how i saved a trashed east coast vert (with bonus KA24DE issues)

[thermogod]

this is how I saved an undrivable East Coast vert from 9 unregistered years moving around random New York garages. with 0 towing experience, 0 s-chassis experience and 0 experience driving manual, I trailered it 230 miles home, then spent the world's longest 3 months running through a million KA issues until it drove.



does anyone care? who knows. hopefully this thread can be a summary for others having similar KA24DE issues, saving them from doing what I did and spending hours finding threads from 2003 with no pictures and trying to figure out how the authors fixed their KAs. I just drove this car 36 miles to work last week, which made me think this would be a good story.

btw, the shower handle shift knob, NRG wheel, ebay headers, Sakura door panel wrap, hole in the hood, XXRs, "silvia" vent cover is how I bought it. and I know, verts suck, I'm an amateur, should've replaced everything with NISMO OLD LOGO JDM VINTAGE, whatever.

so.

Step 1: decide you want to buy a 1960s El Camino.
Step 2: go to Lock City Drift for halloween.
Step 3: decide you would rather buy a 90s nissan.

so I got on marketplace, got in a uhaul with my friend, knocked out a 460 mile round trip in the rain and picked up this vert that "just needs a MAF and a back window". it ran and drove onto the trailer, so it was fine right? surely nobody would just?get on fb marketplace and LIE?



the snowball effect started with, of course, installing a brand new Rockauto MAF. Now it would start then die after a few seconds. "google zilvia KA24DE dies with MAF plugged in". check the wires, check your harness, check that you have no air leaks between engine and MAF. still no idle. could I drive with no MAF? not really. did it run and rev without one? yes. but my MAF was good so the issue was elsewhere.

next step: ask for help on FB. "Check your ECU!" so I do - and it's for a 1989 KA24E car.



i have no idea how this car ended up with a single cam ECU. the condition of the rest of the car led me to not be surprised at all.

well there's my issue. I replace the ECU; now the car actually runs with the MAF plugged in. but it runs really badly. idles at 1500rpm, runs extremely rich, dies when I rev it, and has a consistent ticking noise...?

I find the TSB telling Nissan techs to remove the upper timing chain guide, so I do, which still doesn't fix the ticking. I check that my lower timing chain tensioners move freely.

it wasn't the chain or chain tensioners. so wtf was it?
giving up on that issue, I remove my IACV to investigate the high idle. full of carbon.



sprayed it out with carb cleaner, replaced the old IACV gasket, then I realize the IACV was never plugged in ANYWAYS, and couldn't find the plugs on the WS harness. so the IACV must not be the idle issue. so I test for vacuum leaks. turns out there was an uncapped line on my intake manifold from the previous owners' EGR delete, two open ports on my throttle body, and the throttle body-to-intake coupler was very loose.

at this point I just took the entire manifold and throttle body off and every single gasket associated with it. found 114,000 miles of carbon and that the previous owner bolted on a QUARTER to cap off this hole.





cleaned the carbon, did new gaskets, capped the vacuum leaks, replaced this bent, leaking coolant bypass hose...



manifold back on, and now it won't even crank. GREAT.

the forums tell me to 1) sand down all my ground wire connections to ensure they're making good contact, and 2) jump the starter to double-check that it itself isn't bad. the grounds were my issue. I had gotten the outside of the manifold dirty after spraying all the carbon out, and the grounding areas weren't clean. sanded the ground areas down and with fresh contacts, it would now turn over, run on 3 cylinders and die.

my roommates start asking if "that thing will ever move". at this point i post it for sale, intending to move on to a different project because this one defeated me...

[dizzariot]

Dude I want a vert so bad....

[Dirk Jan]

Keep going dude, I love reading this sort of stuff.

[ingmar F]

yes! keep going!

[thermogod]

delete, duplicate post

[thermogod]

no idea wtf just happened to the thread, tried to make a "part 2" post, pending mod approval, now the original post is gone lol. i'll try again tomorrow

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by thermogod

no idea wtf just happened to the thread, tried to make a "part 2" post, pending mod approval, now the original post is gone lol. i'll try again tomorrow

I would venture a guess as to why your post was removed is because you didn't post in the "Builds" area.

[jr_ss]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

I would venture a guess as to why your post was removed is because you didn't post in the "Builds" area.

And it?s his second post..

[Dirk Jan]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

I would venture a guess as to why your post was removed is because you didn't post in the "Builds" area.

A warning might have been nice, it takes ages to do a write up like he did...

