510 Boso Wagon - Supercharged KA24DE

[VRTSid]

Every KA I've driven has something against 1st and reverse gears... Mine was no different until yesterday. No more grinding reverse and "popping" into 1st! I won't go with anything else again!

I had a similar experience with Lucas in my 240sx, and my Miata

[71ka510]

hey sean, you know i need a drivers fender... whats the price ? and if you see any cheap ass one s down there... call me!!!! the wid e made plans already, so i gues s i will be at infineon watching ama superbikes..... not my thing but i have to keep her happy hahha

[WagDatto]

hey sean, you know i need a drivers fender... whats the price ? and if you see any cheap ass one s down there... call me!!!! the wid e made plans already, so i gues s i will be at infineon watching ama superbikes..... not my thing but i have to keep her happy hahha

 

One set is pretty haggard. It has big holes where there were some rivet flares popped on at one point or another. The other set is in pretty good shape, if they didn't sell, I was probably going to buy them just for the sake of having a set of metal fenders I can do boso flares on. There is a ding or two, but overall good shape. The markers were patched shut, and they were done pretty well, they just need finishing.

 

$20 each for bad set

$40 each for good set

 

Are you free tonight? You can check them out, if you're able to take a drive. Save me the trouble of bringing FOUR and a trunk... as well as my own nonsense.

[71ka510]

well i already have haagard driver fender haha...... $40 isnt ba d but i am way broke..... if you dont sell, or you see one that has a straight front ( by the eyebrow) thats a super deal , call me ...... we are not going to the super bikes.... with my ol lady being prego she cant sit in the sun that long...... so not sure if we can make it down to the meet..... if there is something cheap, i will though.....

[WagDatto]

I've got one hell of an update for the followers on this thread! I've made a lot of progress and tracked it, I've just been too busy to update.

 

About a year ago (a little over), I rattle-bombed my car. It's been holding up surprisingly well! Very little fading on the roof, and minor imperfections here and there, but overall it's been good. That being said, I took a lot of shortcuts. I masked everything off, rather than removing most of it. Also, I did the entire top half in red, the lower half in white.

 

I finally took apart the door panels and whatnot, and prepped the window sills for paint. I color matched the window sills red, and then painted the door panel trim gold. Because the motor is gold, the steering wheel is gold and the shift knob on its way to me is gold... I think minor trim pieces look good matched!

 

Before:

After:

 

I've seen a few pictures of wagons that black out their window pillars. Because of the huge chrome trim piece and the massive black weatherstripping around the rear cargo windows, it looks pretty decent! I started today by masking, sanding/prepping and spraying the rear passenger door pillars black. And that's when UPS came. A box straight from Canadia! I did the right thing and found a Bluebird grill! It was in good shape, it was all there, and the price was low enough for me to afford! Yippee!! These are the pictures he took before sending them to me.

 

 

I cracked open the box, and got to cleaning, leaving the rest of my pillars unpainted! I started to sand, clean and prep for refinishing.

 

Before:

During:

Bezel Painted (before trim):

Bezel Painted (after trim):

Grill Painted (before trim):

Grill Painted (after trim):

 

I ran over to Phil's house and we mounted it up!

 

It's CRAZY aggressive! The top part sticks out further than the bottom part of the grill, so all I need now is a badge or two to slap on it and call it a day! It's 100 times better looking than the old grill, in my opinion, but I'm going to hang on to the old one, obviously.

 

The motor got moved to my brother's house, so I can finally get rid of the old gasket materials and start putting things together. I need a new head before I can make too much progress, but when I get one, I'll be sending it to get ported/polished

Edited May 27, 2009 by WagDatto

[fisch]

Looks scha-weet man! Dig that grill fo sho!

[WagDatto]

Thanks Fisch! PS... What would it take to get a rendering done by you? PM me, let me know if it's a possibility or not!

 

I ran outside this morning to take a few day time pictures. God, I'm in love with my car again.

