Caroline, she's mighty fine

[zneubauer]

this is the story of my coupe, I call her Caroline. shes an Alaska car (no sunroof or a/c stock) and this is my build thread.

7/11
so I aquired this car from a friend of mine at the end of last summer, I had my eye on it for quite some time and I finally got it for 2500 plus my broken-ass car. I wasn't much into the drifting scene, I just like clean cars and something about this caught my eye.

a little info on the car:
its a 92 coupe, dohc KA, came with the basics: lowering springs, cat-back exhaust, short ram intake, strut bars and mis-matched wheels.

info on the car as of now:
sr20det redtop
decked and hot tanked head
new valve seals
decked, honed and hot tanked block
Topline rings
I forget which bearings
brand new sr20de front timing cover, internals swapped into a det front timing cover that was also hot tanked
cometic hg
arp head studs
Godspeed oe replacement t25
Megan elbow
Titan Motorsports downpipe
fmic
ISIS aluminum rad
ISIS dual electric fans
ISIS dual N1 exhaust
ISIS 255lph fuel pump
stock flywheel
Spec stage 3 clutch
freddy bov
ISIS RUCAs
ISIS traction rods



pics of when I took the car home:






I had fun for a couple months, just doing routine maintenance and getting into little shenanigans with my brother, his foxbody and occasionally the Brevard County Sheriffs department.

7/11-9/11
me and my gf of 1 year break up, I was forced to withdraw from Paramedic school on a temporary basis, my tires give way, my brothers get arrested and sent to jail, the girl I start talking to up and left without a word and I lose my job. sweet huh? haha, it is what it is, so I made the best of it.

11/11
had some chatter coming from my valve cover, turns out my tensioners were giving way and my upper timing chain would jump and hit the top guide, causing it to eventually break. over the course of a week I went through 3 of these giudes. I gave in and bought a whole new timing kit for close to $200.




so I finish installing the timing kit, being the first time I've really really worked on this car, it took me a few days. come to find a couple days later I get another chatter, this one not the timing guide. rod knocks for the fucking win.

12/11
spun a bearing. had to limp home and I started tearing the motor apart. I somehow managed to bend my oil pickup when I did my timing and my theory is that when it got bent and I was out doing dumb things, it couldn't provide the necessary oil pressure and oil. thus spinning a bearing I was at a loss and had to ask my mother for a loan.
my mom offered to have it fixed with cash she got in an inheritance instead of lending me money to do it on my own, she said it would be 'faster'

mid December, we sent it to a shop much to my reluctance. I don't know about any of you here, but I hate having other people work on my car.
pic of my spun bearing:



well, I get the car back, and it smokes. bad. like, burning 5 quarts of oil in a day bad.
the guy at the shop refused to take any responsibility whatsoever for the lack of quality work, and my family wonders why I don't like other people touching my car.
I soon decide that it was time for me to just give in and let the car sit for little bit til I saved up for a motor. lucky for me, I scored a job out at the port, and that job banks (compared to a mojority of people my age). I soon find myself all over craigslist looking for a motor to put in my car. one day out from picking up a motor, I stop by my buddys shop to preorder what I need for the new motor. it just so happened that his buddy was there and he had a blown SR sitting in his garage for cheap. I couldn't resist. $400 and two days later that motor was all mine, but it had a spun bearing. no big deal, right? wrong.

1/12
week by week I save what I make at work and what I sell on here and locally. I head down to the shop to drop my motor off to be sent to the machine shop and to put some money down on it.
I pulled the smoking motor from my car and sold it locally.



I even traded my turbo parts that I was saving for a whole truckload of oem SR stuff.



the guy litterally brought me everything but a block.










he even brought an SR tranny, for which I switched bellhousings.



I even picked up a single cam for cheap, just to put it together and sell it.



days go by and not a word from the machine shop. I pick up old motors here and there to pull parts from and scrap the useless ones, thus putting more cash down for more goddies to go with the SR.
I find myself going from wanting a stock build, to a moderately modfied biuld. I pick up parts when they come in and pay for them when I get the cash.







MORE PICS OF NEW PARTS TO COME

I also sand down my engine bay and give it semi-gloss black. huge change from red. I also went ahead and purchsed an aluminum radiator, pretty thick and badass if you ask me.




traded my old cat-back exhaust to my buddy for his s13 Silvia vlsd



tires were worn and was tired of having mis-matched wheels, so I settled for these 17s that had good tires, only to sell them later to fund unexpected expenses.



switched bellhousings off my KA tranny (no pic. =/)

2/12
still waiting on the machine shop to finish up with my stuff, I get an unexpected surprise when I show up at the shop; my brother went ahead and purchased a dual n1 tip exhaust for me for my birthday. thats probably the best present I've ever been given, except the birth of life of course.
(pic soon)

still deciding what to do with my turbo, either rebuild my blown t25 or just buy a cheap replacement. well, the replacement won.
also, I decided that I was gonna use v-band connectors from my elbow to my down pipe, so I bought a downpipe that eliminated the cat and was pre-v banned. lucky me!
(pic soon)

the choice for intercooling was not a hard one, I chose front mount ic (fmic) over stock sidemount. using my discount, I got the fmic kit relatively cheap. the kit came already flanged and came with a freddy bov, although I plan on switching it for a real Greddy RZ soon.
(pic soon)

I decided what elbow I was gonna use, it has a dump pipe that dumps into the air and not into my exhaust. I sent that off to the exhaust shop to have it v-banned.


I also went ahead and bought an HKS filter housing and a filter for it, all legit HKS. it looks a bit like this:


my ic kit didn't come with an intake, and I had some extra piping sitting around, so I decided to cut them up and fashion my own intake to fit where I needed it and to fit the stock sr maf with my hks filter. it wasn't that hard and in a couple hours I had myself a clean looking intake complete with couplers and a maf adapter that my buddy manufactured.




3/12
so I get my motor back, all my pistons checked out good and my head and block are super clean. not to mention I got a full rebuild kit with my motor. the block was hot tanked, decked and honed. the head recieved new valve seals, was hot tanked and decked. assembly came within a few days, waiting here and there on certain parts. when it was assembled we dropped it into the bay.






3/12-4/12
getting all the small things together, finding out what parts work and which ones dont.

it rains in Florida.

4/12
switching around more parts, getting parts shipped in, filling the fluid levels and running all the vaccum lines. also, painting the valve cover and setting the intercooler where it needs to be and modifying the existing brackets.



5/12
found out my wire harness was bad, the previous owner tried to wire it up himself and didn't do so great of a job, I fried my ecu and had to save up for a new one, along with a pre-made harness from Wiring Specialties. the total was around $550 for the harness and the ecu I got from a friend.




EVERYTHING ELSE COMING SOON, TOO MUCH STORIES AND PICS TO POST BEFORE BED

[zneubauer]

sorry I haven't been on ina while, just moved and blew the timing chain, so I got a new timing chain, front timing cover and I'm waiting on the machine shop with my bent valves. I also have to re-hone cylinder 3 because of scratch marks deep enough to row a boat through. updates coming as soon as I get them!