I think many people could do with putting a turbo on a higher mileage KA because they are bound to screw up. It may be wise to save the nice low k’s motor for when you have all the bugs worked out. Unless you are one of the few who actually take your time, research and do it right.
get an old crappy KA, for next to nothing.
open it up and put some fresh internals in her, a new headgasket, some arp studs, then bolt your turbo on and get your AFR’s right… yay nice KA-T
if you bolt a turbo on an engine with 150,000 or more then dont expect it to last very long
No, I think that’s the mentality of the majority of people actually doing it.[/quote]
I always thought that if someone wanted to invest a lot of money in a proper turbo setup, they wouldn’t bother with KA’s… simply because 90% of these motors have tons of km’s on them… on top of that, they were never meant to be boosted in the first place.
Anyone with a little of bit of money who wants to a turbo setup will try to build an SR, RB or a CA… all three were turbo charged from the factory and have plenty of potential.
I still think that KA-T guys want the cheapest setup possible and not necessarily a one that will last or be reliable… of course there’s always exceptions to that, but I’m talking about majority of the people.
Heres food for thought for you KA bashers.
I ran a compression test on my motor 2 evenings ago. I rebuilt my KAE that had 160k km on it back to stock specs. I put 12k km on the rebuilt motor, 10k of which I was running 8psi with a crappy tune, and beat the shit out of it.
cyl 1: 168psi
cyl 2: 175psi
cyl 3: 173psi
cyl 4: 175psi
My Felpro valve seals bit the dust, bottom end is mint.
Thank you have a nice day,
Andrew.
You don’t beat your car anyways. Has ANYONE been in this car when it’s being driven hard?? I have asked for you to run me several times or take me for a spin to at least DEMONSTRATE some KA-T power, no dice.
anyone else?
But aren’t you on motor number 2?[/quote]
First engine was blown when we swapping to s13 cams, not due to the fact that it was a turbo car.
You don’t beat your car anyways. Has ANYONE been in this car when it’s being driven hard?? I have asked for you to run me several times or take me for a spin to at least DEMONSTRATE some KA-T power, no dice.
anyone else?[/quote]
Several times? I wouldn’t call once several times.
I’ll run your rsx in the spring when my car comes back out if your gonna whine about it. I could care less if my car is the fastest car on the street.
we should arrange a day in the summer where a bunch of us go to cayuga and have KA-T vs SR runs…
shut you all up! haha
You don’t beat your car anyways. Has ANYONE been in this car when it’s being driven hard?? I have asked for you to run me several times or take me for a spin to at least DEMONSTRATE some KA-T power, no dice.
anyone else?[/quote]
Several times? I wouldn’t call once several times.
I’ll run your rsx in the spring when my car comes back out if your gonna whine about it. I could care less if my car is the fastest car on the street.[/quote]
once? lol… yah… once a week!!! so is there even one member on this board that’s seen your car run 1/4 mile or been inside it while it’s being ripped?
Bring it to the track in the spring and see how fast you are.
I’d be down for that for sure! theres gonna be lots of really quick 240s this season and we would have a great great representation if we brougth down like 6 low 12sec high 11sec 240s!!
ill put stock suspension and get some brand new drag radials on 16’s or 15’s just for the event boys! 11s here I come braaaa koshh braaaa
the reason why i wanna go ka-t is because it’s so much cheaper. i got my manifold, turbo, wastegate, bov, intercooler all from ssautochrome, cost me under $1000 cad.
check the latest issue of SCC and you will all be skooled and or pwned and or proven wrong.
http://www.son240sx.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18727
s’all bout the kat y0!
Not to say that anything they are saying in that magazine is wrong or right,
but just because SCC prints something, doesn’t mean its the definitive answer.
^^^^^
Don’t believe anything you read in magazines … or at least think it’s gospel. Just like the internet. Sure, some guy on a forum somewhere has squeezed X amount of power from a KAT, that deosn’t mean yours will, or that his ever really did. There’s guys out there that have built 800 hp 1.3L … does that mean we should all buy them?
:roll:
I can’t believe after how many years this still is an issue?
“KAs don’t like boost …”
That’s retarded. A motor has no likes or dislikes, stop talking about machinery like it cares.
“Oooohh they’re way too high compression!”
Yup … it’s scary to think of a turbocharged 9.5:1 motor. Could you miagine if the fastest turbo cars in the world tried to run 9.5:1 compression? Jeeeebus, imagine a 4G63 with 9.5:1 compression? In case you haven’t figured it out yet, all 4G63s are 9.5:1 compression.
Static compression has very little to do with boost, but why bother getting into that here, again?
The only real issue with the KA are the ring lands on the piston. They are set too high, so under boost, all that positive pressure is directed right at the rings. Doesn’t take much to blow by them, or shatter them.
Most KA-Ts blow due to the simple fact that the people that are putting them together are ninnies, bought their kits online off more ninnies, use the worst possible combination of parts/fuel control imagineable, that they’ve slapped onto a 200,000km motor.
These so-called weaknesses would kill an SR, RB, CA, whatever just as quickly as a KAT.
Slapping a turbocharger on a non-turbo motor is not exactly something new.
Here’s a quick couuple lessons on why peoples’ motors blow
ONSET OF POWER
This is something that 99.9% of the time gets left out. It’s also the same reason you can’t just give a 1000hp shot of nitrous to a 100hp engine and make 1100hp.
If you take a T4 and slap it on a motor like the KA that doesn’t move much air in the first place …
It goes beyond lag … so don’t start.
When the power hits, it will hit hard. If you look at a dyno graph of a turbo car next to an NA car, you will notice something very different about the power curve. The NA one is more gradual and linear.
Even if they both make the same peak horsepower, the stress is very different.
If I gradually ease a 200lb weight into your hands, you could probably take it. If I dropped it into your hands, it would break both your arms.
The harder you drive it, the more stress you put on the engine, and more specifically fasteners and bearings.
At 200,000km, your bearings and rod bolts aren’t exactly factory fresh. Everything stretches a little, bearings wear out etc etc
And no amount of fuel control can help you.
Turbo Selection
Why people opt for T3/4 turbos on a non-turbo block is beyond me. Yes the KA is stout, but it isn’t invincible. KA guys are running turbos that would scare SRs. The KA head also moves less air than the highport SR, so regardless of the motor’s personal preference (or displacement) it shouldn’t be given a bigger turbo.
Do you want to make horsepower on the dyno or do you want a fast car? A KA with a nice 50 trim T3, or even T25/28 would be all you’d ever want or need. Just because a car makes a lot of peak power (with the timing so retarded it wouldn’t even be allowed into the special olympics, 130 octane fuel) you would get owned on the street or any track with turns by a car with 2/3 the power.
And it makes very little sense to me. Why would you want a 500hp car that will get showed up by a 325hp car?
Pick a turbo that actually compliments the characteristics of your motor. The KA makes all of its power before 6,000 rpm. So why blueprint a setup where the power is really starting to come on when your motor is done for the day?
T3/4 turbos are horribly inefficient … like 42%. What they are good for is dishing out tons of air if you spin them hard enough, IE 20 psi.
At 7-8 you’re barely (if even) above the surge limit of the turbo.
You’d be much faster with a smaller freer spinning unit. And it would cost less to begin with.
FS: T3/T4 turbo 
Heh, and not since the rage of NA Honda tuning has a 270whp car graced the cover of SCC.
Heh … and he used a diesel turbo.
Pretty smart build too.
ive never ownded turbo and never considered it until recently but mr200’s article made a lot of sense to me. maybe thats just me toh. keep the write ups coming. to me their gold. 
Matt