Nissan 240SX SR20DET Engine Swap Guide Part 2

October 22, 2011 | DIY Tech | Tune2Win | Comments (3)

Refer to Part 1 for SR20DET engine prep

PART 2

KA24DE ENGINE REMOVAL

Before we actually begin extracting the KA motor, it’s nice to remove the hood since its going to be in the way most of the time. Four bolts and it’s off.

See how much more light and room there is with the hood off?

Next we threw the car up on jack stands. This obviously makes it easy to get underneath the car whenever we need to.

Drain all the fluids before you begin anything else.

Don’t forget the transmission fluid!

Disconnecting the battery should be next on your list.

We had an AEM intake on the car so it came out rather easily. If you have a stock intake, then you may need to loosen a few more bolts.

Below the throttle body there are 3 vacuum lines that can be disconnected now. They lead to the charcoal canister, which you can also remove.

The header is held on by 8 nuts. However, if you have a stock header than you will have to disconnect an additional pipe that runs to the back of the header. It’s from the EGR and can be a pain to get free if it’s rusted. Worst case just cut it since you won’t be reusing it.

Loosen the two nuts and bolts that link the cat and the header.

There are two o2 sensors that should be removed. This will ensure you’re able to easily remove the header without the sensors snagging on anything.

The header can now be pulled out from the top

A quick pause in the action. We’ve just begun but the motor looks pretty bare already.

The engine wiring harness is one long harness and if you follow it along and disconnect all the plugs and grounds you should be able to remove it off to the side of the engine bay. We’ll get back to it later.

The throttle cable and cruise control cable are disconnected next.

Disconnect the brake booster vacuum tube.

Using two 10mm wrenches loosen the bolts on the fan. Then just let the fan hang inside the shroud.

Remove the top and bottom rad hoses along with the two mounting brackets holding the radiator in place.

Holding onto the fan, slowly slide the entire rad assembly up and out of the engine bay.

The cruise control system won’t work with the SR so it can be completely removed.

The power steering lines are pretty simple to disconnect. One big nut and one worm clamp need to be removed.

Mark the fuel lines before you disconnect them.

The two heater hoses are located just below the intake manifold. There will be a bit of rad fluid that spills out when you disconnect the hoses so have a pan to catch the fluid underneath.

The other electrical harness that needs to be disconnected is the lower engine harness that runs to the alternator and transmission. Almost all the plugs are located beside the fuse panel.

Jumping underneath, if you have A/C and plan on keeping it then you’ll need to remove the compressor from the engine and set it aside in the engine bay. You don’t have to disconnect any of the lines. Mine was a little oily to say the least!

To drop the driveshaft, this bracket has to be lowered. You don’t have to take it off completely, just remove the bolts from one side so the shaft can slide out.

Pull your parking brake up and then loosen the nuts that hold the rear of the shaft to the differential. On stock shafts there is a middle carrier bearing that is held in place by two bolts. Remove them.

The drive shaft should slide out of the transmission quite easily.

Inside the car, you’ll need to remove all the trim around the shifter and the rubber boot to expose the bolts to the shifter assembly.

You can get to four of the bolts from the top and then the two hidden ones from below. Once they are all out, remove the shifter assembly. Note that to get at the hidden bolts you’ll want to drop the transmission as shown in the steps below.

Loosen the 4 large bolts holding the transmission cross member and the two small ones that hold the mount to the cross member.

Support the transmission with a jack and remove the cross member.

Slide forward just a bit and disconnect the slave clutch cylinder.

Now it’s onto the front engine mounts. There’s just one nut holding the engine onto the mount. Remove that nut on each side.

It’s almost time to yank the engine and trans out, which means it’s time to move the engine hoist into place and attach it to the engine.

There are a variety of pickup points that you can hook a hoist chain onto. We chose the engine mount on the exhaust side.

On the other side we ran the chain under the intake manifold.

It’s go time! But before you start hoisting the engine up, double check to see if there’s anything still connected to the motor or trans.

You may need a jack underneath to guide the transmission forward so that it doesn’t tilt down too much, which will result in bent or kinked power steering lines and a difficult time getting the motor out.

Slowly raise the engine and guide it out. Keep a close eye on the front and firewall as the engine will typically get snagged in those spots.

Slide the KA out of the way and pat yourself on the back, you are a third of the way to SR power!

ELECTRICAL HARNESS

Remove the passenger-side kick panel. You’ll find the ECU located there.

Remove all the nuts and bolt holding the ECU into place. Then disconnect the ECU from the harness.

Look deep into the area where you just removed the ECU and you’ll see a large plug (M63) with a grey tab locking it in. Move that tab up. This will unlock the plug and allow you to disconnect it.

There will be two blue relays beside the large plug that you just disconnected. They are attached to the main harness so you’ll have to remove them from the chassis as well and take them off their plugs

This is what your harness should like now.

Inside the engine bay along the firewall, to the left you’ll see where the engine harness is routed (through a grommet) into the interior of the car. Pull on it a bit to pop the grommet out.

With the help of a friend, slowly feed the harness up into the engine bay until it all comes out.

That’s a lot of wires, you won’t be needing the KA harness anymore so set it aside.

NOTE – We had our SR/KA conversion harness built by a reputable shop but you can order a premade harness from http://www.wiringspecialties.com/

The alternative is to do it yourself. It’s really not that hard and I have provided several links if you plan on doing the job yourself.

S14 sr into S14 http://zilvia.net/f/tech-talk/209158-how-s14sr-into-s14-chassis.html

S13 sr into S14 http://www.frsport.com/SR20DET-Swap-Engine-Harness-Wiring-Diagram-Guide-SR-SR20_t_26.html

S14 sr into S13 http://www.mestiso.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=428

By now you'd have removed the SR harness off the engine and you’ll do the exact opposite of what you did with the KA harness. Feed it through the same hole.

You may encounter snags like this plastic holder but just cut it off so it’ll fit through the hole.

And just as quickly as the KA harness came out, you’ll have the SR harness back in.

Plug everything back in. This includes the main M63 plug and the two relays.

Grab the old KA ECU and pull the mounting bracket off of it and transfer it onto the SR ECU.

Bolt the SR ECU in behind the kick panel area and voila, it looks just like stock!

Refer to Part 3:  SR20DET Installation for the final swap steps.

October 22, 2011 | DIY Tech | Tune2Win | Comments (3)