Ok im hesitating really badly and idk what the problem is, watch the video please i need som assistance lol.

EDIT: ignore my yelling... im sick

ive already replaced cap, rotor, plugs, wires, msd coil, TPS.... im lost

http://vimeo.com/9743360

lol@ that vid.

vacuum leak?

id check igntion timing too.

lol ignore my yelling i can barely talk right now... but anyway how would i go about checking for a vaccum leak

Was the timing messed with any lately? to check vac use a vac meter it should be anywhere between 12 and 18 lbs at vac..

well i give up on the KA... the guy who put it in had no idea what he was doing and the swap was soo sloppy, i figure a KA isnt worth the work to fix the swap, It started fine for about 3 days, then on the 4th day i went and started it and a ground wire started smoking, then the ground wire for my tach started smoking too.... and it wont start anymore... so im pretty pissed. im just ganna keep my pennies and buy and SR and take it to groundwerks to have it done right.

Fix KA = 1 day, max 500 dollars. Fixing dodgy wiring,retiming, and doing some other things
SR engine swap: 3 days, 1k plus dollars. Fixing dodgy wiring while swapping, and fixing everything

Still not worth the fix?

And yes, I read where you were going to take it to someone else.

Ka= cheap,low power, decent torque, unreliable, cant really upgrade past oem

SR= expenive, decetn power, low torque, RELIABLE, bigger injectors and ecu tuned on stock turbo = easily 300whp, built and tuned by groundwerks = worth it

SR all day, everyday

This is personal opinion, subjective, and not intended against you.

KA: Cheap, Decent power, Decent torwue, reliable, and SUPER upgradeable, can hold 300hp EASY if done right (KA-T's are not rocket science)

SR: Everything you said, but unreliable (I have watched too many blow up and KA's come out on top to ever consider an SR swap)

once again, personal insight based off what I have seen. Why not attempt to fix the KA while saving the pennies? they're so simple it's hard not to figure out what's wrong with them

Everyone i have talked to who have KAs have had theres hesitate... and fixed them for the most part but so far everything they have done has not helped me... i am going to try and reswap the KA but in the end the SR is still going in.

http://www.driftpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=260

check out that thread, stock internals, stock turbo, like 720cc injectors i think, and ecu tuned and hes running close to 320-340whp since like 06 or 04, dailyd for awhile but im pretty sure its a straight track car now and still no blowupage.

http://www.driftpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=793

KAT dailyd and hit the track a few time and blew within a year. just 2 examples, there are more KAs that havent blown, but i have yet to see someone from PA blow there SR

Mine is rock solid reliable...
Most of the 'tards that blow up SRs, are noobs and jack up the boost and don't upgrade fueling. End up melting something.

That goes for KA's as well though, most of the people who blow them up, do not do SOMETHING right during the process, meaning not enough fuel, timing off, or what have you.

lol. but yeah, i cant say about the sr. but i really like my ka so far.

lmao still ahvent fixed it, but i pulled my motor and im putting a new wiring harness on it to help. but i did find a small hose on the back of my motor that had a split in it, so i replaced it. hopefully that was it.

Ok well first off lol, Matt I know you got skills, but since this post, your SR blew up



Ok, the small hose can actually make a big difference on things... and also, a shitty wiring harness can make any engine swap run like shit. I have a couple questions for you... what year did your KA come out of? Is it a single cam or dual cam engine?

Now that I've asked my questions, let me give you some piece of mind on things.

First off, I'm one of now almost two dozen guys here (some who post, some who don't) who have KA swaps.... and that's just S12's. The 510 guys now favor the KA24E and KA24DE over the SR20DET. Anyways we have almost two dozen KA-S12's now... I know this because as the admin, I sometimes get PMs and emails from guys asking questions, people who don't post at all in the forum. Many of those are on the KA swap, and I just usually refer them to Sterling or his or Phillip's diagrams and threads. Anyways, the KA swap is only as good as the wiring. Any shop monkey with a welder can booger-weld together a shitty trans mount, and the engine mounts are pretty much an exact swap. It's the wiring that matters.

If some guy "b0rked" the wiring up badly (hahah Matt ), then your KA swap will be nothing but problems.

Now, about the engines themselves, assuming a capable guy is swapping either an SR or KA into an S12...

SR's aren't bad engines. But neither are the KA24E and KA24DE. In fact, you spend so much less on buying one, that the money to just BUY the SR engine and associated wiring/ECU would not only buy a KA motorset and wiring/ECU, but would also buy a lot of other stuff like exhaust, turbo, manifold, IC, electronics... , making it far more potent than an SR20DET with a stock longblock. I dunno about in PA, but over here SR20DET's run anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 depending on availability and what year it came out of. Whereas I can pick up a KA24DE, trans, wiring and ECU for like $400-800, and have a grand or two left over.

