who has the most mileage on KA-T

[Syntax360]

I'm wanting to know who had the most miles on their KA before turboing it (w/o full blown rebuild, etc). I have 103,000 on my KA, but I swear it's in great shape. A guy at the shop i go to says i'd be crazy even think about turboing it, but those guys are the kind of people who don't believe anything is fast unless it has a chevy or ford badge. I want to run 5psi, w/ intercooler and slightly upgrade fuel system/HKS SAFC. If tuned properly, wouldn't it work? If I am just dreaming, I guess i'll buy a low mileage KA from a junkyard and turbo that, but I'd rather take what I have and run with it. Well, that was lengthy (sorry). Also, how many miles have u guys racked up under ur belts on the KA-T? I searched, but no one has really addressed my pre-turbo KA mileage question. Thanks guys!

[eastcoastchaos]

good call, i've got close to the same mileage and don't see any reason why i can't go turbo at low boost.

[Syntax360]

hey, we should start a club....we'll call it "Four Cylinder Pipe Bombs" ;-)

[ka24de_510]

you could get a KA with 50k on it for probably around $400-$500 if you look. it's a small price to pay to be more confident about your machine, and you'll have a backup.

[Syntax360]

ya, but i'm trying to avoid swapping engines. i'm just trying to find out the highest mileage someone has had before turboing the KA....just to make sure there's someone out there who's "been there and done that" w/o any problems :-)

[Jeff240sx]

A guy in CT turbo'd his 140k mile engine. It was also a budget ($1000) turbo setup.His compressor busted, oil shards gunked up the oil filter, starved cylinder #4, and snapped his rod.Anyway. I did mine at 83k miles. -Jeff

[Syntax360]

thanks Jeff240sx! Any success stories out there?

[Jeff240sx]

Sure. TY from FA has had his running 10+psi (up to 18psi) for 40k miles. Dennis from UH has run for 6 months at 15psi. These are both stock KA24DE motors pushing 350rwhp for Dennis and 359rwhp for TY.Mine only blew due to the wastegate line comming off, and the CT guys only blew due to his turbo dying.-Jeff

[JDM_180SX]

my ka has 126k is it even worth trying to boost? or should i do a minor rebuild to it first?

[Syntax360]

my ka has 126k is it even worth trying to boost? or should i do a minor rebuild to it first?

that's precisely why I started this thread. I want to know if i'm crazy to turbo my 103k KA.

[C-Kwik]

Do a compression check and a leakdown. This should give you a very good idea about the condition of your motor. If these tests show good results, there is a good chance you won't have very many problems by adding a turbo to it.

[Grandpa]

I'd say look for a low mileage KA. That's what I did. I just swapped in a 39K mileage KA that I got for $675. I mean, common, even if you do the turbo yourself, it's still going to cost you around $2000 to do it decently. Why not put it off a little bit longer and throw in that low mileage engine? But hey, that's just me...

-john

[Turbo_Nismo_EC]

It really all depends on a lot of variables...the condition of your current engine(which you swear is good), how much boost you plan to run(which is minimal), how you will drive the car with the turbo installed(are you going to be on full boost all the time, or only some of the time?), and how well you tune the system you get. It seems to me that you should be ok as long as everything is in good working order. I don't see why it would do much damamge to turbo the engine you have as long as these are in reason. I've got a buddy with a N/A 300zx and he installed a 150 shot Nitrous Express system on his car with over 150,000 miles on it. But he takes excellent care of his car and he hasn't had any troubles with it for the year or so he has had the nitrous on it. To me, adding 50 hp to your car with 103,000 miles shouldn't be much different. Just do some tests(like a compression test) and a good tune-up before you start and I would think you will be fine. There is no difference in an engine that has over 100,000 miles, that someone took good care of(i.e. changing the oil regularly, keeping it tuned-up)...and a 50,000 mile motor that someone neglected(i.e.- 10,000+ miles between oil changes). I have seen low-mileage enignes that have been jacked, even though they don't have that many miles on them.

