Emulsion VM

Vol 3

CA18det Build Progress

This year has been pretty rough so far all things considered, however this CA18 build goes on! This page will update as I make more progress towards finalizing the swap into my s13, and I plan continue adding additional updates post-swap for anything interesting directly relating to this engine swap, and if you are reading this- Thank you for following with me on this journey!

Here's from back in January (2025), sitting on the stand with the oem harness still attatched.. Although I could have at this point just done a basic check, swap hoses out, and extend the harness to call it a day, this was the point where I had to decide exactly how far I wanted to go with this engine.

I knew for certain that I wanted at the very least for this thing to sound good, which requires ditching the oem log style manifold for a tubular one! Not for any power gains as the factory one does just fine, but a mani like this is one of the best things you can do to an engine like this to really change its note.

While I waited on a good time to start the dissasembly and was buying up parts, went ahead and mocked up the new manifold on the stock T25 Turbo so it looked pretty in the shop and gave me some motivation.

Here I finally start the tear down! both manifolds off, and timing cover off giving a first glance into the timing setup on one of these. The belt seemed like it was still fine, but I was betting on that being around 30 year old now and worth replacing. The timing gears are a little rusted over from sitting so I decided to give them a clean.

Entire front cover now off and getting a good look at the timing belt tensioner and idler pulleys, which do rotate, but with it at this stage I felt why risk a failure here that could be catastrophic and just buy new some ones.

Once the head was off I could get a good look at the cylinder walls... could be worse, but from sitting for so long there was some concerning rust pitting beginning to eat away, so this needed a good hone to get all cleaned up.

Wasn't too thrilled with the verical lines seen here, but they cleaned up nicely.

Annnd Heres the head, actually in really good shape!

Took some time to clean up the harmonic balancer, I will be reusing this, although I would like to find a good replacement in the future.

All of the fluids drained, pistons out, started cleaning the deck surface while I waited on the head to be worked on at the machine shop for a basic once over.

Started getting all of that rust off these cam gears.

And all clean and painted!

Pistons cleaned up and prepped with new rings and bearings!

Nothing flashy but figured a factory ECU from a ps13 silvia/rs13 180sx would be more than enough to break in the motor with and keep me from doing anything too crazy in the short term while I deal with any potential issues post-swap.

Cylinder head is back from the machine shop! all clean and checked out good! just decked it a little to get it flat.

Because I will be running oem rods and pistons for now, a T28 off an S14 silvia seems like the upgrade to go with in the event I overboost on a larger setup or get a little too excited adjusting a boost controller- this one has a little more play than I'd like, but its going to go in for now and pray its not in dire need of a rebuild.

Pistons are back in! Like mentioned before- new rings, and rod bearings are in, which is much more love than what I put into my KA.

Always neat seeing the SR sitting next to it while the CA is under the knife.

Cylinder Head is back on! started prepping the top covers for paint, shot primer on the left one here. We have a few other projects happening at the same time at the shop, the 65 Falcon on the lift with its engine out for an overhaul and the 70 Charger for a few maintenance jobs.

Little Ceasars and Taco bell are the diet of the proletariet.

Fuel Injectors out, these I am looking to have tested and cleaned out to prevent any issues on first start since they have been sitting for a long time.

Intake manifold on, regasketed a lot of this, and began working on replacing and researching where all of the coolant and vacuum lines go. This engine is a JDM 8 Port CA18det, which means it has the butterfly valves in the intake runners controlled by a vacuum canister which was thankfully included when I picked this thing up. so that got all new hoses, praying that works...

Accessories on, most of the hoses are all routed, primered both of the top valve covers (mistakenly different primer so this was redone)

At this point I released a video on the YT channel giving an update on how this CA is coming along, not quite as in depth but shows some more of the process. You can watch it here if interested

New timing belt tensioner and idler pulley arrived from Lithuania! It was at this point I realized the cams were way off the TDC timing marks I thought they were at, after some tinkering with it branson helped me get the timing all set and I don't think the valves were damaged from this. Also note: the head is now torqued down with ARP Head Studs, which are known to have a weird issues with the front stud above the water pump extending further than the rest. I installed them as normal with no extra washer or cutting any material off as it seems no one on facebook or the forums can decide what the right way of dealing with this is.

My paint for the valve covers finally came in, so time to take the front cover off to begin prep work and reprimer the top covers to be ready for paint.

Attempting to do a lace paint job, it came out alright.

Final form of the Front timing cover.

Finished valve covers.

The paint I wound up using was some silver metal flake, then a can of Honda Jazz Ice Blue, and laced with some GM blue metallic from the parts store, topped with a bunch of 2k clear.