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by Dirk Jan

A warning might have been nice, it takes ages to do a write up like he did...

Hey man, don't get pissed at me. It's been the rule for 11 years to post builds here only.

This is the ONLY place for a build thread to be posted. If they're placed anywhere else on the forum, expect them to be closed and never moved. The only ones that get moved to here are ones that existed before the section was created, the date and time are appended to THIS post.

https://zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?t=449877

[thermogod]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Hey man, don't get pissed at me. It's been the rule for 11 years to post builds here only.

https://zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?t=449877

yeah, some kind of warning/reason would have been good, because i thought the "builds" forum is explicitly only for builds that are complete, and is for actual builds, not "fixing the previous owner's moronic decisions on a mostly stock car"?

either way guess ill talk to phlip and see where this should go lol

[jr_ss]

Originally Posted by thermogod

yeah, some kind of warning/reason would have been good, because i thought the "builds" forum is explicitly only for builds that are complete, and is for actual builds, not "fixing the previous owner's moronic decisions on a mostly stock car"?

either way guess ill talk to phlip and see where this should go lol

While the rules state they are for completed builds, 5 mins in the thread would?ve revealed almost all of the builds are not complete, including mine?

[thermogod]

delete, duplicate post

[thermogod]

delete, duplicate post

[thermogod]

tried to resubmit this story in this thread 1 or 2 times, it hasn't been approved by the mods. i'm sure there's a good reason and i know "post the same thing 5 times" isn't a good way to get approved. don't know what's up

[FaLKoN240]

So weird, I approved the thread. I can see your updates but for whatever reason they're not updating.

[AKADriver]

Gotta love the ol' 25 cent FICD valve delete.

[thermogod]

Originally Posted by AKADriver

Gotta love the ol' 25 cent FICD valve delete.

it's the cheapest solution, eh?

PART 2! Thank you falkon, no worries.

so i had it posted for sale...until I realize that my Wiring Specialties harness was getting stretched. when I reinstalled the manifold and fuel rail over the wiring harness, I had to stretch the harness wire to reach the injectors and the #1 injector plug wasn't making good contact. so I move the harness to OVER the manifold and now it starts?again with a loud ticking noise and white smoke from my exhaust?bad-headgasket-colored smoke. and now it dies when I rev it.

again, I think of reposting my sale ad.

until, one of the friends I met at Lock City suggests I pull the distributor out, move it one tooth to the left, and time it. that's easy since the previous owner had NO bolts holding the distributor on. it was running 10 degrees of timing, so I set it to 20 and the ticking went mostly quiet. I believe it was the sound of detonation from improper spark/fuel/air/timing, I'm not an expert. the idle dropped down to 1100 (which is apparently normal for a manual swap).

?and now my KA refused to restart unless it sat for 30+ minutes. I pulled my injectors to check if the seals were allowing fuel to leak and flood a cylinder.




realized that every O-ring was absolutely destroyed. each injector also had broken pintle caps and looked like ass, so I replaced all of them and the seals. but I forgot one important step?

with my brand new injectors and seals, it still wouldn't restart. now I could smell fuel after running the car. and now I would hear a bubbling noise when the fuel pump primed. I tell my roommates, that's it, I'm selling it.

until, I pull the injectors AGAIN. ALL of the upper and lower o-rings are destroyed AGAIN. and I finally realize?.it's because I installed them with 0 lubrication into a dry fuel rail. do not do that. I'll tell you, buying just a bottle of vaseline from CVS gets you some looks, but do not forget to lube your seals.

so after replacing new injector seals with new injector seals, it stopped running rich, would restart, crank, turn over, and?still refused to rev. I couldn't get it to NOT die in gear or under throttle no matter how I played with the timing.

so I (wrongly) decided it was still an improper injector installation issue, and posted on FB that I was looking to buy a complete fuel rail.

and I will always thank this random dude Sal for commenting?"are you sure you have a fuel issue if your timing is right? Have you checked your spark plugs?"



no, Sal, I did not check my plugs. they looked like this. likely because the car had been running "hella rich" for months, years, or since whenever it ended up with a 1989 KA24E ECU?

i just bought what google said was the right OEM plug (NGK Iridium) and didn't mess with the gap (0.044).

and then? I picked up and installed some OEM wheels for 100 bucks, and pulled it off jacks and out of the garage for the first time in 3 months.

under its own power, not in limp mode, for the first time in several years. With the 2014 NYC registration sticker still on the windshield, I went out and drove it.