 

 

I like this pic. You can see the pull I had to do on the rear wheel wells... Hello, desktop background!

Edited May 27, 2009 by WagDatto

[ichorid]

grille looks great man cant wait to get mine on.

[anth]

that grille looks MEAN! i want one sooo bad but they're too expensive :( the front of your car looks so tough

 

just a suggestion, since you had the door trims off you could have sprayed them with some black vinyl dye to rejuvenate them a bit

[datto510]

Dang! Your wagon looks like a muscled up bulldog!:lol:

[WagDatto]

Thanks for the compliments, guys! If you do some digging you can find a grill for less than $400 shipped (GASP! Bargain!!!), and if you restore it yourself, you'll save a lot of money too. If it didn't look as nice when I started painting, I was going to send the metal out to be bead blasted and powder coated. Maybe in the future!

 

As for the door panels, in the near future, I plan on making door panels and kick panels custom. Haven't fully decided the look I want, but suggestions are always welcome! The only thought I had was a bamboo-ish mat that's tightly woven so I can use adhesive and do them right. Yoga mat style?

[71DIMER]

Looking sharp Sean, I dig it!!!

[WagDatto]

Oh snap....

 

Got nearly home tonight from tuning Kelly's carbs, make a sweeping left turn and gave it a little throttle coming out from the turn and something started making bad times noises.

 

It's something to do with suspension/exhaust, not drivetrain. It's not RPM dependent and it's not an issue I can hear when the car is moving vs still.

 

Around turns, I can hear kind of a whining, squeeling sound. I couldn't see anything because it's dark outside... Any ideas?

 

From what I saw, the sway bar looks fine, and leaf springs are mounted properly. Only things I could think of are sway bar moving a touch, exhaust finally giving up on one of the hangars (making it rub axle worse), or differential. I'm hoping to start the car tomorrow and have the issue take care of itself. I'm guessing I'll see something right away, though I might check fluid level in the diff just to be sure...

 

Toss ideas my way!

[Cuts metal like mad]

possibly some tire rubbing... the wagon axles tend to move around a bit under hard turns... but since I can't hear the sound you are describing its difficult to perceive.

[WagDatto]

With how low I am, over any large dip or bump, my tires rub. It's not a buzzing sound, so it's not tires. Unless my tires are made of metal and have started to squeel and whine.

 

I'm about to go see if I can find anything out.

 

After sleeping on it, I'm thinking the sway bar might have rotated or moved into an odd spot and is making some noise, or the exhaust hangars finally quit on me and the axle is just resting on the axle for good right now.

[Mr.Woof's72z]

Awesome thread man, just read through the entire thing from the beginning! I'm right there with you, doing everything on your own to your cars. It's cheap, you learn a ton, and when something goes wrong you have a good idea of where to look! Again, great build, thorough pictures, and a badass ride coming together.

[Lozer]

well what was it?

[wilderb]

hey man have you made any progress on your supercharger set up?

I can't wait too see it running

[bmxanddie]

hey would you wanna snap me some pics of your fuel cell set up? that would be awesome

[WagDatto]

Alright, real quick update while I'm at work.

 

I got under the car, adjusted the sway bar and forced the exhaust higher on the hangers. The car no longer makes the noises it was before.

 

Yesterday, I apparently made the classic mistake of breaking the golden rule: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" I decided to do a compression test to see how healthy the motor was. I knew it'd seen a few days at the track, and I've also put a healthy beating on it. I unplugged the fuel pump so I wouldn't be flooding the cylinders, unplugged all the spark wires from the spark plugs, and went one by one on each cylinder. 180psi across the board. Yay, healthy motors are good motors!

