s14 ka24de into Z

[colerongo]

So i just wanted to share something that I learned yesterday while putting my 1996 (s14 240sx) ka24de into my 1976 280z using a vildini ka/sr crossmember. It turns out that the s14 motor mount brackets will not work with the vildini crossmember. I called vildini up and they took care of the problem. I highly recommend them as their customer service is great. So in order for a ka to mount onto a vildini crossmember for a Z you will need to have the mount brackets from an s13 240sx. I do not know how many people will benefit from this but hopefully anyone getting ready to put a ka into their Z will come across this early on to avoid the confussion of "why don't the mounts line up?"

[kj280z]

Thanks!

[ben280zx]

Thanks for the head ups, greatly appreciated that you have discover it.

[kj280z]

So i just wanted to share something that I learned yesterday while putting my 1996 (s14 240sx) ka24de into my 1976 280z using a vildini ka/sr crossmember. It turns out that the s14 motor mount brackets will not work with the vildini crossmember. I called vildini up and they took care of the problem. I highly recommend them as their customer service is great. So in order for a ka to mount onto a vildini crossmember for a Z you will need to have the mount brackets from an s13 240sx. I do not know how many people will benefit from this but hopefully anyone getting ready to put a ka into their Z will come across this early on to avoid the confussion of "why don't the mounts line up?"

 

Any updates on your installation?

[colerongo]

Lots of updates actually. I will be taking some pics soon and posting more in depth. I wasn't planning on writing a build post but I guess I should share some of my experiences from the swap since there isn't that much about this swap on Hybridz. To start, when I got the car, the previous owner had started preparing it for a sbc swap. This was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do with the car. I wanted a smaller, more efficient engine that I could make decent power with and drive daily without filling up at every other gas station. The only problem that the previous owners intentions caused me was dealing with the hacked off transmission tunnel mount brackets. The swap was fairly simple as far as fitment and wiring went. I used Vildini's crossmember simply because I didn't have a garage to do that major work in at the time. I live in a marina on a boat with strict "no working on cars" policy. This didn't stop me though, I was swapping transmissions in and out and changing wheel cylinders in the dark after the marina staff was out for the evening.

 

Before I decided for sure what engine to swap (I looked at everything possible from 4g63t, 1.9tdi, 7mgte, sr20det, fj20, and just about every other motor possible). My first choice was the 1.9tdi since there is a company that sells adapter plates for fitting this motor to a toyota supra tranny. The problem was finding one at a decent price. My parents have always been die-hard vw diesel drivers so i know all the wonders of this engine. My mom's 1998 jetta tdi has 280,000 miles without skipping a beat and the car is starting to fall apart around the drivetrain. this motor was set in my mind to go into my new Z. When my parents told me they wanted to keep it a little longer I bailed on the idea for the meantime and jumped on a 1996 s14 ka24de with tranny and all wiring components in San Jose for $600. After picking it up and bringing it home I was a little skeptical about it because the fresh rtv sealing the bellhousing to the tranny made me wonder why the tranny had been taken apart. Also, after taking the valve cover off I noticed that the upper timing chain guide was a bit worn down and had a piece broken off. After taking the timing covers and oil pan off and inspecting every inch of every rotating part I decided no damage had been done and proceeded to reinstall and seal everything. This time I left the upper and side timing guide off because I read more about them snapping off randomly and causing more problems than they are worth. (More info about this on ka-t.org nicoclub and 240sxforums.com) Once the motor was reassembled I welded in my Vildini crossmember and dropped the motor in. I used a piece of random scrap metal out of my school's metal recycle bin to make L shaped mount brackets that bolt through my tunnel into the sides of my tunnel (very similar design to the 280zx jagsthatrun transmission mount kit) ( http://www.jagsthatrun.com/Pages/Parts_DATZX_MountingInstructions.html ) With these brackets in place I used a polyurethane energy suspension transmission mount insulator part # 31108G that just happened to bolt perfectly onto the ka24de transmission.

