Ca18Det Into Xe7X Discussion

[Locky.]

Hi guys, I'm fairly new here. I am soon to begin a CA18DET conversion to My KE70 and every night I have been on all the toyota forums searching for hints and tips on how people have done the conversion but, I haven't found one thread that was very helpful.

 

So I thought I would start a thread here where all the questions can be asked and hopefully only correct, helpful answers are given.

 

I know that there are redily available fitting kits on the market and it's not the installation I am interested in.. that's the easy part! What I would like to know is:

 

- what radiator have people used and what mods were required (if any)

- how the loom was adapted

- what was done for a tail shaft? custom made or bits and pieces of other shafts put together?

 

If any other people have any questions, feel free to post them here and people, please don't post "hear say" information, only post info from first hand experience.

 

Cheers, Locky.

[7FOUR7]

I'm using an s13 rad that I picked up for $40 on ebay, just going to weld custom brackets onto it.

[ke70dave]

did this conversion in my mates 86 a few years back. exact same as the ke70.

 

We used the standard ae86 radiator, it held up fine, even on the track (drifting so only short bursts of go go). ae86 rad is a bit bigger than the ke70 rad. i hear the s13 radiator is a good fit, but its going to have to be custom mounted.

 

the loom is VERY easy to adapt, but you are going to need to study the ecu pin outs (we wired it like 3yrd ago, i can't remember details). constant power somewhere, ign power in a few places, and the starter signal. and off it goes. was litterally 4 wires to hook up.

 

we put in a torago diff, and got a custom tailshaft. plenty of tailshaft companies around, around 350$ for the complete tail shaft. new uni joints at either end, and a new balanced peice of pipe in the middle. you just had to give them the length, and what you had at either end.

 

the rest of the conversion is pretty simple, you are better of using an rb20 gearbox though (faily sure its rb20), as the standard ca box puts the shifter back a bit futher, to the point where you have to cut your transmission tunnell. though this was ok for us as my mate is uber tall, and sits really far back anyway, so he actually liked it. we needed to mod the hand hand break a bit as it interfered with the gearstick in 2nd gear. we just slotted the holes in the handbreak base and twisted it slightly so it didnt hit the stick.

 

other than that its a pretty easy conversion once you get the engine/gearbox mounts done.

[SLW42]

your right dave use an rb20 box with a ca18 bellhousing which puts the shifter back into it's original hole.

 

there is a guy on here that has a ca18det in his ae71, not meaning to be a smart ass or anything but did you go into the rides section and type in ca18det?????

[Locky.]

yes, I searched all relevent sections and as stated above, there wasn't one thread that had all the information needed in one place. Which is the reason I started a "discussion" thread where every body could come to the one thread to ask questions about this specific conversion.

 

Cheers for Your input Dave.

[ke70dave]

no worries mate, anything else you want to know?

 

though to be honest there isnt much else to it, sort of just gota get stuck into the conversion and mod stuff as you go. the only real pain is the intercooler piping, we just bought some exhaust bends and borrowed a welderand we had a bunch of intercooler pipes of mates nissans and just peiced it all together.

 

then once you have the thing running, drive/tow it to an exhaust shop and get an exhaust made for it, and your off!

 

you also might want to check with an engineer what his requirements are for the conversion.

[7FOUR7]

ke70dave what tarago diff do you use and is it a bolt in affair?

[ke70dave]

negative.

 

yr22 torago diff. apparetly its an F series, so you can get LSD's from altezzas, and various other cars.

 

diff was 400 to buy.

 

then took the torago diff, with a spare S series diff (adm ae86 diff) to this diff shop, and they welded all the mounts and spring seats from the S series onto the torago diff = $450

 

then the tailshaft was $350

 

then it bolted in. so thats ~$1200 for the torago diff, WITHOUT an LSD. your looking at $1200 to purchase a brand new LSD for it, then whatever it costs to get it setup inside the diff (potentially another 400-500 if you buy new bearings etc)

 

so thats not much change from $3000 for an LSD diff, that will not break.

[SLW42]

nothing other than stock is a bolt in affair man :P , but from what i've been told they are just about a shorten it, get the mounts put onto the diff and bobs ya uncle :D

 

sorry LOCKY (i thought i would ask though :D ), but my advise is have a look at i think his name on here is REDAE71 he has a ca in his ae71 and i'm pretty sure he has alot of info on it all in his thread (don't quote me on it though)

[7FOUR7]

might just go a borgy from a vn or something, 28spline axels and a locker cut down.. Unless there are any bolt in options?

[SLW42]

there was a guy on here selling a falcon diff cut down for an *e7*

 

but yeah i was going to use a falcon diff for my ca conversion into my 70 when i was going to do that before the funds dried up :(

[ke70dave]

NO bolt in options......

 

R31 diff is a good choice (same as that commondore jobby)

 

and you can buy a brand new KAAZ lsd for them. or you can try and get your hands on a stock LSD (form either a silhouette r31, or whatever they came in in the commondores. but they arent the greatest, some sort of cone thing, my mate got his R31 one refurbished, went good for a while, but didnt last long. this was quite a number of years ago.

 

but also rememebr that all these diffs are alot wider than the stock diff, we were running 14x6 +10 wheels on the ae86 (with torago) and the guards needed some serious "enthusiasm" to get the wheels to fit. less work than half these blokes running 15x10-400 wheels do, but if your going for that stock look you can't run very wide/low offset wheels.

 

so if i was serious about it i would get the diff cut down to size at the same time so i could use decent wheels.....more ca$h.

[7FOUR7]

ok so I might go for a pintara diff as they are 4.11s and 25spline am I correct?

 

And budget around 1k to be cut down and new mounts put on. 100bux for a mini spool and I can do the bearings myself.

 

I'm sure a 25spliner could handle a fair whack of punishment considering the weight of the car?

[ke70dave]

sorry ive no idea on details of the nissan diffs, someone might know.

 

pinyada is only a 4clr CA20 (or something...), how big is the diff compared to a KE one? I'm not sure i would be tooo concerned about number of splines (more is better though), i would be measuring the axel diameter. and taking into account disc brake options and perhaps weight.

 

the torago diff is quite an overkill for the lil ae86/ke70 (the diff itself is BLOODY HEAVY), especially since he was running 185 tyres! but its good to have a diff that is completely bullet proof no matter what you throw at it (with in reason). and in a 900kg car with a 1.8L turbo @12psi, weight isnt such a big issue....

[foamy]

I'm currently starting the same conversion. I'm taking my old radiator into work to measure it up and see what I can use. We have a heap of full alloy radiators here (we sell the RX7 one for ke55 rotor conversions..has nice big sidebands to drill into). See this link: http://www.fenixautopart.com/products_info.asp?selectclassid=002004014&id=6434

 

If you can find something on that site you think might fit let me know.

 

Custom mounts are good if you want to sit the motor further back (can even have an engine bay mounted intercooler for stealth if you want). Diff choice depends on how much money you want to spend, and what rear end brake setup you want (4 or 5 stud). R31 brakes are good if you want to retain 4 stud. I'm going for a hilux diff w/ custom axles. Yeh it's overkill but LSD's are easy to find, and the most important one is diff ratios are pretty much unlimited.

 

Wiring isn't much of a hassle if you have a Silvia loom.