Kelse92's K24 Nasa Time Trial Build

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If you are looking for a recommendation on an ECU, Haltech is the best bang for the buck. Phenomenal support. Haltech Nexus R5 has a PDM built into it, let me know if you have any questions.

[Kelse92]

Thanks, I ended up hitting the easy-button on Black Friday and purchasing the wiring kit and ecu from KPower.

[RedReplicant]

Are you planning on shortening the stock driveshaft? If not, I have my KPower one taking up space...

[Kelse92]

Originally Posted by RedReplicant

Are you planning on shortening the stock driveshaft? If not, I have my KPower one taking up space...

This is actually a new development I need to sort out haha. I currently have a DSS Aluminum driveshaft on the car. I'm not sure if it can possibly be shortened? (Edit, it probably CAN be shortened, but not sure I want to go down that road) I am considering selling though regardless and finding an OEM one and shortening it instead for the NVH reasons we've all discussed.
It's a new layer of something to think about...

[Kelse92]

More progress slowly being made.
Picked up a motor this weekend, nice when there's a few importers in the area! Just had to drive over and pickup and not worry about shipping. Easy peasy! Went with a JDM K24 just because of availability and mileage, paying a little less for a USDM one with double/triple the miles just didn't seem that worth it.

Also making progress on legalizing the hood vents for Nasa TT. The car was setup with some other ones that were over 1" before the rules were changed to 3/8" protrusion maximum so the old setup had to go. Thankfully all setup now thanks to RaceLouvers and should be able to reuse the holes that are already in the hood with just a little extra cutting. Worst case, I'll spring for a new hood, but would rather cut costs here since the car's getting wrapped anyway and spend replacement hood money elsewhere

[Kelse92]

I've made a real lot of nothing progress in the last two weeks as the Nasa TX season just kicked off and racing my blue Spec Miata took priority, buttttt I finally had some Kpower boxes arrive on Saturday while I was gone so we can get cranking on the project more soon! (pic of the Miata's since boxes are boring lol)



I'm still waiting on a delivery of some OEM parts to be able to make progress on the motor and waiting on my ECU/wiring harness to ship (ordered in November with the BF sale); but the rest of the builder kit is here (ordered Dec 29th so pretty good timing)

Was planning on taking my driveshaft in to get shortened this week (ended up deciding the experiment with a shortened OEM one was worth it for a low mileage one being only $100 on eBay) but Texas decided it was time for our one week per year ice storm so I've been cooped up at the house all week and not really wanted to risk getting to the shop or spending time in it since its not heated and usually gets down to around 40deg in there on cold days.

So hopefully more exciting progress coming next week

Right now, my timeline goals are to have it running and maybe start shaking down in May, but we'll see... Other things around here are taking priority and I'm not in a super-rush since I have something else to drive for fun, but I am still itching to get more time freed up to get going on this project.

[Kelse92]

Pulled the trigger on going a bit more down the rabbit hole while still waiting on parts to show up...
I figure if we're already taking things apart to do this swap, might as well see if a few extra ponies can be had out of a K20 head swap, so a K20z3 head is en-route! At the car's previous minimum weight of 2650 lbs with driver without taking points, the power I need classing-wise is around 230whp average. The car will end up lighter with the K-swap, but I'd like to still hedge my bets on power and try to make more than I need if-possible and fine tune with either ballast or a de-tune from there. I also intend on finishing the front-half of the cage in the future so that's a bit more added weight that will eventually go in.



This head is a pretty mild build, and it was too good of a deal to pass up:
Multi-angle valve job with Supertech valves and 90lb springs and retainers, and Skunk2 Tuner 1 Cams. I'm not wild about the cams chosen, but at the price I got on the setup beggars can't be choosers. With the rest of the valvetrain done I'll at least have some options to swap out down the line. More than likely, some DragCratel 2.2 endurance cams will be the way forward but I'll start with these for now.


I've still been limited on time for building much else still, but did find a powder-coat color that pretty closely matches the half-cage that's already green. Ironically, the color name is "Inline-4" so I think that's going to work perfectly as the color for the valve cover color! haha

[DaiTT500]

Originally Posted by Kelse92

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




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)

Awesome build! Can’t wait to see it done!

Me, Jason and a group of others went through moneyshift racing and ordered 10 custom cf dashes through a company in ireland. I still have mines new fresh in the box.

[Kelse92]

Yup! That's the one!
I think it is an HGK one that Moneyshift sourced, I have one of their TOB new in a box I need to install too. Wish they still were doing more!

Outside of all that, More parts are starting to stack up around here including a Green Valve cover , injectors, new clutch, and a bunch of ancillary parts. Pretty much everything I need is ready to go now, except for parts from Kpower.
I'm told my remaining orders will ship this week, but I'll admit it's a bit frustrating to see some other people who ordered some of the same stuff I ordered nearly 100 days ago get their orders in less than two weeks while I'm still waiting...

[Kelse92]

A month later andddd.....

My remaining parts Finally shipped!
Should be able to start cranking on putting together some things on the car some this weekend

[Kelse92]

Things have been starting to come together the last handful of days.
Got the motor torn down fully, head swapped, timed, and assembled.
I am probably going to take it back apart and swap the cams to a different set, but getting closer!

Chassis prep will be up next on the list and then hopefully a motor in the car not long after that!