 

For a clutch setup I used what is known in the 240sx world as a "white bunny" clutch setup. This consists of a larger 240mm clutch disk and pressure plate from a 280zx turbo or 300zx in conjunction with a flywheel from a d21 pickup or 280zx turbo. To get all the info on this search white bunny ka24de or something like that in google and there are hundreds of posts about it. It is said to be able to handle 500 hp on a ka24de. The stock ka24de in the 240sx comes with a 225mm clutch so this larger diameter greatly improves holding power without adding any clutch stiffness. Only downside is that it's a bit heavier than stock. The solution to this is to use a fidanza aluminum flywheel for the 280zx turbo or rb25 lightweight flywheel.

 

Since I didn't want to run air conditioning and couldn't run power steering I had to eliminate those. There are a bunch of writeups on this but the best way I found was to use the upper and lower alternator mount brackets from an sohc ka24e which moves the alternator slightly to line it up with the crank and water pump. This puts the belt in a place that it hits the thermostat housing so you need the housing from an sohc as well. With this mod I now have only one accesory belt. Any more questions on this feel free to ask.

 

Now that the engine was in place i went for the wiring. I used alot of info from ratsun forum, nicoclub, and the510realm. Icehouse (a member on the 510 forums) has a great writeup on how to wire in a "ka/sr/ca/vg into anything" .I made a wiring diagram/every piece of wiring information I needed to get my ka24de to run perfectly in my Z. I do not want to post this unless people are really interested because I do not know if it is formatted well enough to be used for everybody. Let me know if you want this and I will send it to you. If enough do maybe I will post it. One thing I did different in my swap was that I converted my s14 1996 obdII efi to a s13 1994 obdI efi because megasquirt makes a plug-n-play computer for the s13. This means Later on I can either use Nistune to tune my stock computer or buy a megasquirt for it when I go turbo...soon. There is not yet a good way to tune a stock s14 computer so everybody with 240sx's usually convert their motors to obdI s13 electronics. This consists of ditching the stock distributor with built in coil, efi harness, and some sensors on the intake manifold and installing the parts from an s13. I just bought an entire intake manifold from an s13 for 25 bucks and swapped the upper half (half with all electronics) onto my lower s14 half. This way I have the more simple s13 electronics but also don't have the intake runner flappers found in s13 manifolds. I wanted my wiring to be legit so i went to my local pick and pull and browsed every car to find the best fuse/distribution box design. I ended up getting one from a 90's cadilac because it had room for about 8 relays and had an equal amount of standard spade fuses. I wired my car up this way so my relays and fuses could be kept tidy and stock looking in my engine compartment instead of seperate and bolted on somewhere random. The car started up first try and idled smoothly, but my alternator wasn't charging. I got it tested and it wasn't putting out anything so I made another trip to the pick n pull and picked up a 110 amp alternator from a 1997 nissan quest. This alternator is exactly the same except that is is slightly larger all around and has smaller lower mount bracket holes. You just have to drill them out to slightly over 3/8 inch and everything fits perfectly. With the stock alternator and the 1 belt sohc mod I had to use a 35" 3 rib belt but this alternator required a slightly larger (36.5" i think) belt.

 

Next was to get my autometer tach to work. Remember to flip the switches in the back of the tach to 4 cylinder mode. There is a tach output wire from the ecu (pin #2 i think). This wire does not work for autometers. The tach input wire to the ecu however (pin #3 y/r wire) does work however. I just cut it from the ecu and wired it straight to the tach signal wire. My tach now works perfectly. For my autometer water temp gauge I tapped out the coolant bleeding screw to 1/8 npt located just above the factory temp sensors to accept the autometer sensor. If you use the factory nissan sensor your temp reading will be off and you'll think you are overheating. For the oil pressure I just threaded the autometer sensor into the stock location and it worked perfectly. As for the speedometer, I currently have a mechanical autometer sensor that I need to sell in order to get an electrical one so I don't know about that yet.

 

Next thing is cooling. I couldn't use the stock mechanical fan because the shroud would have to extend about 3 miles from the block to the radiator support. I decided to use a Taurus 2-speed fan that is famous on hybridz. this is the same one I used on my last l28et 240z as well as for my brothers LS1 240z. This thing flows some serious air!! I wired in another fused relay in my fuse box so that it would come on as soon as the key is turned to on. I will probably eventually get a 185 degree switched sensor that activates the fan only when needed but until then it will run at low speed when the key is on. I do not expect to need the high speed since the shroud fits perfectly on my JTR radiator and low speed flows more air than the stock mechanical fan could have ever dreamed to flow. It is there though for later if i need it or just want it.

