KAs are stout motors made by Nissan, designed more for torque than peak power. That being said, they're pretty robust and can take a good beating as long as it's well-maintained and properly prepared. Same can be said for any motor that's used and abused for racing.
BUT when you have a motor that wasn't designed for boost when it was produced AND when you don't prep that motor to handle it, you get (K-A)-B-O-O-M when you push it beyond its limits. Get it?
So when the KA blew due to the piston ring lands cracking yet again, I knew right then and there that I was very, very dumb and utterly stupid because I should have done what I was now forced to do in the first place: RACE-BUILT MOTOR. .
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| Stock piston & rod on left, new beefy hardware on right. That nice, curved piece of metal-chunk is what broke on the stock pistons, UGH. |
This race-rebuild consisted of lower compression forged pistons, beefy rods, ARP head studs all installed in slightly overbored and honed block. Took about 2 weeks to fully put together from the motor being pulled, disassembled, then reassembled to dropping the motor back into the car. And we fired it up the Friday right before practice on Saturday too! Impressive yes no?
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| The finished race-prepped KA24DET |
To move things along and not dwell on details of the motor (which I might do in another post), we ran it with the timing retarded purposely to make sure the break-in went smoothly. Issues were only minor: a small oil leak (which was coming from where the oil feed line connects to the oil pressure sending unit) and a fully stuck open blow off valve that caused my car to not hold idle and die. That forced me to buy a shiny new HKS blow off valve to make things work. For race day, we bumped up the timing a few more degrees and ended up placing 7th in the first event back since blowing the motor. Not bad for getting a motor rebuilt and running just in time for the next championship but I myself was just happy I made it.
So from April on until the end of the of the year, the rest of the season went regular as usual in that things didn't go my way: An endless cycle of drivers came into and out of class for whatever reason and that didn't help my championship bid since valuable points got gobbled up by them... another 2 race co-drive stint with my former co-driver of last year didn't go as planned since he beat me in my own car... And finally, my added status and weight of club rep responsibilities took up more of my resources and concentration which I found to be taxing at times but I worked through it.
I had talked about this past year of racing with one of my good friends who then asked me: "Man, this is the 3rd year straight you've competed and still no championship jacket?! You must be frustrated and angry, I bet..."
Yup, it has been a straight 3 years of competing full-time in autocross and what I have to show for it is two 2nd place finishes and this past year's 4th place finish in the yearly championship. Some would say that's really good but to me, it's not. Lady luck has not smiled on me that favorably these past 3 years unfortunately...frustrating is an understatement, disappointing is more like it. Ah well.
Despite it all though, I had fun....despite being frustrated and downright dejected at times during the season, I still managed to put a smile on and laugh about it, carry on.
I raced hard and raced the best I could with what I was given...I guess that's all anyone could ever ask for.
SO, onwards to 2013 and hopefully this time I can finally claim a championship jacket.
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| So long 2012, bring on 2013! (Pic by http://members.fotki.com/makofoto/) |
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