Kelse92's K24 Nasa Time Trial Build

[Kelse92]

Well, I've built a bunch of cars... and never done one of these build thread things before , but I'm excited to share the process so here goes nothing!!

To go to the very beginning, I sold my now long previous e92 M3 track car in early 2021 and the plan was to buy an 86. I looked at this particular car at that time, but it was just too big of a project and I wanted to just learn to drive a car with low hp and low commitment first, so a streetable autocross-focused 86 that happened to dabble in track stuff was the move.

I ended up with with this



This little blue car has served me well as a TT5/STX autocross car for the last year and a half, including setting a regional track record at our home track Eagles Canyon Raceway & helping me win an autocross national championship, but I've been contemplating taking the next step on building something faster... As much as I wanted to do a Kswap on that car, it was just too nice of a street car to cut up, so this car came back into the picture:



This is a former TT4 record-holding build in our region has been sitting for a few years as the previous owner kept blowing up FA20's on track (surprise!) and he was over it 5 motors and life getting in the way later. (I don't blame him one bit) But he hadn't let it go just yet as he didn't want it parted out and wanted to see it get driven again. I feel very lucky I was able to pick it up this past weekend and we struck a deal that works out for both of us.

This chassis has had an amazing amount of work and engineering put into it already and just needs a reliable power plant to go after some records again. So a K24 seems like a no-brainer to keep the weight low, a Japanese 4-cyl in the car (sorry LS fans), and make future blown up motor replacements inexpensive cause the chances are with how hard we plan to drive this thing we'll blow up one or two again in the future.

Lots of work to go here and I'm looking forward in sharing the process.

[Kelse92]

This week with the car we are going to take a few things apart and dig into how the car is built and fabricated so that we can update some items and also get to know better what we have got.

A little list on the basic setup currently:
- JRZ Rs Pro suspension
- Full SPL catalog of suspension arms
- CSG setup OS Giken diff
- Half-cage that is SCCA compliant to be able to add onto for a full road-racing cage in the future
- Carbon dash
- Voltex Type 7 wing, chassis mounted
- Formerly supercharged with a Harrop kit, so lots of supporting mods for that as well to go through





Today we started with a quick pulling of the bumper and seeing how the splitter was mounted and the ducting has been done on all of the coolers. Plan is as we install the K24 to try and reuse as much as we can here in regards to coolers, shrouds, and mounting locations for everything.

[gt5759]

Looks like a great start and looking forward to the build!

[Kelse92]

Thanks! Should be a fun project!
I would LOVE to be driving it before the end of the year, but I think I'll still be over the moon if it isn't ready until after March/April. I have very low expectations on getting things done super quickly, but never know how things will go along!

I've located a few potential donor motors this week and hope to go pick one up maybe Saturday to start refreshing if the scheduling all lines up.

[Code Monkey]

Good to see Jason's car being put to good use.

[gt5759]

Not to detour, who makes that dash? Only carbon dash I have found is HGK racing. It looks great!

[Kelse92]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

Good to see Jason's car being put to good use.

Thanks! Hoping we can do it justice and get it back on track again!

Originally Posted by gt5759

Not to detour, who makes that dash? Only carbon dash I have found is HGK racing. It looks great!

I honestly have No idea on the dash, this car has a lot of custom pieces on it (like a custom fiberglass 2lb trunk lid, that I even got the mold for) so it's possible it was handmade, but it looks production to me. So i would say highly likely this is the HGK one.

Also, thanks for turning me on to their parts!
I was not familiar, and they have some cool stuff! (albeit pricey, might be some items from there I could use in the future.... hmmm)

[Irace86.2.0]

Another Harrop supercharger destroying rods again. I can relate.

[DocWalt]

Awesome, Amy mentioned you picked up a TT4 car and I figured it was already K swapped... Glad to see it's getting a proper engine! Should be a fun build, hope it goes well

[Kelse92]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Awesome, Amy mentioned you picked up a TT4 car and I figured it was already K swapped... Glad to see it's getting a proper engine! Should be a fun build, hope it goes well

Thanks! Fingers crossed the hive-mind over here has already sorted out a lot of issues I hope to tackle on the front end thankfully!
And yup, not yet swapped, but getting the powerplant it deserves.

Trying to figure out where I could possibly Autox this thing, but I think its wayyyy to far gone unless I want to run in maybe XP or Mod Classes
So it looks like I'm gonna be bumming co-drives for awhile hah, but I think this one will be a fun toy regardless!

[Kelse92]

Minimal update, been busy with other things so haven't really touched the car at all, but I have been acquiring a few used swap parts from people doing trans changes and adding turbos to their cars...so I've gotten ahold of a KPower flywheel/adapter, trans mounts, throttle body, and a header.
Will be ordering the motor mounts, intake manifold, etc. next since finding those used is a lot less likely.


My Big struggle in purchase decisions right now is how to wire/control the swap.

I have very minimal accessories left in the car outside of controlling the engine. The car has no headlights (might add these back), heater core, ac, windows, radio, door locks, etc.

All I really need is ABS (most-important, I'll leave the non-ABS driving to my Miata), brake lights, a reverse light, maybe headlights again, windshield wipers, and a few switches for racecar accessories (coolshirt, transponder, etc.) I would love to do something like a MircoPDM for these. I Love the idea of an AIM PDM/Dash combo, but it's pretty spendy.

I'm also planning on ditching the stock cluster as well and going with an AIM Dash (have an MXL2 to use) so I'm left wondering if something like the Haltech and Kpower wiring harness is really the best option, or if its overkill considering this car is pretty stripped down. I definitely want to go with a motorsport grade engine wiring harness, and it looks like there's several options available so my head's spinning a bit on everything.


If anyone has any suggestions on wiring harness builders and engine management, I'm all ears on being pointed in a few directions beyond just the swap kit to look into.
If I had unlimited funds for this project, of-course Motec would be the way to go, but I'm trying to be a bit budget-conscious here haha

[RedReplicant]

More details on that header there?

Is your car key or push to start?

[Kelse92]

Originally Posted by RedReplicant

More details on that header there?

Is your car key or push to start?

The header is a KPower header but the end has been modified to be a VBand instead of 3-bolt flange. I'll likely add a flex pipe, and maybe do some additional reinforcing and a cerakote coating before it gets installed. I figured I'd take a gamble on this vs anything else I could find because the price was right and I'd like to easily re-use my Tomei 80r that's already on the car.

Car is 2013 with a Key start

[Kelse92]

Finally made a little more progress on the car this past week.
Big progress is that the Engine is out! Also have done Lots of Cleaning, de-stickered so the car can be wrapped at some point, and starting to inventory and sell some parts.
At this point I still need to pickup and start freshening up a K24, and otherwise just waiting on some more parts to arrive so we can get to the real fun part haha