oil leak somewhere on the passenger side of the block.

Last night a took the alternator off, and brackets to see if I could track it down and got nothing. So I pulled the oil pressure switch and sealed it up because I read that it is a common leaking point on KA's, also could be a possible source of the leak from what i saw. I sprayed the whole side of the block down with brake cleaner to get all the gunk/ grease off the motor. Tonight I am going to run it and look for a leak underneath it while it is running.

ugh.. i just need to drive this beast haha.

Anyone have any other possible leaks?

Well I took it out for a cruise, jacked it up and put in on stands. Tore the alternator/brackets off and the pcv valve looks to be my leak. From what I can see it sprays out the backside towards the oil filter. So I'm going to re seal the contact area to the timing cover.


Side note, I bought a new radiator and it seems to steam a lot. Should I be worried about that?

I'd be curious as to where the "steam" is coming from... did you replace the cap with a new one?

I did not replace the cap,maybe I should. Although it still has vaccum when I take it off.

As for the steam it looks like it is coming from the black plastic of the new radiator.

well found my oil leak



there was a chip out of the valve cover, so the gasket bowed out and created a hole for oil to spill out of. Fixed that and now no oil drips when it is parked.

Now to figure out my temperature issue. Maybe my temperature sender is bad but it does not want to reach operating temp (on my gauge) so I think I may just replace both sensors since they are relatively cheap. Anyone else have any ideas?

Definitely a good idea - Temp sensor will cause all kinds of havoc with drivability.

Well I changed the coolant temp sensor and engine temp sensor, now my car reads that it runs at normal operating temp yay! haha

When I took the old engine temp sensor off it had teflon tape all over it so I sure that was part of my problem with it not reading right.

Man I'm glad I have a normal operating 240 now.

Well she ran good for a couple weeks with no problems. Then yesterday it started rough and today it wouldn't star at all. Also I live in Minnesota and it just started dipping into the single digits the last two days. Cranks but wont fire, I think it could be linked to the CTS i just replaced. I noticed when I replaced the CTS the probe size is different. Did I get the wrong one?