Project: Phoenix

[IggyEGuana]

^NOOOOOOO!!!!!! STOP IT!!! no more singles!

[Roof]

yawh, I sold my sohc ka for 100 bucks with tranny.  I'd go with the ca18det fo sho though!  I <3 mine

[sideways_s12]

Lol I still have plans for the single cam so I will continue to collect parts for it.

[tommy]

ca18det bottom for reliability... shouldn't be too hard or expensive to dig out

[deco]

i spent some time kinda braking it all down for my women, she had that blank "what the fuck are you saying" look, you know the one you get everytime you open your mouth about anything in front of someone that is machanically retarded. well i think i convinced myself to stick it out with the et. I am not going to swap out the long block for a quick fix, I am looking at a quick fix but it will start with a crank so if some one can hook me up with just a crank for like cheep or FREE,,,, then I can get this thing back on the road a lil faster. anyway, what I need other than that is a set of rings, barings, and a full gasket set, oh and the crank pulley. with that i plan on doing a nice clean up of the whole motor, a quick mic of the crank,(if needed) a simple drill hone, and then Ill put it back together like that. it may not have the best compression numbers because it may need to be bored out but I know that as long as there isnt any obvious damage, this will work fine, and will likely run another 60k or more miles. hell the motor only had 97k org anyway. so thats were i am at, when I am working again I will work on getting a rebuildable 2nd compleat rebuildable et, and i will work on fortifying it to handle around 225-250. thats about all i want, and because from what i can tell, that isnt really a stretch if you do all the suporting mods and build the bottom end. so anyway for now its onto my parts list. I amlooking for donations here!!!!! no really if you got some shit your going to toss, that looks like it could be used hit me up. The faster I find a crank, the faster another s-12 will be on the road.

[tommy]

Have you tried to put some oil down the plug holes when you did your compression test?? cuz you said the valves looked fine looking under the valve cover, but they can still be bended really bad without being able to see the damage from the top.  That would give you no compression at all... bad rings have to be really really really bad or missing (which I don't expect from a 97k engine) to not be able to give 1psi of compression....

best way to know the states of your valves is to lift the head up... but if you put down some oil in the combustion chamber through the plug holes and numbers get up or you get at least some compression, then you most likely have bad rings, if it doesn't help,  then your valves are bended all the way. 

If you add up the price of a crank (maybe free) but a set of rings, a gasket kit, a set of bearing, a front pulley, then you are speaking of a couple hundred bucks... and if your valves are bended, then you can expect even more.... all of that is probably higher than the price of a decent original bottom end, or a nice det bottom end, if indeed you don't need valves.  If you do, then it would add up to more than what a sohc or even a dohc ka would cost and both have higher numbers stock than the ca18et does, which makes it an upgrade no matter what...

I truly understand your problem here, I have a wife too... but in the end, all that matters to them is the total$$$ at the end of your equation... do the maths, you will not win by rebuilding the ca18et. 

Don't get me wrong, I really like the engine, and brits have pulled 300+ poneys out of them, but it is not a cheap option... ka24 with a simple bellhousing swap will allow you to use your current tranny/driveshat, no modifications required.  It slips on your stock motor mount, and wiring is like 7 spliced wires away... you can pull it off in a weekend on next to no budget, on your own...

[IggyEGuana]

for realies what he said ^

except KAs arent cheao here and the 240 kids have all the junkyard KAs on lockdown

imo either swap out the longblock with either a ca20e or ca18et quick and easy or go full status CA18DET swap. all that work and all those parts are gonna nickel and dime u to death. plus it might not run when ur done cuz the damage could be greater than u think. just snag a ca20!! make a WTB thread. or we can make a drive to socal. i need to go anyways

[Wonderingraven]

well if you wait a few months, I'll be junking my CA20E when I get it here to vegas for something better ;-)

[sideways_s12]

Hey wondering what condition is that ca20? I may have to take it off your hands if deco doesn't want it.

[deco]

well I do 100% both agree and understand you guys. and really at no time have I ever expected that this was going to be a   200$ project with a nice running car at the end. though for right now money is the biggest problem, its not always going to be. I am a union electrician, ya theres no work in vegas, now but this town always turns arownd, and with the fact that none of the casinos have been able to remodel for over 2 years now, when things really start getting better (by the way they reported a >50% increase in revenue for the last quarter) they are all going to start remodling, rebuilding, adding new towers. I make 40 bucks an hour working, when that happens, money stops being a problem. for now the only reason I am trying to find deals on parts or on anything really, is so I know I can get them/ have them, so I can just get started on something. I will be keeping the stock motor, but I will not be keeping it stock, the only thing that will change that for me is if when I do finally pull it, when I open it up if there is a hole or something in one of the cylinder walls, or something that would render it nothing more than a paperweight. I do appreciate your concerns, really I do, but the only reason I ever made this about money is because I dont have any, right now... anyway as for the oil thing, your right about the dry cylinders, never really thought about dumping oil in there to try and get a seal. I also still think its the head, I just dont think its the valves. mane reason is its all 4 cylinders, and if there were bent valves at most it would be like 2, plus I thought this was a non interference motor? anyway when I rotate the cam I checked the rocker arm clearances, and all 8 valves are withen specs. I dont know about any of you but if the valves were bent, i dont think they would close all the way, and that would leave a gap in my rocker lobe clearances wouldnt it? Hell I dont know, Im not even really a mechanic, I like working on cars but I am a hobbyist so I am sure I am way off on a lot of things.

