CA Clean, one-owner S13 coupe, passes smog

[eyesoreracing]

What you are looking at is the perfect canvas on which to build a Silvia project car. Whatever engine you plan to put in it, you’ll want to start with a clean, car that isn’t full of bondo, doesn’t have any rust, and isn’t plagued by faulty electronics.

This car is originally from Seattle, where doesn’t get sunny enough to crack Nissan dashboards, but doesn’t get cold enough for them to salt the roads and rust out cars. The original owner drove it for about 15 years, never had any accidents, and finally sold it to my friend, who was planning to do an SR20 swap.

He simply stored it for a couple years, changed plans, picked up and moved to Mississippi (!) and sold me the car. I’ve been keeping it running, making sure it passes smog (amazingly, it still does) and also not getting around to doing a swap. Thing is, I’ve already done two 240SX swaps (one nasty, but well known track car: Project Nissan Silvia Part IV - Project Cars - Sport Compact Car Magazine, and one very clean street car) and I’m just plain tired of building cars right now. I’ve been periodically smogging and continuously insuring this car for too long. Time to let the next guy take a crack at it.

Here are the critical details:

The body is very straight, but has accumulated many small dings. 95% of the body work could be done by a paintless dent removal service.









If you look really closely at the right taillight, you can see the lens is broken. Not to worry, the car comes with a spare taillight.


This view shows several of the dings. Really, not that bad…


There are two dents that are slightly larger than a door ding. This one on the right rear corner:


and this one on the left rear corner:


The plastic bumpers have done a little bumping, and the paint shows it, but they have not been hit enough to show any damage beyond the paint.




The engine is a 12-valve KA24. It was a crappy truck engine when it was brand new, and it’s a crappy truck engine now. The engine runs well enough to get the car from here to wherever you plan to do the engine swap (it made it from Seattle to LA without a hiccup), but it doesn’t exactly run well. The timing chain rattles like crazy above 4000 rpm, it idles kinda rough and hunts around. Every time I get it smogged the smog guy looks at how rough the idle is and says “it’ll never pass” and every time it passes with flying colors. Go figure.

The important thing about the engine is that it’s clean and hasn’t made a mess of the engine bay.





I challenge you to find an original 240 with an engine bay this clean. Just look at how the brake lines are still cleanly routed and clipped to their little plastic holder thingies.


And here’s a nice thing about Seattle. All California 240s have cracked coolant overflow bottles, since the sunlight that comes through the gap between the hood and passenger’s fender kills the plastic. There is no sun in Seattle, so the bottle is pristine.


Also, this car has no A/C. Never did. That’s less weight, less crap in the engine bay, and no condenser blocking your radiator. Notice the factory plugs in the firewall where the A/C lines would be.


Only bad thing under the hood is a passenger’s side hood hinge that seized up. I removed it before it damaged the hood.


Now, look at this immaculate interior:


The dash is perfect!




Even under the floormats, the carpet is still in good shape
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The passenger’s seat is a JIC semi-raceish, adjustable bucket piece of crap. Don’t get too excited, it sucks.


Back seat is clean


The only interior problem, other than the fact that the stock seats suck, and the JIC passenger’s seat sucks, is the lingering odor of gear oil. Seems the transmission rear seal is a wee bit leaky and on the long drive down from Seattle some gear oil flung onto the exhaust, burned, and stunk things up. It’s not that noticeable any more, but it does still need a Fabreezing…

Trunk is clean and complete


But there is some bad news hiding under the carpet:


That’s right. There’s the downside to Seattle. It’s so perpetually wet in Seattle that trunks tend to accumulate water and the spare tires eventually rub off enough floor paint that rust starts. There are some rust holes in the trunk floor.
BUT, don’t worry, the car comes with a SPARE TRUNK FLOOR!



The trunk is, honestly, the ONLY rust on the entire car. Here are some underbody photos to prove it:





That brown stuff that looks like rust in these pictures is actually dirt. Here’s a picture of me wiping it off with my finger. You can’t wipe rust off with your finger…




The car is really remarkably clean, even underneath.


Notice those red things in that last picture? Nearly new KYB AGX adjustable shocks.



They are really good shocks. Car handles much better than it has any business handling…

Oh, also the rear brakes are pretty much shot. Ok, pretty much is an understatement. They’re toast. Metal on metal, baby! They had like 1/8 of an inch of pad material left on them when I left Seattle, then I drove to LA and continuted to drive the car periodically for THREE YEARS on that 1/8” of pad.
The thing is, the brakes, just like the engine, just don’t matter for a car like this. The engine is gonna get yanked and replaced with something fantastic, and the brakes are going in the dumpster (or sold for scrap metal, cha ching!) and getting replaced with 300ZX brakes or Q45 brakes, or Skyline brakes or whatever fantastic bolt-on upgrade you find in the junkyard.

And just so you aren’t scared to drive it home, I’ll throw in a complete second set of 240SX brakes with drilled and slotted rotors and brake pads that aren’t worn all the way to the backing plate.
If you are coming from outside of Southern California, I’ll even install the new (less old) rear brakes for you so you can drive home. If you are local, though, just suck it up. The car still stops, it just sounds bad doing it.

So, in a nutshell, what we have here is an amazingly well preserved body just begging for a swap, with all the useless parts you’re going to throw away anyway already used up and ready for the scrap heap.

If you’re qualified to do this kind of engine swap, I don’t have to tell you how valuable a clean, straight, base-model car is. No rusty bolts breaking off, no complicated power windows failing, clogged up A/C systems, defective heads-up displays, or any of that crap. When you step on the brakes, the windshield wipers aren’t going to come on, like they do in my track car (deluxe SE model with all the fancy stuff that just breaks).
Seriously, if I could turn back the clock, this is the canvas on which I would have created my own car

Do yourself a favor, take advantage of my phenomenal laziness and lack of motivation and buy this car. You won’t regret it.

The car is located in Long Beach, California in the evenings, or I can drive it to Irvine if you want to gaze upon its stunning beauty during the daytime.

Finally, here’s a picture of the vin tag, if you’re into that kind of thing.


This should be ebay Item number: 300256430066 by now. You can ask questions here, but you gotta bid there.

-Dave