Ka24de Datsun 510 Build

[dirtyydatsun]

I've been reading the build threads and comments since we got this 510 for my brother when he graduated.  We bought it running with a L20B with a dogleg 280zx 5spd tranny.  It was completely refurbished with new interior, jenki' ol' bucket seats up front, little to no rust, and it ran great!  Here she is a little after we bought it.

 

 

 

 

The previous owner put a lot of time and effort in the swap and the refurb, and we had a lot of fun driving it around (on stilts) for a year or so... Then i inherited her, and by then the clutch was toast. Then the project began. My dad helped me replace the clutch, but little did he know i had a swap in mind.  I convinced him we should sell the motor and trans and buy a Ka24de. The motor was gone in a week, we let the swap go for $500.. The guy who bought it was pretty legit, they had a self sponsored racing team. He was building a 510 wagon, but has had quite a few 510 race cars in the past years. 

       

Here it is when we were doing the clutch :

 

And that led to this :

 

Unfortunately she sat like this for a while

 

a good deal on a KA doesnt come around too often (who woulda thought) and we were kicking ourselves in the ass for selling the L20. We started thinking about SR, but didnt want to spend $2500 nor did we want to deal with turbo right off the bat. Also considered a CA18, a little cheaper, but then again wanted to get some wiring experience before we get into a turbo'd motor.

 

She sat for a couple months as we looked for a KA, and focused on the suspension. We looked at Troy Ermish and Techno Toy Tuning, and decided that T3 made the most sense for the front. We went with the 280zx front coilover, bump steer spacers, and camber plates.

Right after we ordered them, we came across a smoking deal on a KA24de from a local kid. I spent $500 for the entire swap including a 3 row aluminum radiator, and a cold air intake. :

 

We proceeded to stop kicking ourselves in the ass for the L20 and started to get excited for the fuel injection. 

She's oily and looks tired, but hopefully runs good. we will rebuild it if necessary. :

 

Now that we had our motor we started to think about the cross member, and just about read everyones posts out there. We almost bought one already flipped, but just in time my dad decided to pick up his old welding skills and bought a badass Miller 180! So we dropped the xmember and followed everyones lead. 

We dropped it and tacked on a support. :

 

Then we proceeded to cut and flip :

 

We got this spare piece of metal for sale lmao  :thumbup:

 

 

Been waiting to put this post up for a long time and finally got off my ass and tackled it. Much much more to come, looking forward to reading your comments, and updating more. 

 

 

 

 

 

[dirtyydatsun]

Picked up a nice blast cabinet and BOOM, there she is all sandblasted and purtyy' ready for some paint :

 

 

Primer and ready for mock up :

 

Ooooh, and look what came in the mail soon after...  :thumbup:

 

 

We wanted to see where the install problems would be so we mocked it up, here it is :

 

Had to cut out the tunnel a little bit to fit the new tranny. soon to have a badass plate to cover that up.

 

 

Heres some of the problem areas we saw :

Heater core clearance, by the way, we really want a heater/defroster. Anybody experience this??

 

Also, the further back we pushed the motor for radiator clearance, the more we were moving rear from the center of the engine mounts..

 

AND theres the pesky steering linkage in the way at the bell housing. TBD.. :

 

 

O2 sensor right on the steering box :

 

 

Also, i need to find a compatible sway bar for the front sump oil pan. 

 

And thats where i am currently, more to come. Going to be doing research on:

1) EGR block off

2) Steering Linkage

3) Sway Bar

4) O2 Sensor 

5) Tranny Xmember

6) WIRING 

 

7) Power Steering Delete

8) Rear Suspension/Diff

9)Fuel Strategy

Etc, Etc, Etc.

[dattoboy70]

nice car and progress brother. heres a link to help you out with the power steering delete http://www.ka-t.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34921&highlight=power+steering+delete

[Trophy24]

Nice documentation so far!

I am in the process of doing this swap on my project as well. I was concerned about heater hose clearance as well so I relocated the driver side hose over and next to the passenger side hose. Since I haven't mocked mine up yet, I was curious how much space was available where the passenger side hose comes through the firewall?

[dirtyydatsun]

nice car and progress brother. heres a link to help you out with the power steering delete http://www.ka-t.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34921&highlight=power+steering+delete

Hey thanks man, thanks for the link. It should be enough information to get that off my list.

Also, not sure why some of my pictures are upside down. That's pretty irritating..!

 

 

Nice documentation so far!

I am in the process of doing this swap on my project as well. I was concerned about heater hose clearance as well so I relocated the driver side hose over and next to the passenger side hose. Since I haven't mocked mine up yet, I was curious how much space was available where the passenger side hose comes through the firewall?

 

I'm not quite sure what the clearance is at the moment because we haven't set the motor as far back as we can yet due to the egr, and O2 sensor. But I will let you know when I can. If anyone else knows, that would help us both. Thanks

[dirtyydatsun]

These past couple days we have done numerous things.

Since we bought a blast cabinet, everything has been sand blasted (parts that need to be). Here are my LCA's :

 

After that was taken care of, we started stripping the engine bay apart so we can see her naked. First we cut of the bracket holding my battery in place :

 

 

 

Then the brake/clutch master cylinder :

 

 

 

Taped off some holes and prepped for sand blasting

 

We began to sand blast her, and figured we had to rethink our strategy to remove the paint in the engine bay because it was making to big of a mess and wasnt very efficient. So today, i went and bought some Aircraft Paint Stripper from our local Automotive store and we are going to see how that works tomorrow. We are thinking about putting a layer on, scraping the paint off, then put another layer on then pressure wash it. I will keep you guys posted on the results. Until then, she sits like this.. With a mean sad face.. 

 

 

[loungin112]

Seriously....nice documentation of your progress. Hope to see more updates. Also hoping to walk the same path with suspension build and a KA swap.

[shakotan710]

I saw this thing hella long ago on craigslist, I'm glad it went to a good person. This thread is awesome, keep it up!!

[djlotus]

For my KA I had custom mounts made that are slightly offset so that I could still have some space for the heater hoses. Some Iron bar stock and some cardboard for mocking it all together and had my buddy weld it up for me. As for the steering linkage I cut sections out of the black things that connect the engine to the transmission. Haven't had any problems with it. As for the exhaust, when I had the single cam we plugged the o2 sensor hole and put the o2 sensor lower on the part of the exhaust we had made up. With the dual cam in there now I have an aftermarket header and It seems alright where it is at.

[ftlallday]

Yo yo yo yo yooooooooo. Any updates on this beaut?

[floyd17]

lookin good. this better get finished. itd be a waste not to.

[satchmohunter]

Any recent updates or progress on this build? i'm starting the same one in about two weeks.  :thumbup: