My '93 240sx Project - KA partial rebuild and CA18DET shopping list

[wewders]

Hey guys, sorry this is not a CA pics thread as I have not yet bought the motor. To appease your appetite for shiny stuff, I have decided to include what pics I took of the KA motor after it was taken out, broken down, and post machine shop.

The project:

First, I spotted the car. Decent looking chassis, automatic with a bad knock. Nobody wanted it. At $1,350, it was perfect for my purposes. The only reason I rebuilt the KA is because I was trying to make it roadworthy so that I could drive it home before I went overseas to lovely Afghanistan for a year.



So, as soon as I got the car, I went to work. I had about 6 workdays to pull the motor, strip it down to the bare block, take it to a machine shop, get it back, clean the head and all the other components, put it together again, and put it back in the car.

Naturally, the first thing I did was to drain the primary fluids running through the engine and transmission. Engine oil, transmission oil, and radiator fluid were my key concerns. Since the car hadn't run in a long time, I didn't expect fuel pressure would be a problem (and it wasn't). Once the car was dry, I took out the radiator and clutch fan to give myself some workspace. Taking off the A/C compressor, P/S and alternator proved to be a pretty simple task at this point.

Since time was of the essence, I opted not to remove the transmission. In an MT, that probably would have been a smart move, but the AT is quite a ***** to separate from the motor. Goddamn torque converters.

Once the engine was out, I quickly began to discover that there is a whole lot of work involved in rebuilding an engine that is this old, especially if it was cared for by someone who forgets to refill the oil. Here's pics of the motor before it went to the machine shop. So dirty! There was actually SLUDGE caked all over the oil pan, but 10 minutes at the wash station got it nice and clean.

You probably can't tell by the pics, but the #4 bearing was spun like nobody's business. Knock? More like bang. The oil in the bottom of the pan looked like glitter.



I took it to a local machine shop in Fayetteville, NC, and had them clean the short block up for me, replace the piston rings, throw in the new crank and rods, and clean up the oil collector. Much better!



While the machine shop had the block for 2 days, I took some time to clean up some of the rust on the exhaust and intake ports, as well as clean up the head a bit.

Note: the rubber gasket Nissan used to seal the intake was practically glued on. It took 4 hours and some methods I'm not proud of to clean it all off.



I wish I had more pics to show you guys, but as this was a rush job I only had time to snap a few photos. The day I got the block back was the last shop workday before Christmas, so I spent every second reassembling the motor to try and get it back in the car and hooked up. Word to the wise: don't reassemble a motor in a hurry! I accidentally set the torque wrench to 25ft/lbs when I put in the timing idle gear bolt, and STRIPPED OUT THE HEAD.

Even though the rebuild was ultimately a complete failure, it was a great learning experience, and it wasn't a total loss either - I've still got a nice rebuilt KA block sitting in my garage in TN, and plenty of spare parts to go around. I might throw it in my '90 as a temp until I have the time and money to do the RB26DETT in '08.

So, finally, the CA shopping list. I've already worked out my budget based on projected income minus bills and a few other things, and it comes out to $4,581. Since the objective is to make the car run well with a stock CA engine (not upgrade performance), this modest budget is more than enough to achieve my short term goals.

First, I need to turn that Automatic into an MT-ready vehicle. I already bought the brake pedal, clutch pedal, clutch MC and SC, and an S13 MT crossmember (courtesy of NicoClub members). A clutch hydraulic line costs about $25 bucks shipped (or I might fab one for the fun of it). Only thing left is a 5spd driveshaft. The guys at driveshaftshop.com make a nice 1-piece for $450 http://www.driveshaftshop.com/item156111.ctlg



Now I need a motorset. I've priced the CA18DET at about $1,300. Thanks to the advice of some of you NicoClub members, I decided to wire the harness for my new CA18DET myself. Great referral by ch187 to the SR wiring writeup at FRsport.com

Obviously, this (not-so-new) motor will need to be taken apart, cleaned up and rebuilt with new gaskets and fresh seals. On that note, I am looking for a little advice on how to clean some of the carbon out without dissassembling valvetrain or taking out the bottom end. Tools, solvents, methods?

