Oh yes I had seen the bit on the axles. Not ideal.

Part number for the clutch depresser is G030-43-029 if you want a factory one.

 

Thanks! Turns out this one is on me (kind of). The hydraulic release bearing which requires the 3/4" clutch master, that clives does not come with the piece that pushes that sensor in. And I spoke to KPower, they run it that way. So I'm guessing either they entirely bypass it, or there is something in the Haltech... We're just going to create bypass... and i'll talk to the guy about the relay for the neutral safety switch

 

Hmmm, as I recall the flange with the rubber plunger-pusherizer is on the pedal itself. But it’s been a while since I peeked under there. A simple loop of wire in the connector is all that’s needed. But make sure it’s fairly robust, it carries a surprising amount of current, somewhere north of 10-12 amps

 

On this clutch it's part of the clevis

 

Back after a bit. Well good and bad news for me. The car is completely put back together. Just no stereo. I'm really happy with the way it turned out visually. The car looks great. The bad news, it just drives like utter crap. The K24 has so much NVH, I don't know how anyone deals with it in a street car. I have some very loud rattling that I need to hunt down. My, in theory, super cool brake kit is a waste of money. I am unable to lock up the brakes. The Chase Bays dual piston master cylinder (booster delete) just does not produce enough clamping force to lock up wilwood 6 piston fronts and 4 piston rears. The current tune needs a ton of work. There is a massive dead spot at initial throttle. Then it just jerks back and forth. If I'm accelerating, it's no problem. but I cannot cruise at 20mph in my neighborhood, the car just jerks or wants to die. And then the absolute worst news, is my rebuilt engine is not sealing. I'm burning oil badly. Hoping this break in oil helps, but not sure it will. My poor neighbors get gassed if I drive by.

Really a bummer, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do next... but hey, at least it looks ok.

Here are some pics (Tein coilovers are literally as high as they can go)














Engine

 

Well, at least it looks sick! NVH is my main concern with a K swap as well. I've heard the k20 is better in that regard. Maybe there's something that could be done motor mount wise to help. A local buddy is doing the swap here and I'm super interested in seeing how it feels in person.

It really sucks to have so many issues on a fresh build, it can really take the wind out of your sails, but just focus on issues 1 at a time starting with the most pressing and eventually you'll get the car sorted. At the end of the day you could sell the car if you can't get past the NVH, k swap cars as clean as yours usually fetch a pretty penny.

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

Our K20A2 build Deviate, wasn't much better than the K24 swaps despite having super light rods, balanced and blueprinted. Still no balance shaft though so it was buzz bomb. I never liked driving it TBH.

 

Sorry to hear about your issues. The driveability issues are just a tune away from being resolved... it's worth the $$ to have a professional tuner do their thing. I would give Wilwood a call about your brakes, and convert back to the proper m/c and booster for your calipers. Brakes are a system, and if components are mismatched, they're not going to give good results.

The NVH is just something you're going to have to figure out if you can live with. When the balance shafts have to come out to get the engine to fit in the car, there's only so much you can do. For a race car, it's one thing, but for a street car it's another... you can use the softest mounts everywhere possible, but it still may not tame a K24... it's a big 4 cyl, and a vibey beast. Many of us have had issues with things coming loose, and my car could make smoothies on track, but it's a caged car with everything basically solid mounted. Knowing what I now know, the only K swap I would do in a street car is the NC because it gets to keep the balance shafts...

The car looks great! Don't give up on it...

 

I'm surprised to hear the NVH issues even with a K20, I assume with poly mounts. The NVH is a big reason I haven't gone ahead with a K swap, I still daily my NB2.

My thought on why the Miata seems to have more complaints about NVH from the K series than other platforms is that the powerplant frame can make it so the diff mounts and engine mounts are fighting each other for where the whole drivetrain will be. That's fine with the big squishy rubber engine mounts that have a lot of compliance, but when changed to a bolt through a poly suspension bushing style of engine mount, it doesn't take much misalignment to push or pull on the engine mount and you end up short circuiting the intended load path. See post #135 and 140 in this thread for an example of what I mean with Blackbird Mounts. I've since moved to Innovative Mounts that give you a bit more leeway with the fore/aft engine location due to the bushing profile and the vibrations went from "I can't deal with this on a street car" to perfectly acceptable.

@belacyrf , you may be able to take some lessons from that thread and the Innovative mounts. Loosening the driveline mounts, or even the subframe mounts, and wiggling things around could release some tension off the bushings. Combine that with a change in the bushing profile and you may be able to cut some of the vibration.

 

The car looks great!