the steering column was making contact with the ebay headers, so the steering sucked. But the brakes worked - the trans shifted nicely except the 3rd gear synchro (which I would later fix). No matter what happened after this, IT DROVE!

and then the temp gauge kept climbing. I hadn't touched the cooling system up to this point. I realized that
1) The radiator was completely incorrect for the car (and was missing the fan shroud)
2) The coolant was completely brown
3) That ain't right



radiator out. drained this absolutely horrible coolant. Took 6 flushes to get the system clean - I think this car was sitting with full fluids for several years. thermostat and housing were messed up. found an S14 koyo for $200, which meant I could now use the OEM shroud. installed the radiator, an overflow tank, the shroud, reconnected everything, bled the system.



cleaned and reinstalled thermostat with a new gasket with the thermostat weep hole at the 12pm position.

part 3 coming.

[thermogod]

part 3.

couldn't stand the sakura wrap. why are vert owners like this? he used 20 self tapping screws on EACH trim piece to hold it in. i have no staple gun so i did what i could to reattach them. shift knob didn't arrive til after this pic - sorry about the silvia vent cover, i don't feel like replacing it yet.

now that the car would run long enough for the thermostat to open and circulate, I got way more junk out of the system, registered and insured it.



i started making trips to my university's car meets since i kept getting asked to bring the project. then i started taking it 36 miles each way to work once a week. i am very lucky to say that the temps didn't budge.

BUT there is more to fix! and now for the "making it slightly more cool and fixing the non-mechanical issues" part.

killing some leaks. first up was the trans sensors that always leak. i will wire up a reverse light switch when i can prioritize it.

new studs, hardware, exhaust gasket to fix the exhaust leak. notice the stud that is actually a bolt, AND the one that was snapped off in the block. that wasn't really fun.


resealed the "coolant inlet" into the block. this meant i had to take the manifold off, AGAIN.

new crank main seal. it actually exploded on my first drive. noticed oil all over my rad hoses. hasn't leaked since.


take your 240 to work day.



picked up this set of Amistad V's, which i found approximately 0 information about on the internet. bought them from someone running them on complete stock body with no pull, with coilovers. i'll drop the specs when i can verify they work.


i got hit and run on the way back from getting them. clear tails go unbelievably hard though. makes me want to get hit on the other side.


waiting on my 5 lug swap to get here!

[thermogod]

also dealt with trans issues. while i was re-sealing everything, i refilled with 75W90 GL4 and this has to be the worst metal drain plug i've ever seen. can't really undo the previous owner's damage but whatever.

i would also like anyone's help on what this piece might be? pulled the drain plug, and this piece was loose just moving around in the bottom of the trans. pulled it out through the hole

since the previous owner's idea of a manual swap included cutting and completely ignoring the speed sensor/reverse sensor/4th gear switch wires, it also included ignoring 5 of the missing bolts holding engine to trans, and not installing any kind of dust shield. did my amateur best to fix that. no more open flywheel.


it shifts better now, but AS USUAL, my 3rd gear synchro sucks.

anyways, more coming when my 5 lug swap arrives.

i really had to go through the "fuck this, i'm selling the car" phase of fixing it to appreciate what came at the end of it. it was hugely satisfying to finish the 72 mile work round trip with an unmoving temp needle in a fully registered car, after 9 years of someone else neglecting it. again, this is my first S-chassis, i've never touched a 240 before.

[AKADriver]

I think that thing from the transmission is a chunk of 32137-E9000, the "oil gutter". It helps lubricate the back section of the transmission. It's common for it to snap off when people do home rebuilds of Nissan transmissions, basically every Nissan/Datsun RWD 4 speed/5 speed has it.

[thermogod]

Originally Posted by AKADriver

I think that thing from the transmission is a chunk of 32137-E9000, the "oil gutter". It helps lubricate the back section of the transmission. It's common for it to snap off when people do home rebuilds of Nissan transmissions, basically every Nissan/Datsun RWD 4 speed/5 speed has it.

thank you! wondering if it has anything to do with my 3rd gear occasionally grinding. or if it's anything to worry about.

2 weeks ago:


5 lug swap coming wednesday.

[AKADriver]

Well, 3rd gear is all the way at the front of the case. But bits of this thing could've gotten stuck in the 3rd synchro, sure. Usually what happens with a broken oil gutter is you lose 5th or reverse because they're in that tail section.

It could be a chunk of the 3rd/4th selector fork but it looks too sheetmetal to be anything other than the gutter.