Based on what happened with David's CA18DET rebuild, I've decided to air on the side of caution by pre-emptively buying a new clutch and flywheel.

Already ordered my 12.7lbs steel flywheel from Mr. Gordon Duax. Check out his CA flywheel thread - $300 for Nico members plus shipping and paypal fees (if you choose to paypal). Mine came out to $327



To get some grab on my new Ogawa lightweight CA flywheel, I will get a Dual Friction clutch from Centerforce.



With all the basics covered, and some green still left in the budget, I thought about what I could do to give the engine a nicer home to live in until I get some more money to throw at that bad boy.

While the KA radiator is certainly capable of running a stock tuned CA18DET, I decided that now is as good a time as any to start giving my newly swapped engine lower coolant temps. For this task, I will trust Koyo to get the job done with their R1276 aluminum OEM replacement. $321 at InjectedPerformance.com



Since liquid intercooling is the path I want to take with this setup, I will do it for the initial installation. Colder intake charges never hurt anyone. For more info on this setup, see my Intercooling thread. I priced the parts at retail around $1300, but I have seen the parts cheap enough (ebay and the like) to bring the whole system's price down to under $700.



(actual intercooler)

At this point, I'm sitting on about $500 leftover (I oversestimated the prices on everything so this is a realistic number). I was planning on eventually adding water injection to my intake system, so I might as well do it now and steam clean that dirty engine! I'll be going for a kit like this one.



Now the car's got everything it needs + some little goodies to make it a smooth revving DD until I can do a full-scale rebuild and start making some real HP.

Edit: just reserved a set of urethane motor mounts from jrivera. Check out his Urethane Motor Mounts thread.



Questions, comments, suggestions?

Modified by wewders at 10:23 PM 5/12/2007
Modified by wewders at 5:30 PM 6/12/2007

[Jiggyfry]

Wow, long read but still interesting! Keep us apdated with the Ca progress. When do you expect to get it? Good job on overestimating the parts cost, I always do the same thing .

[wewders]

I plan to update as the parts come in.

I'll be able to afford the CA at the end of this month, so I'm already shopping and I've found a couple suppliers online: the one David used, jdmsource.ca, and a few ebayers. JDMenginedepot (ebay) has them from time to time, and they sold me a really nice FWD 4thgen Honda Prelude H22 transmission about 8 months ago.

I'd prefer to get a motorset from Dee, as I can be sure it will be a good set, but I'm still looking through Nico vendors as he recommends in his FS thread.

No matter who I buy from, I expect my new CA to be sitting in my garage by the end of June (accounting for ship time). I'll have my little brother do most of the prep work for me (remove transmission, clutch, flywheel, head, oil pan, front cover, TC, and clean everything). I'll make sure he takes lots of pics so I can post them up here.

While the prep work is being done, I'll be supplying more parts as the income rolls in. If everything works out like I want it to, I'll have a fully prepped motorset ready for a quick rebuild (seals and gaskets) and a new clutch n flywheel. I'll also have all the parts mentioned in my first post standing by to be installed into the chassis once the motorset is settled in. This means that I'll have a minimal amount of work to do to get the car running, and that is more time for tuning and maybe some work on my other 3 vehicles for the 2 weeks that I'll be in the U.S. before I return to Afghanistan for another 7 months.

[Jiggyfry]

Well, seems you have everything planned out well . Good luck with the swap!

[wewders]

Update...

Bought the motorset.



$1800 from Phyrx (fs here on Nico). Came in good running condition with 2 turbos, a Koyo radiator, BOV, downpipe and an extra seatbelt for good measure.

Mark still has some good stuff fs. Check it out here.

Better pics of the motorset and included parts will soon follow.