 

Last weekend I picked up a 3" mandrel bent ford bronco tailpipe from autozone for $40. This is made by maremont and is part # M30001. If you give the guys at autozone this part number they probably wont be able to find it though. The autozone part number is SKU#577061. I bought a flange from a local muffler shop and welded up my entire exhaust with this piece. I used this tailpipe (consists of about 2 90 degree bends and 2 45 degree bends as well as a few feet of straight pipe) as well as 1 18" section and that was all I needed. So for $50 I have a custom 3" mandrel bent exhaust that sound really sweet. I used a knock-off magnaflow muffler that a kid gave me from my school after he didn't like the sound of his frontier and went with some name brand muffler that sounds the same.

 

Last thing I did on my car was yesterday I got a throttle cable from a 90's maxima at the pick n pull. It bolts up perfectly to the throttle body and bracket but wasn't exactly right for the gas pedal and firewall. With some finagling I actually got it to mount without any modifications to the firewall on the engine side. The last thing was to get the cable to connect to the pedal. Since the pedal was designed for a linkage, I had to cut and weld a bracket onto the end of it to accept the cable. After this it worked perfectly.

 

I will take some pics of everything as soon as i can and list them where they need to be to make sense of what I have written about. If anything isn't clear ask me and I will clarify what exactly I did. The only thing I need to do now is get my JTR sbc driveshaft shortened and get a nissan yoke for it since It was built to attach to an automatic chevy trans. This will be nice when it's done because it is brand new and has replaceable u-joints. Should be good!!! Thanks for reading and feel free to ask questions!

Edited April 2, 2011 by colerongo

[kj280z]

I'm watching this post - I have 2 Z's - Almost done with my LS1 280z and already have the KA24de/5 speed sitting here waiting to go in my 240z with a nice turbo

[280zx 2by2]

Deffinately looking forward to this. My L28 is dying a slow death and I need to swap something in to net more MPG's.

[colerongo]

As an update, I got my registration and AZ licence plate finally. Arizona no longer requires level 1 visual inspection of the vehicle for out of state title transfers. So I was able to get my AZ plate without driving/trailering the car to AZ.

 

Next I am working on getting my driveshaft made. I have a custom brand new driveshaft that came with the shell when i bought the 280z. The last owner had plans for SBC with TH350 or something like that so the driveshaft is setup for that using 1310 u-joints. It is not easy finding a 1310 yoke that will match the nissan 240sx transmission but I believe I have finally found the right one. It is Spicer part 2-3-12341, recently changed from part number 2-3-13461X. The driveshaft shop in Stockton will be shortening my driveshaft as well as installing the new Spicer transmission yoke. The yoke cost $60 and the shortening is going to cost $75. This should be the last thing needed to have my car on the road. The custom 3" mandrel exhaust is pretty loud, it will sound alot better with a turbo.

[colerongo]

280zx 2x2,

you should look into swapping a 1.9tdi vw diesel motor in. I don't think it would require that much more work and would give you well over 60mpg in a datsun. There are companies that make kits to mount the motor to toyota supra 5-speed transmissions for the people that swap them into their suzuki samurais. In fact, I have the cad drawings for the plate, so you could machine it yourself or pay a machine shop. Also, there is a guy named josh i think that swapped a tdi into a volvo wagon. These motors are amazingly efficient, reliable, and make plenty of torque for daily driving. With a chip and injectors you can make 30-40% more power and fuel mileage from stock. I was going to do this swap but didn't have the money. The TDI cost about $2000 as opposed to the $600 I payed for ka24de and tranny. It would save that much money back in fuel in the long run though if you can do it. Plus, I am about to buy my parents old Jetta TDI so I don't have to have the motor in my Datsun now.

[HKSdrift3r]

Here is my KA mocked up.. Made my own mounts:

[frankist]

looks pretty good, any updates.

[Jesse OBrien]

This was really helpful for me, but I'd love to see a follow-up and a 'year-later' review of how it's been treating you.