[thermogod]

NEXT!

5 lug swap done with Contano hubs and rotors from Rockauto. MAN, the rear hubs were a pain in the ass - an impact, with a 12" extension, with a 6" extension, with a 1/2" swivel socket, made it a little better.




and of course, these Amistads didn't fit. i'm dumb for picking them up, knew they wouldn't really fit...17x9 17x10.5 unknown offset.



my solution, which i think was a great solution, was to sell the Amistads back to the person i bought em from and buy a set of Enkei Aegis, which are on the way with tires. i will post way better pics when i can drive the vert without wheels that chew up my fenders. also need to install the Duraflex JUNK skirts i picked up.



will probably swap out the cluster LEDs and interior lights for some purple ones. Nikita Rushmanov's vert just looks great like that.

i was able to get in touch with the previous owner again - he said he bought the car unregistered with no wiring harness. he installed the Wiring Specialties harness and borrowed the KA24E ECU from a friend at his shop, and gave up on the car after it wouldn't run properly. he then let the car sit outside for 2 years - which explains the coolant system full of rust, faded paint, ripped rear window, but does NOT explain how the power steering banjo bolt fell out, why there's a hood scoop hole etc.

i'm still having an issue where if i start it up cold, idle will immediately drop to 0 unless i hold throttle for a few seconds - after which it idles great. runs/drives great. but when it's cold, it seems to not want to idle on startup without throttle. my IACV isn't plugged in if that matters (harness has no plugs for it).

long story short - new wheels coming, skirts coming, couple interior color changes, and much better pictures. this thread isn't about installing as many rare vintage parts as possible - just about saving this car from its previous owners.

[EFITTZY]

Good thread so far man keep going! Always enjoy seeing someone put the effort into saving these cars.

[thermogod]

Originally Posted by EFITTZY

Good thread so far man keep going! Always enjoy seeing someone put the effort into saving these cars.

thank you!

more pics before the Aegis, tires and skirts get here. the Amistads look great, but they just don't fit.

[thermogod]

lots of parts waiting in the garage, yet not much to say, since discovering this:



both fuel lines are corroded and the brake line is as well. the 4th line is EVAP which was deleted.

slow leak, no drip, still had pressure. just sent it to a shop. would've done this myself, but if i did my fuel lines wrong and had a leak/fire, i would never forgive myself.
or if i bled/bent/reassembled the brake lines wrong, and lost pressure on the highway...

shop has had my car for over a week.

[SupaDoopa]

Let me know if you are looking for anything. I had a rust free vert shell I literally just cut in half to make a sim rig for our garage because no one wanted it. I still have a ton of stuff [from that S13 as well as various others around our shop - 3 of my shop mates are verts, 2 with LS's and 1 with a KA in it]. I'm on the MA/RI line.

[thermogod]

Originally Posted by SupaDoopa

Let me know if you are looking for anything. I had a rust free vert shell I literally just cut in half to make a sim rig for our garage because no one wanted it. I still have a ton of stuff [from that S13 as well as various others around our shop - 3 of my shop mates are verts, 2 with LS's and 1 with a KA in it]. I'm on the MA/RI line.

thank you! i just did 60 miles post-fix and everything seems good, but now that I said that, i'm sure something will get fucked. if you have used aftermarket KA headers, i need to fix this "header hitting my steering column" thing.

got the car back and got the enkeis on.
it needs more low and i definitely picked too-fat tires (225/45 on 17x8 and 235/45 on 17x9). but these "Super Stable" coils have a lot of adjustability left and I plan to downsize tires. rides great, will look great with diff tires...and pep boys seems to have done a great job, brakes feel good, no fuel issues on the way back home.




i don't have anything left to restore mechanically on this car - just the parts that people can actually see. think i'll go for the OEM+ look, considering this is a straight, stock body car with mint fenders and shit. stay tuned...lol

[thermogod]

ok i lied, a couple things left to do and more pics:
-test out the skirts sitting in my garage
-fix the "won't stay idling on first crank unless throttled" issue (probably a dirty MAF).
-new shift boot, new or re-dyed carpet, new mats
-smaller tires, then lower that shit.
-go wingless?
-paint....and a new hood....it is eating a hole in my eyes looking at this duct tape
-deal with the windshield and subframe rust
-clear tails
-attempt the 66-mile trip to gfs house. it's now been 36 straight miles back and forth from work a couple times.
-kinda want one of those chrome luggage racks on the trunk lid, the ones everyone used to have on their VW beetle?