KA24DE: One failed project is the start of another

[nelson8708]

Demise of the 302 build

Out one night at a domestic spot watching a bunch of muscle run on the street with some buddies. After a few races one of them says i should do a v8 swap in the s13. One of the kids (friend but, not that close of a friend) that was there with us said his dad (who owns a mustang shop) would sell me a full 302 swap for 500 bones. So i figure 300$ for a custom drive shaft and 200$ for random materials to make mounts and an exhaust. So i told them if they could sell my ka24e-t swap for 1K i would do it. A few days pass and they find a buyer for me. Before money exchanges hands and i pull the swap i call the kid to make sure his dad was cool with the deal and he said its good to go. So i sell my swap with all my extra ka parts and a couple weeks later i call the kid and he gives me the # to his dad's shop. I call and after BS'ing with his dad for a few minutes i ask him when would be able to come pick up the 302 swap and he doesn't have clue what i'm talking about. So i tell him what the story was and he said his son never mentioned it to him and the swap would run me 1K. So, more less that kid screwed me.... I spend the next month or so searching the local craigslist and junkyards. I found one in the junk yard that was complete for the most part. I tune it over but, the plugs were removed? I pull it anyway and after i get it out i drop the oil pan to find two shattered rods. Waste of a day...... Finding a mustang T5 is harder than what i thought it would be and about 500$. Now i'm opened to doing any nissan swap be it a ka, sr, ca, rb or what ever. After not finding much a couple ka's pop up on nico and they are 8 hours (round trip) away. So i make the trip to get a S13 ka24de with a blown HG and 130K on it for 200$. That is where i am today after tearing it apart last night and wishing i hadn't sold all my extra parts with my swap that i now need.

End story

So last night i tore apart the ka i bought with a susposedly blown HG apart . This thing is dirty as hell inside. I drained what looked like 5 quarts of mud from the oil pan. No joke this stuff looked like pudding. The cams had surface rust all over them some lobes looked worse than others. Once i got the pan off i found most of the timing components in it (kid told me it had a light timing chain rattle). Well just like a ka24e i had the tension side guide on the lower chain was completely gone and the chain had worn a hole through the coolant passage in the front cover so i didn't have a blown HG. I got the cylinder head off and it looks in worse shape than it is. I think the biggest thing it needs is a bath like the rest of the engine. The pistons and cylinder walls look fine other than some carbon build up on the pistons. All the bearings were shot but, that was expected with the coolant oil mix that had been in there. The bearing surfaces on looked good (thank god). I hope to have the short block reassembled in a few weeks. I'm going for an all around fun street car with build this time with minimal lag. Probably a small T3 of some sort running 12-14spi. So far i have picked up 550cc injectors and bought a megasquirt kit. I still need to find a s13 dizzy as i didn't get one with the engine.














^ This is where my shell is at after flatting out the bay and installing a full ES hyper flex bushing kit.


^ I'll build the kit over winter.

[fonix36]

um okay good luck

[nissanfreak8]

Well that was a shitty deal.