Hello Zilvia- I thought it might be fun to bring this thread back from the dead a bit and keep everyone up to date on my newest project- a 1992 Nissan 240SX coupe.
Images from the seller's listing:
I stumbled upon a listing for a stock '92 coupe down in Indiana last October. The owner had begun tearing it apart to build it and lost interest after sourcing a number of spare parts including an extra KA24, some black interior items, a power window conversion, and some other random stock parts from a vert he had parted out. My good friend Tim (owner of the red hatch posted previously in this thread) was looking for some decent KA24 engines for his drift car project at the time, so I sent the listing to him.
On the way home with the car...
I worked things out with the seller and convinced Tim to split the cost with me 50/50- I would keep the chassis and he would keep all of the included drivetrain items. We would split whatever we didn't need and sell it to try to recoup our costs. Tim was gracious enough to drive down to Indiana with his truck and trailer to pick it up and haul everything back to his parents' barn for us (the location where I did my first SR20 refresh on my hatch back in 2010 or so.)
After selling the items we didn't need, I ended up getting the rolling chassis for free. Despite having nearly 350k miles on it, it was actually a really clean platform to work from. There was the typical rust along the driver's side frame rail near the brake line, but the frame rails were clean and the rear quarters had never been rolled. I believe it spent most of its life in South Carolina which would explain the condition. It even had the stock exhaust on it.
With winter approaching, I elected to store the car at Tim's parents' barn until spring. During the off season I began to slowly collect the things I needed for the car, including a complete OEM Silvia front end and aero setup, panels to convert the brown interior to black, Silvia seatbelts, etc. I also parted out two additional S13 coupes that I bought locally during the winter to collect some spare parts and make some extra cash for the project. I ended up keeping the SR20 swap out of one of the part out cars to use in my own coupe and gave it a light refresh gradually throughout the winter, including a gasket kit, new water pump and oil pan, powder coated valve cover, NISMO engine mounts, fresh coolant and PCV hoses, etc.
The first coupe I parted out and kept the SR20 drivetrain from:
A few months later, the SR is refreshed and nearly ready to go into the car:
Mostly complete black interior swap with Silvia seatbelt conversion:
Last month Tim transported the car to his painter for me and had the rust repaired along the frame rail. After the repairs were complete, the bay was treated to a fresh coat of Nissan KH3 black. I elected to keep things simple and a bit more factory this time around by not shaving any of the holes and retaining the factory battery tray location. I have grown out of the wire tuck phase I went through on my hatch and wanted to keep a more of a stock appearance for the sake of simplicity.
About a week and half ago, the engine bay was finally complete and Tim was able to bring the car to my house. I took over my wife's spot in the garage and have gradually been completing some work on the car. It feels awesome and a bit nostalgic to be out working on a more in-depth S13 project again like I did many years ago with my hatch.
The front suspension was caked with 26 years of crud, so I dropped the front subframe and have gradually been working through refreshing everything. I hit the chassis with some fresh undercoating and painted the front subframe. It will be a while before I fully tackle the suspension and brakes as the engine bay and installation are the current priority.
Manual swap progress is moving along- much easier than it was on my GS400!
Speaking of SR20s, the refreshed engine is largely complete and just about ready to be installed. My hope is to wrap things up on that end and mate the engine to the transmission sometime this week before dropping it into the car- hopefully by the end of the weekend with any luck. Thankfully I am not in a big rush, so it's no big deal if it takes a bit longer.
So that's about where things stand. What's the plan for this car? Well, it's extremely similar to my hatch: simple modifications like a stock SR20DET swap, Silvia front end with full OEM aero, complete black interior, etc. The end game for me is to own two clean black examples of the S13 chassis- US cars converted to ones that more closely resemble their stock JDM counterparts with extremely light modifications like coilovers, suspension arms, wheels, and exhaust. It's a bit difficult to juggle owning both cars, but I am hoping over time I'll be able to achieve my goals. We'll see what happens.
And speaking of the hatch, I still have the car. I ended up selling my silver TE37s back in June and the car has just sort of been hibernating ever since. My hope is to have some new wheels for it by the spring, but we'll see how that goes. For now I am content wrenching on the coupe- though I definitely miss driving it at times.
I'll try to keep this updated from time to time. I am not sure how much traffic is left here these days, but I decided it might be fun to share updates here again instead of just lurking.