KPower Industries K24 swap

[captain awesome]

Originally Posted by Ebush

I don’t notice any extra vibrations in my car from when it had an fa20. I just have the normal IRP shifter buzz/rattle. I have an aluminum drive shaft, aluminum flywheel, 3 puck exedy clutch, non dampened aluminum crank pulley, white line trans bushing thing, and an IRP shifter.

I did have a lot of vibrations the first time I installed the engine. Drove the car like that for 1000 miles, recently pulled the motor to swap head gaskets and increase the clearance around the trans. Now that I’ve made more clearance for the trans I don’t have any vibrations. A piece of the trans sticks inside the trans mount that we needed to hammer. And I believe that’s what was causing vibrations. When installing the engine/trans this time I left all the engine and trans mounts loose. I put a crowbar between the trans and the trans mount that we beat in. Then I tightened the trans mount and moved up to the engine mounts.

Your car is insanely loud from the video. It's hard to tell but it sounds a lot like mine did before starting to rid it of the vibes and rattles. Could be exhaust on yours but even with headphones it sounds more racecar than street by a long shot.


I'll see if I can get a video of mine now for comparison.

[Ebush]

Originally Posted by captain awesome

Your car is insanely loud from the video. It's hard to tell but it sounds a lot like mine did before starting to rid it of the vibes and rattles. Could be exhaust on yours but even with headphones it sounds more racecar than street by a long shot.


I'll see if I can get a video of mine now for comparison.

There are no vibrations now, just a buzzy shifter and exhaust noise which probably sounds like vibrations in the video. My exhaust is fairly loud. 3” with no resonator, and a fairly straight through muffler. If I put it in 6th and accelerate from 3-4K there aren’t any weird vibrations. My video was just with an iPhone, which tends to pickup noise that isn’t even able to be heard with your ears.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Ebush

I don’t notice any extra vibrations in my car from when it had an fa20. I just have the normal IRP shifter buzz/rattle. I have an aluminum drive shaft, aluminum flywheel, 3 puck exedy clutch, non dampened aluminum crank pulley, white line trans bushing thing, and an IRP shifter.

I did have a lot of vibrations the first time I installed the engine. Drove the car like that for 1000 miles, recently pulled the motor to swap head gaskets and increase the clearance around the trans. Now that I’ve made more clearance for the trans I don’t have any vibrations. A piece of the trans sticks inside the trans mount that we needed to hammer. And I believe that’s what was causing vibrations. When installing the engine/trans this time I left all the engine and trans mounts loose. I put a crowbar between the trans and the trans mount that we beat in. Then I tightened the trans mount and moved up to the engine mounts.

That’s good that it is sorted out for you. Maybe the problem is just getting things to sit perfectly. As I stated before, I have no rubbing. The transmission mount was entirely removed and nothing was worse or better because of it. Perhaps this would fix other people’s issues, but if anything was rubbing for me then it would rub all the time, yet my vibrations disappeared at 1400rpms.

I’m not entirely sure what you hammered or what you are referring to when you say a piece of the transmission sticks through the mount. The transmission mount bolts to the transmission with four bolts. The two plates of the mount are joined by soft rubber on either side, and a bolt goes in the center to reduce bounce. They say to move the trans to the side, so maybe you mean that nut going through the hole of the mounting plate hits or something. It is hard to understand. I enlarged the hole, so I could move it to the side more, but again, this seems unlikely to be an issue for me because the problem disappears with rpms.

[Ebush]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

That’s good that it is sorted out for you. Maybe the problem is just getting things to sit perfectly. As I stated before, I have no rubbing. The transmission mount was entirely removed and nothing was worse or better because of it. Perhaps this would fix other people’s issues, but if anything was rubbing for me then it would rub all the time, yet my vibrations disappeared at 1400rpms.

I’m not entirely sure what you hammered or what you are referring to when you say a piece of the transmission sticks through the mount. The transmission mount bolts to the transmission with four bolts. The two plates of the mount are joined by soft rubber on either side, and a bolt goes in the center to reduce bounce. They say to move the trans to the side, so maybe you mean that nut going through the hole of the mounting plate hits or something. It is hard to understand. I enlarged the hole, so I could move it to the side more, but again, this seems unlikely to be an issue for me because the problem disappears with rpms.

Did you not cut and hammer on the transmission mount bracket? If not then that’s your problem. Anyone using the stock trans needed to hammer that bracket in quite a bit for clearance. I feel like I went further than most on my first go at it. But I recently pulled everything out and pushed that trans mount bracket in further. It’s hard to see, but the trans has a small section that extends into the area that was hammered. I believe that even if there is an 1/8” clearance that we may still get some occasional vibrations from it. The stock Impreza mounts aren’t very good. I don’t understand why kpower went this route. I had Perrin mounts with my fa20, they nearly worked for this swap but I didn’t feel like modifying them, so I sold them.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Ebush

Did you not cut and hammer on the transmission mount bracket? If not then that’s your problem. Anyone using the stock trans needed to hammer that bracket in quite a bit for clearance. I feel like I went further than most on my first go at it. But I recently pulled everything out and pushed that trans mount bracket in further. It’s hard to see, but the trans has a small section that extends into the area that was hammered. I believe that even if there is an 1/8” clearance that we may still get some occasional vibrations from it. The stock Impreza mounts aren’t very good. I don’t understand why kpower went this route. I had Perrin mounts with my fa20, they nearly worked for this swap but I didn’t feel like modifying them, so I sold them.