Check to make sure you haven't bent the L-arm that mounts to the pedal. It looks beefy, but it is being side loaded. It needs to be a clevis like stock. A fellow GLTC bent two from CB in short order. The first was at Road America (not a place you want **** brakes). He thought it was a fluke. They sent him a new part. He bent the second one in a handful of sessions at Autobahn. After we looked at it, determined the failure point, and I showed him my custom setup, he ordered a Honed kit (what I copied) and a 1" Wilwood kit from SuperMiata. He's had multiple successful track days and race weekends since then. If you've got someone who can machine parts, I'll gladly share the drawing for my setup.

 

I'm sorry to hear about all the issues, especially with the brakes and the motor not sealing. The car does look awesome.

 

So a quick update... after talking with KPower a bit, they believe the level of vibration I'm feeling has to be something off. So I'm going to get the engine rebuilt "yet again" and I'm going to change the different engine mounts (KPower said these other options are better at damping and more sturdy as the original mounts had issues with sheering).

Unfortunately, I am going back to a brake booster.. which is just bad for aesthetics.. but obviously will give me the braking force i need.
Back to work I guess

 

The Honed kit has you redrill the brake pedal for a change in leverage ratio. If the chasebays does not, that could be part of the problem.

 

It doesn't. It uses just clevis to relocate the pin higher on the arm. Which should give more leverage.. but it's still not enough. And as others have pointed out, the pushrod setup has some integrity concerns where I would not be surprised if it flexes or bends.
https://www.chasebays.com/cdn/shop/p...g?v=1676491905

 

Yeeaaah... I'd take that with a grain of salt. KPower's usual response is "Gee, we've never heard of that problem...." when it's all over the forums and SM. It's going to vibrate, very noticeably. That's a consistent characteristic that everyone with an NA/NB K swap has experienced. Whether it's something you can live with is another question. Getting running/driving right, and then you can make that decision.

Fix the brakes, then maybe start with a known, running used engine before doing another full rebuild?

 

Yea that's a good point... The fact that Emilio (who drives race cars quite often) doesn't like the vibration tells me maybe it's more than I'd ever be willing to handle.

 

I'll reiterate Roda's comments. If you are NVH sensitive, the Kswap is going to be an uphill battle. There are ways to mitigate some of it based on the 4 years I had with running the K24 on the street for thousands of miles (plus track days). For audible interior rattles, adhesive backed foam in selective areas helps without adding much weight. I also found that bumping my idle RPM up by 100rpm also helped keep certain things like my splitter cables from resonating on the car when idling, but that's very application specific to your setup.

In theory, the K20 should be better, but then you put the already close-to-ground fitting crossover exhaust section EVEN CLOSER to the ground as you lose deck height over the K24. New mounts are supposedly being developed to soften it up a little bit more, but then you are encroaching on steering rack clearance. If you get contact to the rack, you will not only run higher risk of oil pan wear/seep over time, but create a new source of NVH that you are trying to resolve. Like others have stated, I wouldn't completely give up on it yet, but if NVH is something you just can't manage (and only you can answer that) I'd strongly consider your options before building another motor.

 

Step 1 into getting the car somewhat driveable... brakes! Chase Bays MC is sick looking but just doesn't really work (as many have attested to). So back to OEM. Refurbished a non-ABS brake booster and went to Wilwoods 1" master cylinder for the bigger brakes that should provide a solid pedal feel.

Brake Booster Refinished






Master Cylinder attached (will not be using remote mounted reservoirs)

 

Settled in on a path forward. I have a buyer for my current setup. Selling the entire K-Sway with transmission, wiring harness, and engine. I will be going a built BP route. Doesn't have the more rare factor I was going for and definitely will not look as good in the engine bay but I'll do my best to get it looking clean. Got some test numbers from this engine, it definitely appears "healthy". I'm wondering if the "burning oil" issue is gone and now it's just running incredibly rich. B/c it still smokes badly but only under load and I'm not seeing any blue in the smoke, so hard to tell. Either way, the vibration is still the issue, and so a change had to be made.
But for posterity, here are the compression and leak down results. Only Cyl 4 was questionable on compression. Leak down test was darn near perfect.


And here are some pics of the combustion chamber. The engine was definitely rebuilt, but it appears there might be "pitting" in some of the pistons and the valve chamber is dirtier than I'd expect, but all in all, it's probably fine. I thinking either the block wasn't honed to get a good seal and/or it's all fine and now just the tune is crap. Oh well.

Cylinder 1






Cylinder 4



​​​​​​​

 

In those pics everything looks wet and coated in oil. Way too much oil, imo. and explains the smoking. Wet cylinders like that will also make your compression/leak results better as it helps seal the rings. Just my opinion, maybe more miles things would have sealed up.

Built BP is the way if you are NVH sensitive for sure and youll make more torque for street use. K series is the **** for a track car though.