K swap FRS : Freddy McShreddy part deux

captainawesome said:

Got what I think may be some good news. I'm not a huge fan of F-book but it has it's upsides. Marketplace and auto enthusiast groups. I joined a twins K swap group for obvious reasons and after seeing what may be a monumental time suck for auto to manual wiring harness swaps I decided to pick the minds of others blazing the trail. It sounds like I can keep both the chassis harness (engine bay) and the dash harness that comes with my donor car. One fellow said I will probably need to swap out the auto VDC module for a manual one but that's about it other than hard parts like pedal assembly, trans, clutch slave/master, etc.

This could potentially save me HOURS of work and a good chunk of money as well. Not going to do a full dance celebration just yet, but there is hope. I'll take it.

 

Now, on to some of the options available for this whole swap. I kinda touched on this before, but I would like to lay out a few options of how I or someone else could tackle it.

1. Pure Motorsport engine and trans mount kit which uses solid delrin bushings. NVH is probably going to be bonkers. The kit is about $500 which isn't too bad, but for what you get I think I'd rather do scratch made and uses stock motor mounts. Then use the 2nrs adapter plate for an s2000 trans for $280. A flywheel from 2nrs which I believe is Clutchmasters for $500. The clutch is another $500 roughly. Custom made drive shaft is needed, and from what I understand this moves the shifter back enough a custom gear selector is needed. Almost forgot an s2000 trans cost which is around $600-1000 depending on where you look. Still need some wiring harness work and either a Haltech or a piggy back Hondata or similar I believe.

2. Custom engine/trans mount brackets using stock rubber mounts in stock location. Collins adapters makes a trans adapter plate and flywheel combo to keep the stock FRS trans. Don't know what clutch disc is used for that kit as it's not mentioned or included, but the flywheel pics looks like some off the shelf unit. That leads me to believe there is some info out there that could lead to a cheaper solution for that. Still need custom driveshaft, and I believe this will still cause a need for a shifter location. Same stand alone or piggy back solution needed.

3. TF Works has some adapter solutions as well. There are about 4 or more sources for adapters in various different transmission configurations.

4. Just get the whole enchilada from Kpower for what I assume to be around $7-8k which still isn't including Haltech, k24 donor, or upgraded oil pump. There will be various stage options available so maybe there are some areas that can be dropped from the list.

Hope to get everything cleared from the engine bay after a few hours of attic organization. Gotta have space for the stuff I'm pulling. So excited to get going on this.

 

 

I have a k24 tsx, it has very soft motor mounts, I tried to stiffen them up and went back to stock as the vibration was unreasonable. I would recommend not using solid bushings with this engine. I read opinions on hard motor mounts before I filled the voids with urethane and dismissed them: I tore it all out before I even ran a tank of gas through the car- it was that bad.

I'm a fan of all engine trans combos- remember some fwd manual transmissions operate without pilot bushing support, so I would be curious how necessary a custom setup really is. 

In reply to daytonaer :

FWD transmissions' input shafts are usually the full length of the trans, carrying all five/six/seven gears on its length and supported by three or four bearings.

RWD transmissions' input shafts are usually just a shaft with one gear on it, suppported by only one bearing.  A pilot bearing is necessary to keep the shaft from gyrating.

Older cars took advantage of this and had manufacturing tolerances for bellhousing alignment that would stack up to .020-.030" off of concentric, and quite a bit out of plane, too, because the input shaft could accomodate that.

Looking forward to following this. 

Another thought on the clutch disc: I seem to recall the FR-S transmission comes from the lineage of the Aisin AZ6 family, so as far as I know, it shares some DNA with the JDM Altezza 6-speed J160 (which shares spline dimensions with the Toyota W58) along with the RX-8 6-speed, and the Nissan S15 6-speed. Perhaps one of these might yield a possible source for off-the-shelf discs, center spline depending, of course.

Oh man, what a great combo. Killer Honda motor and a great RWD chassis. This will be fun to watch come together.

Is this gonna get boosted? I hope so. Turbo k is even awesomer. 

In reply to Carbon (Forum Supporter) :

If boosted probably would lean towards supercharged. The laggy side of turbos kill the fun of power for me. Something linear is fine though. Honestly the less complicated the better. I can run this NA without it being strung out and still be up on power compared to a fully modded NA fa20 by about 20-40hp.

Well I'm definitely interested in seeing where this goes.  I think my formula would be the cheap ungodly NVH mounts with the stock trans, but it depends what you're doing with the car.

Watching. 

I managed to find a local guy that has a new k24 clutch kit I can use for mockup. I doubt it has the proper clutch disc I need, but fingers crossed it could have everything to take some quick measurements. Also have a buddy that is putting a new clutch kit in his so I can have his old one if the other kit needs returned before I can get all my mockup finished.