Plus, a KA24DE in an S12, with a nice 2.5" or bigger exhaust, free-flowing intake, and a header, will net you somewhere around 215-220hp, in a car that weighs around 2,640 lbs. With good launch skills, that's a low 14 or even high 13 second car in the right hands, and certainly able to bust the rear wheels loose with an LSD or welded diff in the back.

I'm not a fan of "dump everything I have into the engine and be too broke to do anything else to the rest of the car for a long time". So unless you have lots of cash, and want that "baller" SR status, or know a buddy that's ditching one for cheap, I just don't think it's worth it for our cars, and even the S13 and S14 guys are slowly beginning to realize this... which is why the cost for a KA motorset is on the rise, as more and more S13 an S14 peeps are KEEPING their engines and boosting them.

Visit KA-T.org and find out the facts if you doubt this.

Davidb kicked ass all last year with a sohc ka he bought for peanuts. That motor took a crap load of a beating and never missed a beat.

Yeah, I know he says he swapped it for more power, but I also know that he got his SR for a ridiculously stupid-cheap price through one of his drift buddies, most of us won't find that kind of deal. If he paid what the rest of us would have to pay, it would have been cheaper to build and boost the single cam KA, and IMO with much better results.

Seconded

91 KA from an Auto hatch, the wiring is a huge problem, but im getting a new harness and ecu here soon so redo the swap, motor is already pulled and im just cleaning up everything while its out. it has an Auto ecu which i have a feeling is a problem. it fried ignition coils all the time.

most people i know have started with KATs, a KA is a solid engine when everything is good, the only problem they have is random sensors going out, but chances are you can grab the same sensor of 3-4 different kinds of cars. but anything after that its fails.
kas around here are more like 150-400 and SRs go for 1600-3500 but youll get exactly what you pay for. Once i get the cash im ganna buy my SR swap and then just have a little fun and boost the KA until it blows. i know KAs can make numbers, but up around 300 unless you do some insane internal work they wanna blow. but with an SR you can hit high numbers with more money of the start but it doesnt take much more to get to 350-400whp

KA- 155hp
expensive KA 450
T25 - 125 used
manifold - 150
*Tune - varies, lets say 300?

Maybe 250hp but thats without a rebuild so it will probably not be reliable from my expirience

SR- 200?
Expensive SR 3500
720cc injectors - idk what these go for
tune - 300

you can easily make 300hp and will still be reliable even under very rough driving, thats where a KA dies, you can have a boosted KA run. but if you do any drag,drift,autox anything rough on the motor it dies.

Yeah talk about bad luck after making that post haha! Honestly I was surprised his sr20det lasted as long as it did considering it started out its life naturally aspirated with such high compression and no piston oil squirters. I am sure once he gets more ideal pistons in it for forced induction it will be fine for many years to come. Honestly I have no problem with people ignorantly trashing on the ka. It keeps the prices on ka's down. As Arro stated though people are increasingly realizing their potential so in turn the prices have been going up.

There are a bunch of people on KA-T.org who have stock KA24DE longblocks and push over 300hp and have done so for documented times, in many cases 10K miles or more.


Likewise, the idea that an SR is stable over 300hp is a myth. There are documented instances of people with SR's pushing over that, even over 400 and 500 and more, with stock longblocks, but that isn't common... in fact, the quality control on SR construction was shit, and so you get some that are amazingly tight and some that blow up after awhile in stock boost. Others are somewhere in between. You can't trust what one guy does as standard for all SR's, that's the point. Whereas the quality control of KA machining and assembly at the plant was considerably better.

neberchunezzer from australia had a na sr that he boosted that i think still ran fine when he sold the car...and he drifted the car...

^^ almost everyone I know has blown there sr and its not just a few and I don't think I know anyone of my friends blowin ther ka I think srs are way overated... I've had a cadet sr and ka I prefered the cadet much more just my opinion and the ca is cheaper

I had an sr powered s13 that I had tuned up to 248hp before the injectors were maxed. Swapped them out for 550s and then the turbo maxed at 263hp. And the shop that did it told me there was a laundry list of things to do to the motor before swapping for a better turbo. mls headgasket, headstuds, afpr, and cooler thermostat just for starts. I traded that car for a NA KA powered s13 hatch which had all kinds of suspension work done on it. The guy I traded it to just swapped a t28 on it and the motor popped inside of a week.

Just letting you know my experience with trying to get a 300hp SR20.