For example..I went through some of the same things you are going through now when deciding to turbo my SOHC H-Body p/u. I thought that there was no way I could turbo my 140,000+ mile engine so I bought a used engine to rebuild from a salvage yard. I thought I had a great deal. I engine had only 42,000 miles on it according to them so I bought it. I think the original owner NEVER changed the oil. The cam journal was damaged, the bearings were worn, and it had about 2" of sludge in the pan. Now I sold my original engine to one of the guys who worked at the machine shop that built my current engine for me. He then took it down to put a slight rebuild to it and called me to ask me and asked if I had changed engines before. He could not believe that it had 140,000+ miles on it. He said there was little to no wear on the bearings, no major scratches on the cylinder walls, and there was no carbon build-up in the combustion chamber. This just goes to show that since I religiously took care of my engine there was nothing wrong with it...even at 140,000+ miles.

If you have confidence in how well you take care of your engine and you firmly believe that it is in perfect condition, I would say run with it. Besides, even by some chance you do blow it up in a year or so, you can always get one from a salvage yard. Don't let my story scare you, I'm sure that what happend to me will probably not happen to you.

Hope this helped,

Jason

[d240t2]

TY's car was low mileage when it started...and it has always been at the 280+rwhp. I think he runs 320 daily...and the higher numbers were on race gas.

My car has been turbo since last December...so it has been turbo for a good bit over a year...and has 20+K miles on it in that time (drives from GA to TX, then Fort Worth to Houston and back repeatedly, etc.)

TY probably has the longest running, time-wise, KA+T without any major issues.

Dennis

[Jeff240sx]

And I'd venture to say the most miles put on it, also...-Jeff

[mulletmrt]

I got a question. What about a KA24E? I've got a spare one I'm going to turbo. I plan on only boosting to 10psi. Should I buy just new stock pistons and rings and gasket or do I need built up forged aluminum ones. I know the forged with last longer, but with the stock ones last while at this boost level?

[Syntax360]

does he really need forged internals for 10psi? that seems like over kill. As long as ur tuning is good and there's no detonation, I doubt u'll need any of that.

[214kka-et240sx]

i have a 89 ka-et with 214,456k on it a still pulling faster than a 350z at 10pis

[crzycav86]

I'm in the middle of turboing my 145k dohc ka.. This is after I put on new oem timing chain parts and oil pump

[K240]

Im supprised slos13 has not replied to this thread yet. He has a 200,000+mile ka24det, that he has been running 10psi daily...I think its a stock engine too... Im rebuilding a 100,000 mile KA for turbo too.

[nissanfanatic]

135k. 1400 of it on boost(5-6psi)

[Toahk]

Damn this thread is old, anyways 272k miles on my ka-t. I win

[IanS13]

126K turbo 5psi now upgrading to 370cc afc and 8psi, go for it.

[Craving4Boost]

damn amazing lol

[Craving4Boost]

^^ talking to toahk

[XcreatureX]

i got 107k i just checked compresion the other day and i am right at 180-183 spec is 179 so i dont see why i would have one bit of truoble turboing mine....i am probably still going to rebuild the engine cause i want power but i dont think i would need to do it if i didnt want to

[drifts14x]

195k on my KA, my Compression came out perfect across the board, mileage is not the problem, just check your compression, I'm going turbo with 6.7PSI, why can't you?

[Charlie240sxt]

I will post for slo13 un till he gets off his @$$ he had 213k on his ka till he swaped a newwer one in last i knew of it was @ like 16psi so so long as there in good shape thay will last

[SloS13]

Im supprised slos13 has not replied to this thread yet. He has a 200,000+mile ka24det

Sorry, taking a bit of a 'car break' right now to save up some money. visiting this board tempts me to spend money if you know what i mean

Bought car with ~199k miles

Boosted at about ~203k running 5psi, shortly after that started running 7,8,9, then ran 10psi for about 4-5k miles or so.

Got some 480cc injectors then ran 12psi for about 1-2k miles

That got boring and started to run 15-16psi until I finally swapped the motor due to a bad front-main seal. Swapped in a 93k S14 KA (set at ~12psi).

car is currently having problems, but thats another thread another day.

[hannibal]

This is the same guy that brought back Structure's thread.Quit searching for old *** posts about KA-T mileage. We all know you have 214k miles on your KA-E and it can beat a stock Z33.And SloS13's got you beat by 60k miles. You got a lot of driving to do...

Slo!!Long time, no see...