Hoosier240sx's SR20DET S13 hatch build - High res pics!

[hoosier240sx]

So I've been floating around these forums on an off over the past couple years, when the servers switched over I had to make a new username because I had totally forgotten my password. Anyway very few people knew me on here, I'm more of a local guy.

Anyway I've been into the 240 game since my freshman year of high school when I bought my first hatch. It was a Georgia car, completely rust free with some minor frame damage to it that was pretty haggard in terms of how it was repaired. Anyway the car was solid, had some pretty quality parts and a rebuilt KA after I was done modifying it from stock. The time came where I couldn't stand driving a race car with gutted interior and stiff a** coil overs on the streets anymore. I really wanted to get another street able car, that was fast when I wanted and had a comfortable ride.

Fast forward to about a week ago now, I found this beauty. SR swapped hatch (Front clip with 25k miles) from the south with zero rust, full interior, and some Tokico Blues and some springs I don't know the brand of.


IMG_2237 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

The paint is kind of haggard because of the sun down south, however that doesn't matter because it will be getting repainted when the time comes.


IMG_2236 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

The engine bay wiring situation is a bag of flaming dog s*** though, it's really in need of a tuck which will also come whenever I feel like doing it.


IMG_2234 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr


I went on vacation for 4 days to restore a camp for underprivileged kids the day after I bought the car so it sat in my garage for a weekend, itching to be worked on. While I was gone I contemplated what I would buy, I really wanted to get wheels but the car has a Spec clutch in it which is complete garbage so i ordered an Exedy OE replacement, I also picked up some Tomei Poncams (256 degrees 11.5mm lift). I did receive the camshafts today and I am waiting for the car to cool off right now so I can install them.


001 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

I also went to Advanced auto and got some Duplicolor perfect match ford metallic red spray cans and some cheap clear coat just to get the car looking one color. I don't have pictures of the process to upload because my buddy took them in RAW format which I cannot figure out how to convert them to jpeg's. Anyway here are some pictures of the finished product!


004 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

002 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

Anyway that's all I have for you guys for now, like I said I will be installing the camshafts tonight. I will upload pictures later on, but for now sit tight!

[badbob2121]

Not a bad start, and the rattle can looks good from the picture distance...

Any Tune plans with those camshafts?

I have a buddy who is running a s13 T25 SR with basic bolt ons, poncams, and an Enthalpy tune and it runs its a** off..

[project213]

Damn, rattle cans look great. Did you guys do the whole car or just the overs??

I bet with a wetsand n buff the paint would look like a booth job. As it sits it looks ten times better than the picture you sent me of the pre paint stage. Now keep the updates as steady as mine!!

An badbob, your buddies runnin what i plan on doing. Im going to do a fresh 25 with an external wastegate an some cams.

[hoosier240sx]

Damn, rattle cans look great. Did you guys do the whole car or just the overs??

I bet with a wetsand n buff the paint would look like a booth job. As it sits it looks ten times better than the picture you sent me of the pre paint stage. Now keep the updates as steady as mine!!

An badbob, your buddies runnin what i plan on doing. Im going to do a fresh 25 with an external wastegate an some cams.

No I just did the overs. The lines showed up in the rear because the cans kept clogging on my and spitting out paint. I've spoiled myself too much with guns and compressors LOL. But a paint job will be coming in the future, although i can not say whether it will be this year or next. As for the updates, you're about to get a halfway update

Not a bad start, and the rattle can looks good from the picture distance...

Any Tune plans with those camshafts?

I have a buddy who is running a s13 T25 SR with basic bolt ons, poncams, and an Enthalpy tune and it runs its a** off..

As of now, no I will not be running a tune on this motor. I am actually trying to keep this motor as close to stock as possible for now while making decent power. In a nut shell, I'm really trying to get as much response from my engine as possible without having to make any major upgrades/overhauls.

[hoosier240sx]

Alright so it's about time for another update. Although this time I am kind of leaving you guys hanging for a couple of hours. Anyway I didn't have enough time last night to get the Poncams in, so I did them tonight with the help of my rotard kinsman, who actually set us back by dropping the Intake camshaft sprocket washer down into the front cover. But aside that, we got quite a bit of work done.