Unfortunately the car won't be here until Friday. Transporter is picking it up as I type this, and it sounds like it meets my expectations so that's good.

Going to look at an FRS trans this morning I think for only $200 that's local. Hope it's worth snatching up as it will save me money and time. Also hope they have more parts I'm looking for but if not shipping on these smaller items are fairly inexpensive.

As much as I want to get cracking on this project, I don't want to waste a bunch of money. Gotta try to employ patience and practice problem solving that doesn't involve my wallet. My previous FRS I kinda just let loose of funds and I don't want to do that with this one. I'm going to try to do this the GRM way and figure it out, however long that may take. Famous last words.

In reply to daytonaer :

Torque arm damper might be a worth a shot. The Ingalls/Dorman is NLA (546-519). Mild NVH increase (say--to corolla/civic of the same vintage). Driveline slop(namely the 1-2 shift is greatly improved). My wife said to keep it on when I asked her if she preferred it on or off.

A little catch up on this one. Thursday I received the car. It's great in many ways and falls short a bit in others. The interior is pretty disgusting with so much smegma on the steering wheel and driver side switch gear. There were finger nail clippings and worst of all what looked like a toe nail. Gross. Dog hair all over, including the headliner. A little elbow grease can sort that out for the most part.

The exterior was looking great at first glance. All the body looked newly painted from what I could tell which I didn't expect. I knew there was a brand new bumper on the car, as it was mentioned his buddy was the owner before him with an aftermarket one. He wasn't a fan so had a stock one installed. From what I can see though I think the passenger side saw some damage at some point. All superficial, but enough to replace the fender and possibly some rocker work. The bumper looked to have the common sag, but I noticed it wasn't snapping into the bracket below the headlights. More investigation would be needed.

I also noticed there was no driver side fender liner and some damage to the fender in the marker light area. Uggh. To make matters worse, when I rolled the car into the garage I noticed a few hail dings on the hood, roof, and trunk. Gasp. Time to try out one of those dent puller kits as I think PDR may be more than I want to budget in.

On to the good stuff. Under the car is flawless. Zero mangled panels, dents, rust, and best of all stock EVERYTHING. Nothing has been touched. Sort of. There are some Swift Sport springs installed on the stock dampers and an aftermarket Works axleback muffler. He kindly included a stock newer muffler so I don't have to suffer the horrible noise.

Engine definitely knocks. No saving that puppy.

The extra wheels that came with the car are trashed. He said they should be repairable, but that's a stretch. Two tires were trash. Two are okay and happen to be the same brand/size as my Audi so maybe I'll use them as spares? Or just send them down the road super cheap to get outta my way.

All in all I probably overpaid for the car. All of the items appear to be fixable but was a bit of a let down. For a minute I contemplated fixing the car, selling it for a few bucks, and then finding another to start with. That idea sucks, so I'm just going to make this car work. So onward we go.

Now that the car is here I can get the skank out of it. A few minutes with a shop vac, hazmat suit, and some cleaner helped out quite a bit. The steering wheel is too far gone unfortunately. I saw a cheap used one a few weeks back, and it happened to still be up for grabs so it's on the way. If things work out well I should be able to sell the airbag from the grimy one to cover the cost of replacement and a few extra bucks for a bag of beef jerky.

I pulled the stock wheels to check out each corner for any chassis damage. My main concern was the passenger side since it appeared to have some recent work done. The clues for work done was the fender had no VIN tag/sticker. Under the car you can see spot welds on the passenger side closest to the wheel well that weren't painted after the work was done. I'll probably mask off and spray when the car is up on cribbing blocks. All in all things look really nice, so I swapped out my aftermarket wheels for some visual stimulation.

The bumper mystery was bugging me, so I pulled to inspect. It looks like someone cut half of the brackets away under the headlights. Cheap and easy fix luckily. None of the factory core support structure shows signs of repair which is a huge relief. With the bumper off I figured it was a good time to do some power washing. Gotta start with a clean slate before turning a wrench. I'll go over the engine bay again after the fa20 and auto trans is pulled, but this was a good start. The metal undertray appears to have been collecting some oil for quite some time. A million leaves and mounds of crap everywhere. Especially on in the driver side fender area. Really glad I bought the cheap power washer last year as it made quick work of everything.

Parts are being collected for the manual trans swap and slowly trickling in. Lots of funds are required to carry on much further, so this could slow to a crawl while I wait on the turbo Miata to sell. In the meantime I'll keep trucking along and tinker on the stuff I can do while we wait.

Pics post wash. I didn't completely fasten the bumper back as I'll need to pull it again soon for engine removal and installing proper bumper brackets.