[Wonderingraven]

Yeah that is one thing about vegas, one day there is work for union members and one day there isn't. That is one of the reasons why people love this town, there is always money to be made here, things always to be built, but that CA18et should be an interference motor, so maybe there is something else that happened inside eh? for it to loose the big crank pully like that, something doesn't seem right inside. Maybe things didn't get Torqued right and when it ran it went boom!

But if it gets to the point and you need money, let me know I'll defiantly buy that s12 from you ;-)

@sideways the CA20E I have the head rebuilt already, with all new 8 valve stems and so on, it's like a brand new head. I still have to pull the bottom half and get it resurfaced and rebuild the lower half. I'm saving up for an ca18det right now instead for that s12.

[tommy]

Sorry guys, but the ca18et and the ca20e are both interference engines... as almost every single nissan engines built those days (fj, vg, ka...).  Hell, they even had to develop a special non interference vg30 to drop in the mercury villager/nissan quest, because ford didn't want to have an interference engine in the van....

So yeah, snap the timming belt and you can kiss 4 out of the 8 valve that are in there goodbye... leaving at the best one cylinder untouched, one cyl with both valves out of business and the other 2 cyl with the intake in one and the exhaust in the other bended... pretty sad isn't it... if you only jump a couple of tooth on the timming belt (5 to 10) and both the top end AND the bottom end continue turning, then you can almost kiss all of your valves good bye

[deco]

Very good to know, I'm not sure where I read that it wasn't, and I could have read it wrong, but that tends to make more since because I have contact at certain cam angles. If what the po told me, about the event that killed the motor, was true then id say the valves are for sure shot, and from what you say, if skipped a few teeth and left to run it will kill all the valves, then ya the head would probably be toast. Only problem with that is what the po told me about the events, make no since at all. I really have no reason to beleave what he told me. However, a version of what he said is likely. Anyway I'm not going to try and guess at what could be wrong with it. When I pull the head, ill know. I was really just trying to come up with any other rason why it would lack compression in all 4 cylenders. When I was looking at the car for the first time I remember I was thinking just by looking at the carnage was that when the timing belt was changed at, I think he said 90k they didn't change the tensioner, or it wasn't put back together quite right, and it made the belt slip, once the valves started making contact it could have locked up the crank and julted so hard it snapped the crank pully right off. However, again that's just what I was thinking when I first seen it. Once it came home and I found just how easy it all turned, I kinda had to give that one up. I guess I started thinking it would be one less thing to fix. But I know the truth, its probably shot.

[tommy]

Happened to me too... the timing belt tensionner wasn't replaceby the PO who had just change the timming belt... well I was lucky, the belt jumped 3 tooth, just enough for the engine to shut down going 80 on the highway, but just enough for the valves not to make contact...  open it up, you'll know for sure

[deco]

Ya that's about all I can do, I don't really feel like trying to guess.

[IggyEGuana]

imo I wouldnt try to build the ca18et for power. 3 reasons

the head flows for shit

it doesnt rev (cuz of valve train)

the ecu will NEVER be able to keep up no matter what. the TPS isnt a potentiometer that sends 0-5v, its just a WOT switch. SAFC is useless on it cuz of the TPS

oh and the rods are a lot thinner than the dohc CAs so 4 reasons :p

imo either do MILD upgrades for modest power (below 200whp) or swap to ca18det, mod that and go make 300+ all day

[sideways_s12]

Safc is not totally useless I started getting better readings when I took a crap load of fuel out just took a lil longer then I wanted and then wound up stretching the head bolts and then the ecu took a shit on me lol....

[tommy]

Dohc bottom end on a sohc can get you to 300+ hp, but it won't be as cheap as using the complete dohc engine... if you want to keep it more "original" though, it would be the way to go...

Megasquirt for fuel and spark management and a nice big turbo + a way of reducing air intake temperature (meth injection or I/C) would easily get you in the 200+ range on a nice bottom end (read dohc here ) for more than that, you'll have to dig deep in your pockets and start working on the top end, replacing every single things in there, but no matter how big you oversize the valves or port the head, you'll never approach the kind of flow that the dohc head can give you, in fact, I believe that a stock ca dohc head can outflow almost any worked ca sohc head, almost...

[IggyEGuana]

and on top of that the dohc REVs much higher. 2000 rpm higher. that equals a lot of difference in CFM and you need that CFM to make power

[JuneBug]

I am a union electrician

Holy Shit.  Never thought I'd find anther IBEW member here in Vegas who is also into S12's.  I know what you're talking about with the whole work picture and everything.   I'm a first year wireman apprentice.  I was a second year low voltage tech apprentice, but the work picture was so bad they let some of us switch over.  I was laid off for a year before finally going back to work last October.  Totally fucked my S12 plans.  Currently have 2 s12's, an 84 Turbo that i picked up for next to nothing and an 85 hatch that I started a ka24e swap on.