First and foremost we addressed the issue with the drive shaft. The bolts that hold the piece that slides into the back of the transmission didn't have nuts on the end of them so they were just hanging and grinding into the back of the trans. The drive shaft was also slipped out about a half inch when bolted down all the way to the differential. Now correct me if I am wrong, but could i possibly have an ABC drive shaft on a non-abs vehicle since it's a bit short?
Anyway here are some pics of the new Grade 8.9 zinc coated bolts and nuts locktite'd into place.

003 (2) by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

And here are a couple pictures of the bolts that backed out and stripped themselves on the back of the trans.

002 (2) by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

001 (2) by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

From there we started to work on the head of the motor, here's a shot of it before any work was started. yeah I know it's out of focus...too late to fix that now!

017 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

And here's a before and after shot with the new Tomei Poncams torqued down to specifications!
Before:

020 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

After:

014 (2) by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

014 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

Like I said my rotarded kinsman decided to drop a washer down into the motor which took us a while to get out, we eventually had to remove the oil pan so we said may as well freshen some pieces up!
Here's the rotard in it's natural state of being...

019 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

But he's a good mechanic, like Devin told me in a text...everyone fumbles up every once in a while. But here's some of the "Freshening" up we did.

First off, the valve cover washers were old looking and haggard so we decided to polish them out. Starting with 600 grit sandpaper (lowest I had laying around) then to 800 and finally finishing off the job with 1000 grit.

The final product:

008 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

007 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

So with those looking all fresh we decided to give the nuts a shot too, whether they will hold up and not chip we cannot say but they do look good!

009 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr
We were both thinking that we should wrap the nuts with something before we torque them in, obviously to preserve the paint.

Now to the good part, still unfinished but none the less it is very much eye candy to me. We sanded down the valve cover and painted it with Rustoleum high temp gloss black (3 coats) and topped it off with Rustoleum High temp Clear (2 coats) I still need to wait for the paint to dry so I can wet sand some spots and buff it as well as polish out all of the letters and clear coat them as well. I also had 2 spare Poncam stickers/decals that I had no idea to do with so i went ahead and put one on the head, looks pretty shnazzy in my opinion.

005 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

And here is the semi-finished product!

010 by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

Well this is all I have for you guys thus far tonight. I am going back into the garage to put the drive shaft in and install my test pipe. There will be another update tomorrow including a video of the new cams in action if everything else manages to go smoothly!

[240hoosiergirl]

Wow, it's looking really awesome! I would love to take a spin in a fast car like that You could get all the ladies (including me) with this one, especially after you change the paint color!

[project213]

Okay, I gottaxadmit. Im slightly envious after that last update.

Tuesday needs to roll around so I can post my update, an keep up with this thread

[hoosier240sx]

Well there are some good news and bad news for today.

The good, I got the head all put back together and got the car running. It had a pretty good lope in the idle, it ran strong and spooled at 2500 and hit full boost around 3000 rpm.

Now for the bad, as I rolled up to a stop sign the car sputtered and died releasing a pretty loud knocking noise coming from the head. My guess is the timing chain tensioner took a s*** and the head is probably pretty screwed up. I haven't had the drive in me to take the valve cover off yet to see what went wrong, partially because I am pretty depressed about this.

But on a more positive note I can probably have the money for parts within the next couple of weeks.

But for all you who cared to see what the final product looked like when the valve cover was put back on, here is some eye candy. Enjoy...

003 (3) by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

002 (3) by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

001 (3) by Hoosier240sx, on Flickr

All in all it looked pretty good. I'm just really upset at the way everything turned out today."til next time

[hoosier240sx]

Wow, it's looking really awesome! I would love to take a spin in a fast car like that You could get all the ladies (including me) with this one, especially after you change the paint color!

and

Have a good evening.

[elitefew22197]

Looking good man, that valve cover turned out great.

As for your chain tensioner, worse things could've happened keep your head up.

Can't wait to see more, keep them updates comin!