Back to basics

So,

The other day, a friend and I where driving around, enjoying the wonderful 90 degree weather here in Sacramento with the windows rolled up and the AC on. We had just finished eating lunch and I started the car back up to head back to work when a loud screech emitted from under my hood.

I immediately turned off the AC and it went away. Turned it back on and it came back. It was obviously a belt issue.

Of course with the nice warm weather, rolling down the windows wasn't really a problem, and once we where moving, it was more than comfortable enough, but the belt issue drove me nuts.

A little back story:

I've had an issue with the compressor loosing bolts randomly. The last time this happened, the compressor was only be held on by one bolt.

The resolution:

So, I went strait to Kragen once I got off of work and asked about the bolts I needed. Of course they had no way of looking them up so I continued home and looked at it myself.

There was still three bolts holding the compressor to the mounting bracket, but a closer inspection showed that I had only one bolt holding the bracket to the motor. By now, the belt was making a constant whining noise and I was starting to become embarrassed to drive my car.

I had, in the past sometime, found a loose bolt and realized its from the bracket. I took that bolt back and purchased four similar as well as a belt.

I attempted to install the additional bolts back into the compressor bracket but was unable to get more than one, with "locktite" on it this time.

I figure that will work well enough until I can get a chance to install the rest. Should be soon.

All in all, it was refreshing to perform normal maintenance/repair on the car. Been a long time since I worked on something that wasn't a part of the stock car :)

Learning Permit acquired!

I have been devouring information from the forums every day, (Mainly http://www.ka-t.org) and reading about anything I could find for setting up a turbo. I have learned many interesting aspects that need to be measured and calculated for the setup I am attempting to build. Below is my current shopping list for the engine and some other aspects of the car I plan to work on. Please leave comments or suggestions. I am always open to ideas and learning.

[XXXXXXXX--]80% - Planning

[----------]0% - Fabrication

I plan to start posting as much information as I can find from the sites I've read. Mainly to securely store it all in one location as well as provide a source for others whom are interested in following the same route. I've noticed that there are a lot of people whom jump on the forums and start posting questions, I myself felt tempted to do the same. That is until I noticed that there was a bit of animosity towards noobs posting simple questions. It wasn't that the question was easy or hard to answer, the frustration from most of the veteran'd users was that the information was already posted somewhere, nested in a thread, and if the new user had done a little bit of searching, they would have been able to answer their own question. I have sat down and read thread after thread on the same subject, spending hours to answer simple basic questions. Thankfully i was able to dedicate the time and enjoy spending time in front of the computer. But for those who would rather grab an answer and head on their way, I hope this blog can assist with that. Also I find a lot of sites that reference photos in their "How to's" but when the page loads, the photos are missing. I hope to be able to repost those photos so we don't loose them to an old, abandoned post.

KA24DE

This is the stock KA24DE on my 95 240sx. Since i acquired the car in 2003 I have had to replace the timing chain, water pump, radiator, and valve cover gasket. As of today, it runs great on the cooler days, bogs down quite a bit on warm summer days, and eats through oil. I haven't done a compression test in a few years but the last time i tested it, #4 was sitting around 135psi, 20psi less than the other three cylinders.

My speedometer broke shortly after purchasing the car, leaving the mileage in 2003 around 135,000. With all the driving I tend to do, i'm assuming I'm over 200,000 at this point.

Current modifications = None, with the exception of a cut air-box, although i'm pretty sure this is limiting my power, not improving it.

Plans = Turbo setup. I plan to pull the engine, rebuild with forged parts, have the head worked on, and set everything up for a T3/T04E 50trim, .63 A/R. I would like to push somewhere between 300 - 400hp, but still maintain daily driving ability. I will be looking into doing the "White Bunny" setup to hold the power and keep my leg from breaking. My average daily miles are 25, leaving me yearly, to and from work, at 6,500 miles. I do like to take it on trips occasionally so I expect my average for a year will be around 8 - 10,000 miles. I hope that the setup I'm working on will be strong enough to not cause many problems driving this much.