Yes I hammered the chassis, and I used a grinder on part of the transmission that could make contact. There is a quarter inch gap at least, and it isn’t the cause of the vibration for me. Like I said, I’ve been under the car when it is running and nothing is touching. The vibrations wouldn’t disappear at a 1400 rpm idle if it was touching. I don’t really get chassis contact driving. I know that now. It is more engine. It could be some driveshaft when driving. I just have no way to tell, but I’m leaning more to the engine.

My solutions are the fuel pulse damper, which I want anyways, the Fluidampr damper, which I want anyways, and the clutched alternator pulley, which I want anyways. If those don’t do it with tuning then I’ll triple check my timing chain hasn’t jumped a cog, but my suspicion is low for this.

[captain awesome]

Have you found an alternator pulley that fits yet? I started searching a bit last night looking at a bunch of off the shelf stuff but still not certain if they can thread on. Sounds like Litens has some of the best tech for reliability but their site say there’s no retrofit options.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by captain awesome

Have you found an alternator pulley that fits yet? I started searching a bit last night looking at a bunch of off the shelf stuff but still not certain if they can thread on. Sounds like Litens has some of the best tech for reliability but their site say there’s no retrofit options.

I haven’t found anything for the K24a/z, but I did for the K24w1 because it seems like some of the newer motors used these clutched pulleys on their alternators. The question is whether we can use one of these pulleys. Is it the same diameter and offset pulley, even though the alternator is different because the mounting points are different? They probably have an off-the-shelf pulley with the specs we need. It is just a matter of figuring it out.

[captain awesome]

From what I’m finding the shaft of the alternator is way different for fastening properly. Not sure if there’s a work around for that.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by captain awesome

From what I’m finding the shaft of the alternator is way different for fastening properly. Not sure if there’s a work around for that.

Yeah, I figured it wasn’t going to be easy when my searches came back empty.

[hedtrip]

So i got car running but i cant get the damn Thermostat to open. i used a fill kit let her run with the front end up in the air for awhile but low hose still cold.
then Tryed the brz/frs bleed me method buy capping the system & reving it a few times & the pulling the BRZ OEM purge port releasing the air.
did these all a few times & the lower hose is still cold.
the heater blows hot.
fans come on.
& stays around 198F
then overheatd when i drove it around the block.

[Ebush]

Originally Posted by hedtrip

So i got car running but i cant get the damn Thermostat to open. i used a fill kit let her run with the front end up in the air for awhile but low hose still cold.
then Tryed the brz/frs bleed me method buy capping the system & reving it a few times & the pulling the BRZ OEM purge port releasing the air.
did these all a few times & the lower hose is still cold.
the heater blows hot.
fans come on.
& stays around 198F
then overheatd when i drove it around the block.

Put something between the frame Rail and upper hose to elevate it a bit, then jack the car up as high As possible from the front passenger corner. First time I installed the engine I had to let it keep getting to 230 and then shut it down for a bit and try again. Took a couple hours but finally the thermostat opened. I did end up drilling three small holes in the thermostat. This week when I installed the motor it only took 15 minutes with that method.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by hedtrip

So i got car running but i cant get the damn Thermostat to open. i used a fill kit let her run with the front end up in the air for awhile but low hose still cold.
then Tryed the brz/frs bleed me method buy capping the system & reving it a few times & the pulling the BRZ OEM purge port releasing the air.
did these all a few times & the lower hose is still cold.
the heater blows hot.
fans come on.
& stays around 198F
then overheatd when i drove it around the block.

I used a fill kit with the tall extension. I had my heater on. Once water stopped going down the filler, I slowly bled the system from the rear of the motor using the stock 86 bleed port that I repurposed for this setup. That got a lot out. I then squeezed the hoses rhythmically pumping them to encourage water mixing and hitting the thermostat. I repeated the process until hot air came into the cabin and there was hot hoses everywhere. I never had the car overheat, but I did have to top off the overflow reservoir and a few inches of the radiator after the first long drive, so it probably had a few bubbles left.

[hedtrip]

I have tried these tips, still wont open. even after drilling the T stat.
now it just takes longer to over heat.
drove it to the gas station & back & lower hose is still ice cold.

[hedtrip]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

I slowly bled the system from the rear of the motor using the stock 86 bleed port that I repurposed for this setup. .

I also repurposed this. I have bleed it s many times thats its pretty much stripped out now.