Hey all, old newcomer here!!

[zsmith789]

Hello everyone, my name is Zach and I've been a member of this forum for a few years now, but after my ka24de crapped out on me I didn't come here much. I have a 93 240 with an auto ka24de but I intend on swapping that out for a manual sr20det as time and money permits, which won't be anytime soon since I'm a full time college student as well as full time parent lol. I was wondering if there's anyone in my area that also works on imports for a hobby, I live in Southern IL and everyone I've met seems more interested in trucks and muscle, not that there's anything wrong with that but no one knows where to find anything such as an SR20 much less know what it is.

[Ace2cool]

Hi! Yeah, the Midwest is pretty much all jacked up V8's and diesels. Wish I could help you, but I'm down here in TN.

[themadscientist]

Maybe not in a position to rip out a perfectly good KA24?

Welcome back!

[zsmith789]

Lol its far from perfectly good, it started making a horrible knocking sound and less than a mile later it died. I've only managed to get the head off the motor so far and when I poured gas in the ports 8 of the 16 valves leaked. I figured since I had to rebuild the motor either way I might as well get an SR20 and go from there. I'll be the first to tell you I'm still very much an amateur when it comes to Automotive Technology and swapping an SR20 and doing an auto to manual conversion seemed more appropriate to me than trying to rebuild and boost the KA and risk winding up in the same boat all over again. I like the stock HP increase the SR20 offers over the KA as well as the ability to add quite a bit more power on stock internals. I was really hoping to just buy a full swap but things never seem to work out the way I hope them to lol. So now I get to build it a piece at a time, I'm hoping to come across either a block or transmission in decent shape and go from there. The plan is to build it right the first time so that when I'm done I can just drop it in and not have to worry about it anymore. I bought a book on engine blueprinting a while back so I've got an idea of all the work (and $$$) that's necessary to build a strong reliable motor.

[Florida240sx]

What's the power goal you are wanting?

[BusyBadger]

I live in Southern IL and everyone I've met seems more interested in trucks and muscle, not that there's anything wrong with that but no one knows where to find anything such as an SR20 much less know what it is.

Where are you in 618?

EDIT: Just noticed the college part, Carbondale?

Hi! Yeah, the Midwest is pretty much all jacked up V8's and diesels. Wish I could help you, but I'm down here in TN.

[zsmith789]

I'm not to Carbondale yet,.I'm currently finishing up my Associates at Kaskaskia, I'm in the Network Administration program on my second year, I'm about three classes away from my associates and both certificates that are offered in the IT program and I just decided a few weeks ago I wanted to go ahead and get a bachelors from Carbondale so I've got more pre reqs I'd like to get out of the way at Kaskaskia if I can. I'm living in the Fayette county area right now, unfortunately I've lived here my whole life lol.

As far as a power range, I'd be completely satisfied with the 250-300hp area for now. I've never had anything over 170-180hp so that much power would probably feel like a race car to me lol. This 240 was just given to me by my fiancé's aunt, her other aunt got a new car and gave her old one to the aunt with the 240 so she was just pretty well done with it. It was in rough shape, it had the common timing chain guide issue as well as a broken coolant reservoir and the rusted out exhaust system that is so common here in the rust belt, oh and the front seal leaked oil. She never did any sort of maintenance to it other than add oil when the light came on and it sat for a couple years before she got it. When I got it I tried to fix it up, I changed the oil and the poor filter, I replaced the air filter with a drop in K&N filter, I replaced the worn ignition system with NGK plugs and wires and a new cap & rotor, I got the OBX lightweight pulley set that included the A/C, power steering and alternator pulleys, I did that Sea Foam trick where you clean your vacuum lines with it and I replaced the rusty exhaust with a DC Sports header and the BRM exhaust system I discovered here on these forums, (which sounded beautiful!!) while I was doing that I took the intake manifold off and cleaned all the carbon out of it and repainted it. When it was all said and done, that worn out old engine actually looked pretty snazzy. This was my first actual build, I had a 92 Civic Si before this but my late father helped me a lot with it it not did most of the work himself lol. This one was all me! I learned a great deal, mainly that you get what you pay for and its better to do right the first time than to have to fix your mistakes on the side of the road lol. I'm not sure what did the KA in since I haven't got a look at the bottom end, but I have assumed it was either the OBX crank pulley or I didn't get all the seafoam out of the oil system when I tried to clean it. It started to make the ticking sound when I was passing somebody which I think was it jumping time or something and not even a mile later it died and wouldn't crank over again.

[frapjap]

Wow man, congrats on doing research and getting all of that work done on your own!

If you do go the SR route, take what you've learned and replace as much as you can while the engine is out of the car. If this isn't a long term project for you, it might be worthwhile to find a use KA engine to swap directly in while you work on the SR.

[zsmith789]

I had thought about fixing up the KA and just running with it for a while but I never really thought about picking up another KA tho, that's not a bad idea, I still have most if not all of my old KA parts laying around somewhere. I've thought about selling them to fund my SR project, but I've never sold anything online so I don't have any feedback or reputation or anything like that and I don't have a definite answer on what happened to my motor so I'm not sure what all is salvageable at this point. But I probably should follow your advice, I picked up a book on engine blueprinting a couple years ago and I would like to do that kind stuff to the SR as I build it; dip the block, deck the head, etc so its going to cost me a small fortune. But it should be a solid reliable powerful motor when I'm finished.

[BusyBadger]

SIU has an outstanding automotive tech program (the Automotive Industry Council ranked it best in the country), when you get to Carbondale I'm sure you'll be able to track down some fellow gearheads. It's been years since I was there but I'd be willing to bet there's probably even a club there you can get hooked up with.

[Jesda]

618? I grew up in Belleville.

Greetings from 314.