 

I plugged the fuel pump back in, reconnected the spark wires, and start the car... It cranked and cranked and cranked, but no fire. Pull plugs and clean them, just in case. Still no fire. pull all wires from distributor and plugs, inspect them, reinstall and the car hesitantly starts. Very rough idle and won't rev happilly until it hits about 2k rpms. Checked timing, then re-checked it. Still at ~30* (10* advanced for better top end), so I knocked it back to 20* stock timing. Still crappy.

 

Thinking the worst, I ran over to NAPA, bough brand new plugs and a new O2 sensor, just in case. Didn't change anything. I put a screwdriver against the injectors and cyl 1-3 all clicked like normal. Cyl 4 made a whirring noise. Thinking this was causing the lean idle and crappy running, I replaced it (thank god for spare motors!). Makes clicking noises now, but still runs like ass. Checked timing (probably for the 4th time) and it's still at 20*, stock.

 

Bought new spark wires. No change. Checked plugs again, they read normal wear, no fouling or lean signs. Bought a fuel pressure tester. Reads normal per FSM numbers. Rechecked timing, still nothing. Chris (NorCalDime) came over and we fiddled a little, still no change in the rough running.

 

Here's what I've done/what checks out.

-New spark plugs and wires, changed nothing

--Pulling wires one at a time changes idle, so I'm getting spark to each cyl

-Checked timing, reset to stock, changed nothing

-Replaced O2 sensor, changed nothing

-Checked MAF

--Unplugging MAF causes rough idle

--Replacing MAF with known-good changes nothing

-Checked injectors

--Replaced "bad" injector, changed nothing

-Pulled codes from ECU, checks out fine

--Code 25: IACV, checks out because mine is disabled

--Code 34: Knock sensor, unplugged it, changed nothing

--Code 82: Crank Pos. Sensor, not hooked up, makes no difference

--Code 84: A/T Diag Comm Line, not hooked up, makes no difference

-Checked all vacuum lines, no cracks/missing lines

-Sprayed O-Rings, intake manifold, vacuum lines and intake piping/couplers with Carb Cleaner

--Did not change idle, no bubbling, no change

-Checked fuel pressure, checked out per FSM, no changes

-Checked compression, 180psi across the board, checks out, no issues

 

When I get home, I'll open the fuel cell and check the fuel sock, as well as replace the fuel filter, though I have a feeling, neither of those will change anything or yield any results. Any ideas!?

 

I'll dig up some pictures of my fuel cell for you too, BMXDude. It's custom made and holds appx. 14gal, rests in the stock location, is bolted through the floor and has a laser-cut mounting area to use a stock 240sx sending unit. Stainless steel is heavy, though!! Shoulda used aluminum!!! Ah well, it probably offsets my fat ass in the driver seat, though!

[WagDatto]

Here ya go, BMX:

 

Laser cut with sending unit hanging on. Unbent:

 

Bent, not welded:

 

Welded, you can see the baffle in some of these pictures. Doesn't work great, but does help with some of the slosh. I'll be doing a surge tank in the future. Also, the filler tube was trimmed down after these pictures were taken, as brackets were welded onto the tank so I could drop bolts straight down through the floor.

[bmxanddie]

awesome thanks for the pics.

[nis720]

Last weekend I was doing some testing on my newly aquired Nistune ECU. First it stated but ran rough, turned it off and tried again but this time no start. It would reset the Fuel pump relay intermitently (sp?). I even tried my stock ECU and that fixed the relay problem but still no start, only cranked.

 

First thing I found was a blown fuse for the Main ECU power. Second issue causing the Nistune ECU to reset like crazy was a bad ground and corrupted tune. Fixed that and reloaded the tune.

[WagDatto]

No blown fuses, no loose grounds, stock ECU.

 

I'm still stumped. Just went through FSM and checked the throttle position sensor, and I was sure it was going to be bad.... Well it read things out as funny, so I tested the other one I had, and swapped them. Still don't have things running right!! I opened up the fuel cell, everything looks fine. No clue what's going on.....

[Lozer]

cracked distributor cap? burnt rotor? moisture in the cap?