Big thing holding me up now on getting the car done now is really my time, and while I've been waiting I had sent my shocks out to be rebuilt but one of the shafts was bent and is getting replaced and we're waiting on parts for that. If it's not one thing, its another! haha

Nice big photo dump of where we're at today

The parts I've been hoarding while waiting for the last few things from KPower


Beginning the tear down


Sticking with the unmodified K24 bottom end


Adding a shiny K20Z3 head, ported with valvetrain upgrades


Assembled engine(probably going with an alternate cam)


And next to the car it now sits and waits for the next time I get a chance to work on it.

[Kittykate]

Aspirational stuff! I'd love to be this far into the deep end of mechanical modding. Cool to see other women working on their cars.

[Kelse92]

Originally Posted by Kittykate

Aspirational stuff! I'd love to be this far into the deep end of mechanical modding. Cool to see other women working on their cars.

Thank you!!! I can't take all of the credit, I get a lot of help from my other half, but he and I make a good team and I do as much wrenching as I can!

[Kelse92]

We had another chance to work on the car this weekend and didn't make a lot of progress on the K-Swap, but have made progress on several other items so this is a bigger update.

The perks of buying a used track-car is partly the savings on modifications parts/install but with that also comes the challenge servicing, updating, fixing, and at some points undoing prior mods and/or issues. So I started on some of those projects this weekend while I wait on a few additional motor items to arrive.

One big project has been the hood vents.

The ones that originally came on the car were once legal for Nasa TT, but the rules have moved on over time and they were no longer legal. Thankfully, there's great companies out there like Race Louvers and they make a set of legal vents that maximize class rules and thankfully were just the right size to fit where my previous vents did with minimal additional cutting. I was really trying to avoid buying a new hood so this keeps us going down the path. I have them all mocked up to fit now, but will not be fully-completing installing them as I plan on getting the car wrapped and it will be easier on the wrap installer to not have to cut around them.




Up next, I have started removing some things from the car that need serviced/replaced.

The Coolshirt box (very much needed for a non-interior, non-heat/ac car on track in TX summers) has been located in the trunk; but is too large to easily remove/refill without partially removing the (Heavy) chassis-mount wing and was also positioned in a way that made it difficult to fill with ice/water.



I'm not 100% sure what my next move entirely is on it, but the box needed to come out to start. Plan A is to try and find a smaller cooler box for it that will fit under the chassis-mount. Plan B is to relocate it to the Passenger compartment. (I plan on no longer running a passenger seat in the car). And Plan C is to maybe go with an alternative system that is more compact. There's a couple of options out there I am looking into that accomplish the same goal and at less size/weight, so it really is going to just boil down to what's left in the budget for this later on. I ultimately do want this car to be as light as possible as ballast can always be added back later on where I want it, so this is one of those items where I would like to try and take advantage if possible and not too cost-prohibitive.


Another big item on the agenda is safety.

This car hasn't run on track in several years, so many items are out of date. Take my fire bottle for example:


With a Mfg Date of 2016, it's no longer really able to be recertified. I also would prefer a Novec over AFFF system like this for a few reasons; so this bottle is going to get scrapped in favor of a smaller/lighter Lifeline novec system. The fire bottle was also located in the trunk with the coolbox, and I am planning on relocating it to the passenger footwell for a cleaner installation with shorter lines.

I mentioned above the passenger seat is coming out; and the driver seat, while it is a nice composite halo seat is old and expired with quite a bit of wear on it.

I do plan to eventually finish the cage and race this car, so up-to-date safety is a must. Decision on the seat has been a tough one though. I have sat in and like the OMP HTE-R but also recently found the Sabelt X-Pad seat and it is very tempting. But the Sabelt seat is designed to fit really in much smaller cars than this FRS, but at a little more cost so I'm debating on the value add. I fit in and find both very comfortable so it's really just an undecided preference at this point.

Car will also be getting a new set of belts as the current set is expired and showing its age. I found these GForce belts in a competitor's car recently and they have a lot of really nice features that are found on higher-end belts for a great value, so I am likely going that route or to a set of Safecraft's like in my Miata.


Additional cleanup includes ordering a new windshield wiper cowl as the car previously got it bet melty with a small engine bay fire. This is mostly cosmetic, but it's a fairly inexpensive and easy fix, so I'm going to make sure it's done right and make it a bit nicer.



And lastly, the shocks are off getting rebuilt as I'm not sure when they were last serviced and since the car has just been sitting around on jack stands anyway now was the perfect opportunity to get them refreshed.
I spotted them in the rebuilders social-media over the weekend and they are all ready to go except for one of my fronts. You can just barelyy see in this photo that the shaft is bent. The car has had a prior minor contact with a tire wall and I imagine that may have been the cause of this damage or just normal hard hitting of curbs on track. So at this point, we are waiting on JRZ to send a new shaft so they can get reassembled and back to me.
While we are at it with things disassembled, the front lower control arms are also getting an updated set of rod ends as one of them was bent.




Future projects to tackle on a different day will be interior cleanup and wiring, and of course completing the engine assembly and swap.
But we're slowly picking away at it!

My initial June running goals I think are a bit out the window at this point as it took a long time to get all of the swap-kit items in. But as anxious as I am to get this car running and to get out and drive it, I do want to take time and do things right and build it nicer than I found it initially, so it takes time. I think my realistic event-goal now that I would like to make it to is to TT the car at the Nasa Eagles Canyon event in December.
Ideally by then, with that long of a runway, I can get this thing going and well-shaken down at some member days late this summer before it makes it to a full competition event.