Hey everyone, my name's Craig. I first bought this 96 se with 131xxx miles when I just turned 17. I became the 3rd owner after a friend of mine had bought it off a girl that moved to NY from Cali. The car's under body was rust free besides for some surface rust here and there. The body wasn't in bad shape either and the stock 5spd Ka ran perfect.
Here is a few pictures of when I first got it.
Shortly after I ordered a set Stance Gr+ coilovers. Unfortunately I have no pics of the install but here is a picture of her lowered on them.
After I put the coilovers in I didnt do much with the car besides get an AEM intake for it and one day I was driving home from school when my exhaust pipe broke off from the dummy cat, so I then ripped the stock exhaust off and purchased a Blitz Nur spec r... such a great sounding exhaust lol.
As you can see in the photos above the hood and front bumper looked like complete sh*t so I picked up a jdm bumper and later located a used oem hood. A friend that works at a body shop helped me prep the front so we did that and then had it sprayed by a local body shop.
And the finished product !
Time went on and last summer while driving a friend home a heard a loud ticking/knocking coming from the motor. I knew about the timing chain guides so the first thing I did was remove the one under the valve cover. Sure enough it was broken but it didn't solve the problem. My dad and I then had learned that my motor had slipped a connecting rod bearing. We pulled the motor and had the crankshaft machined and purchased a new set of bearings along with new connecting rods, then reinstalled everything.
Finally after the long wait of being able to drive the car again was over... or so i thought. About a week after we just had installed the motor, I had driven the car to the local car wash. After I was done, I was pulling out of the bay when the motor started to knock again. As I pressed in the clutch I heard a loud bang. I shut the car off and then had it towed back home. The motor was then pulled again. This time I blew hole through the block. Come to find out the torque wrench I borrowed from a friend, to torque down the rod caps was broken and gave an incorrect reading causing the nuts to vibrate off.
I then parted out the motor this past fall. I still have parts boxed up so if anyone needs any KA parts just ask me.
I always knew that one day I would put an SR in so I figured now was the best time. I got thinking and planned to basically rebuild the the entire car taking care of any flaws. My project then started...