I still need to do some work around the trunk hinges. Pretty bad back there.

Looking forward to seeing this happen! The twins are tempting to me, just haven't quite come down to the price range that I can spontaneously buy one. hahaha. Good thing is by the time that is the case, you'll have all the K swap kinks worked out! Though personally I'm interested in a J swap. 

AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) said:

Looking forward to seeing this happen! The twins are tempting to me, just haven't quite come down to the price range that I can spontaneously buy one. hahaha. Good thing is by the time that is the case, you'll have all the K swap kinks worked out! Though personally I'm interested in a J swap. 

I really like the Frisbees, but the insurance rates are eye watering. Also very much enjoying this thread. Will be following along.

In reply to clutchsmoke :

What is the insurance like?  I'm currently on $1930/year for full coverage on the Volvo.

clutchsmoke said:

AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) said:

Looking forward to seeing this happen! The twins are tempting to me, just haven't quite come down to the price range that I can spontaneously buy one. hahaha. Good thing is by the time that is the case, you'll have all the K swap kinks worked out! Though personally I'm interested in a J swap. 

I really like the Frisbees, but the insurance rates are eye watering. Also very much enjoying this thread. Will be following along.

I pay $780.50 for full coverage on my FR-S.  Of course that's through AARP, I'm sure if you're under 25 it will be a lot higher.

I don't recall it being expensive on my previous FRS, but would have to check old statements to confirm.

Weird. Last time I checked on BRZ it was going to be a jump from $1200 to $2200/yr. Now it would be a jump from $950-$1200/yr. Not to bad. One perk of getting older...

In reply to clutchsmoke :

That and a multicar discount can help save a few bucks.

Speaking of saving a few bucks, a buddy of mine found a red 13 FRS with 150k miles and knocking engine. Overall a really well kept car from what I gather and at the price of only $3000. Clean title too. Makes me wish I waited for a cheaper donor, but c'est la vie.

captainawesome said:

I don't recall it being expensive on my previous FRS, but would have to check old statements to confirm.

Insurance on my 135i was cheaper by about $25/month here in OK than my BRZ with State Farm.

So before tearing out the old knocker I wanted to get a good idea on where and how much weight loss will be seen. This current weight is with a Works axle back resonated/non muffler noise maker, a smidge over 1/4 tank of fuel, and the aftermarket wheels. Still missing the driver fender liner but I don't think that will make enough of a difference. I also notated weight with me in it. Obviously this can fluctuate with my eating habits, but anything I can measure and compare later sounds like fun.

I designed and developed mounts (and a cheap, modified oil pan) for a Kswap into a frs several years ago for a friends company, then another company albeit with a much larger honda following came out with mounts about a year after that and pretty much we dont move as much as originally anticipated.

In reply to malibuguy :

Are they still available for purchase? Where can I check them out? I'm still waffling about making my own, but mainly only because nothing out there is using stock mounts or at least something with enough NVH consideration. I messaged TF Works last night about just their engine mounts but haven't got a response yet.

So manual trans parts have been slowly showing up, and the last pieces dropped in yesterday minus a few shifter console bushings. What I scrounged up is a 6 speed trans from an FRS, 3rd pedal assembly, clutch master assembly, manual trans ABS pump, a shifter bracket thing, and manual driveshaft to get shortened. I was quoted $125 to shorten and balance a two piece from a local shop. That sounds reasonable to me, and a maximum 3 day turnaround. When bolting the pedal assembly to master I noticed the clutch safety switch is missing. That sent me down a spiral because I realized the automatic harness won't or shouldn't have a provision for either of the two sensors. Will it effect cruise control? Will I need to swap the dash harness like I originally thought? Can I splice in just those connectors and save myself the hassle? Not sure yet to any of those questions, but at this point I think the best course of action is to wait and see if there are problems before getting too crazy. I'm hoping it's a non issue.

For those that want to know the cost for all of the above it was $626.44 including shipping and taxes. Piecing it all together ended up being cheaper than going through one parts place. I found the trans on ebay showing it available for pickup about 10 minutes away from my office. Looks to be in good condition, so hopefully that gamble pays off. Others are charging $500 plus, so the $241.45 for one without the shifter console seemed like an okay deal.

I also received a follow up email from Collins Adapters. They will be using the k starter, and something I never thought of to solve the slave cylinder problem. If you mount the stock slave cylinder to the bellhousing it will try to occupy the same space as the k24 block even with the bellhousing adapter. So their solution is a bracket that moves the slave away from the block and a recommended 1/4 needs removed from the pushrod. I like this. No need to run a hydraulic throwout bearing, and still keeps everything with off the shelf parts. I can also see the pilot support bearing in the pics which confirms my previous assumptions.