KAs dont like donuts??
why, did they put a transverse oil pan that sloshes the oil left and right
oil starvation problems are myth
keep enough oil in it, and it will take anything you can throw at it
but as long as the KA is a piece of shit, why should i bother checking/changing the oil since, then when it gernades i can just blame it on the pile motor
i give up, its not worth the effort
Yea, i figured he probably has one.
Turbo your KA, and race me on the stock bottom end, with stock head, and pump gas. If you win, ill remove my sr20 on the spot and rebuild my ka.
You in?
that would be fair if he was shooting for the kind of power you’re making but he’s not, he autoxes and track races all he wants is 300whp
Honestly, i’ll be impressed if he makes more than 275 rwhp on pump gas and doesnt grenade it within 6 months.
But hey different strokes for different folks.
Good luck with it… 
Why’s the KA gotta be stock bottom end? Nobody has argued in favor of the KA’s stock bottom end.
Kurt exaggerates, Brian wants more in the neighborhood of 200whp.
no exaduration all i hear is “300whp”
it takes a lot to get 300whp out of a car KA motor man.
lets compare this to honda stuff. honda road course guys love the B16B and B18C5 because they can rev and keep reving. kind of like the SR. on the other hand the KA is like a B18B in honda world. yes it can make power but can’t rev and if you try to rev it much more than stock you better have some pretty serious head work.
Road racing is all about RPM and power band. if you want a road course and auto X car buy a CRX keep it all motor and make 200whp and be done with it.
honestly I would like to see a KA hang with kolar with a built bottom end on pump gas…good luck
no oil starvation is not a myth. I can vouche for up to 7 or 8 Ka’s at one time at hybrid with spun bearings. in fact it seems like everytime I ask jay what is was wrong with a KA motor sitting there he says it spun a bearing. Jay can vouche for that as well as my annoying questions
the fact of the matter is, all motors break if you abuse them. if you abuse an sr, you’ll break it. you abuse an ka, you’ll break it. if turbo’ing your KA makes you happy, go right ahead an do it. you’re right that no matter what, you have to buy the same shit whether you turbo the KA, or swap an SR motor and want to make tons of horsepower. you’ll still have to buy turbo upgrades, injectors, air flow meter, exhaust, fuel pump, clutch, blah blah blah. i’m not gonna say that the KA absolutely sucks, it does have some good points. i personally think the valvetrain design is way better than the SR, although, i’d like it better if it were shim-under-bucket, not shim-over-bucket. it’s has way less of a chance to fail over the rocker arm set up that the SR runs. in fact, i think that is one of the SR’s downfalls is the valvetrain design, although with good valve springs, and rocker arm stoppers, i never had trouble spinning my motor to 8300 rpms.
my main complaints with the KA is the headgasket issue. if these were failing on turbo’d cars, i wouldn’t see a problem. hell, the stock SR headgasket can fail around 300hp. i just see a lot of stock KA’s that have had blown headgasket, especially the KA24E. my second problem is the bottom end and bearing issues. maybe it is a lack of maintenence, i’m not sure. but i’ve pulled damn near 12-15 KA’s that have had spun bearings, rod’s blown out through the oil pan, etc. and third is the lack of aftermarket. yes, you can buy engine internals, blah blah blah, but there is no where near the choices for parts like cams, intake manifolds, exhaust manifold, headgaskets<–what’s everyone use, cometic? etc.
I do like the fact the KA has the 2.4L displacement, and the iron block. its a damn shame though that it is a 2.4L, cus you can’t rev it and take advantage of the good valvetrain it has. the block should be able to handle a good bit of power, but then you have to do pistons and rods…
reasons i like the SR: good parts availability, stout short block, way better ignition system, computer knows what boost is(yet, you can do the same thing by chipping the KA ecu), hasn’t really given me any problems. i think overall it just seems like a more solid motor than the KA. if they would have built it with a valvetrain similar to the RB engine, then i really wouldn’t have any complaints with it. as far it being an aluminum block, i have yet to see that being a problem, the records at like what? 545hp?
anyway, where does all my rambling lead to? if you like your KA so much…turbo it, who cares? just cus we don’t like to do that, doesn’t mean you can’t. i hope for your sake it all works out good for you and you have no problems. just get the ecu tuned for it and plenty of fuel and you should be alright…as long as the headgasket doesn’t go…hehehehe
well i’m doing a turbo ka ths spring for someone we’ll c how ling till it blows
i’m starting to believe that all 2nd gen dsms have oil starvation issues
230 wheel, on an s14 that i want to drive whenever its not snowing, and go lapping and autoXing with, honestly i plan to put 10x the effort into suspention parts and will probably never take it down a drag track
i have no intention of racing anybody here because i wont win a drag race, and frankly dont trust the maturity of those challenging me on any course that involves turning the steering wheel
mine has 130k miles on it, ive owned it since about 85k and it has seen hundreds of hours of combined autoX, drift, and lapping duty, along with a handful of others locally that do the same, the only oil issues i have had was oil getting too thin after sustained hard laps at nelsons, and pressure would fall off at the chain tensioners and valves, but lesson learned, 40weight for summer months, and maybe heavier during july/august
point of my posting, i get put off by the gross inaccuracies and heresay that is spread about the KA motor, and that i honestly belive that the vast majority of KA failures are due to misues, neglected maitnance, or just plain abuse
my point is not that it can run an 8s quartermile better than an SR, frankly i would not know. My point is the same $3000 you spend on an SR motor can be put to much better use on a KA for all of the people out there that want (lets say < 350hp) moderate power gains; without the consernes of buying engines from halfway around the world, that is not supported by the regular parts suppliers here, and actually has AC and cruise. The attitude that JDM > USDM ‘just because’ is crap
*edit
fixed the < sign
very very very well put about the valve train. i cant even follow up to that… bravo jay
as you mentioned its such a strange design it has the good valve train but to much displacment to flaunt it, it has the iron block but the head gasket issue.
dosent tomei make a solid lifter system for a sr? or maybe just a rb… i know they make a 2.2L sr stroker kit…
It strikes me funny that the KA would have headgasket issues as if it were a neon or something. Hasn’t anyone come out with a proper multilayer steel gasket for the iron block / aluminum head configuration?
Remember about 2 pages ago when i said about the sr20 being light years ahead of the ka24 in aftermarket parts? I think there may be like 1 or 2 companies making headgaskets for ka’s
since its only in america only american made companies are supporting it…pooorley…and the sr has every major japanese company makes sr20 parts cause over in japan there like more popular than honda civic’s here. so…
i think that says it all
why does where it’s made have any effect on what aftermarket there is?