TX 1997 240sx RB26 swap

[Beebo]

Sold .

[voiddweller]

On the cold start issue, check your water temp sensor connection.

Very nice car. GLWS!

[nissanlover929]

I sent you a PM

[Beebo]

Thanks Voiddweller! I'll look into the temp sensor when i get a chance. The car has two separate coolant temp sensors; one for the Stack, and one for the ECU. I know upon warm-up they do read different temps even though they are adjacent. After a bit, they sync up pretty closely. There might be some unnecessary fuel compensation upon a hot start.


To NissanLover929's point, The car is running a standalone ECU, and does not have catalytic converters/functioning OBDII port. You would either need to live in a non emissions county or have your own way around that inspection. The car would pass a safety inspection as the lights, indicators, horn, wipers, e-brake, etc. all work. Wipers only work on one speed, but this car never sees rain except when it looks out the garage window.

[blacksr]

bump for Austin. nice ride.

[allforthebenefit]

Wow nice! Wish I had the money! Good luck with sale!

[jdm60]

Whats the title status? Clean or salvage?

[Beebo]

I have a clean Texas title to it with my name on it.

Also, thanks for the compliments and the bumps!

[Whitey13]

So the car doesn't always start, dies when it does start and runs poorly when it stays running and you won't do the absolute minimum it takes to maintain it, like replacing astarter. All for $18,000. Sounds reasonable.

[Beebo]

Yep, the starter occasionally sticks. To be clear, I couldn't get it to do that when taking any of the videos. Aside from the initial stalling upon hot start, the car runs and drives great after that clears up. Just haven't gotten into the higher boost areas of the map, nor do I really care to. As for the absolute minimum it takes to maintain the car, the starter was next on my list. I just felt it was more important to tackle a few smaller things first, like the oil pump, water pump, front and rear main seals, clutch, clutch master cylinder, motor mounts, timing belt, front wheel bearings, tie rods and boots, brake pads, suspension arms, misc. Bushings that had rotted, fuel tank, fuel sending unit, lines pump and filter, belts, hoses, wastegate diaphragm, new turbo, misc. gaskets, all fluids, a new radiator, lights, fuses, etc.

[Whitey13]

I should preface my comments by saying that you are trying to sell a car, at a premium price, during the worst recession/employment rate any of us have ever seen. That's your first challenge. 240's take forever to sell whenever they exceed the $12-15K price-point regardless of how well they're put together. And this car isn't well put together.

All the things you've listed above ae routine things that need to be done just to keep a 20+ year old car running. None of it ADDS value.

On top of that you have a 25 year old engine swapped in that you tuned. What evidence do any of us have that you have any clue as to what you're doing when it comes to tuning anything. Yes, it runs rich, with the timing retarded. We all agree that that's better than running lean, but how rich is it running and for how long has it run like that? Should the buyer assume the valves are completely smoked? Most should assume any R32 RB26 needs a rebuild abyway after 25+ years of service in stock form.

On top of that,

for $18,000 you get a car with no power steering
for $18,000 you get a car with a leaking sunroof
for $18,000 you get a car with no heat
for $18,000 you get a car with no air condiitoning
for $18,000 you get a car with barely functioning wipers
for $18,000 you get a car with overfenders I can only imagine had the OEM fenders hacked up and overs slapped on.

This car will need thousands of dollars just to run remotely reliably with a tune done by a professional.

For anyone who is interested why not post all the other things wrong with it, as you did in your Ebay listing?

Some issues that I would address if keeping:

***There may still be some lean spots so I never really push this car when its hot or in the upper gears. I would honestly upgrade to a Haltech before bothering with a professional tune. Something really never really sat right with me and this ECU. it works, but has some quirks. It is hesitant to cold start. A warm start is great. A hot start revs up and dies. When starting hot you have to keep your foot in it a bit to keep it from stalling, and it kinda stays this way until you get on it.

***I'm not sure how hot RBs are supposed to get, but I just drove it for a couple hours today (upper 80s and super humid) and it held steady at 200-205F. When driving cooler to cold days, It stays around 185-190f. I honestly feel like with the bumper, power steering cooler, intercooler, and two push-radiator fans, there is just too much air blockage in front of the radiator. The radiator fans are just hooked up to a relayed toggle switch. This relay needs to be hooked up to the ECU to control the temp at when it comes on.

***I had the power steering working great, and one day I was going to drive it to work and it was making a grinding noise when turning the wheel. I just pulled the belt and never looked into it. It's just mildly annoying turning grippy 255s at a stand still.

*** It is apparent that the wastegate is too small to be bleeding off the amount of boost it is trying to bleed off. Without the boost controller, the wastegate opens up at around 8psi, and it just creeps. In the upper RPM in 4th (sometimes 3rd) the boost creeps up to around 14psi. This will be a non issue installing the boost controller and setting it to 14psi, then tuning for that.

***I let the car get away from me while having some fun with it and whacked up the drivers side against some pylons. I found a matching door on ebay and replaced it. It was actually straighter than the one that was on it, but the paint is older and a bit more chipped around the edges. The color matches great though. The overfenders are covering a dinged up drivers side rear quarter, not that it matters anymore since the rear quarters were cut and welded for the tires to clear. The overfenders are carbonfiber, and they could use either a wet sanding or additional clearcoat. The wheels were just spaced out to make up for the additional fenders. They originally cleared the coilovers and un-rolled rear fenders with about 1.25 degrees camber and 275 tires. Replacing the lips on these wheels with deeper dish, one could remove the spacers and fit 315s easy.

***It has needed a starter ever since I bought it. At it's own will, it will either crank beautifully when turning the key, or give that stuck solenoid 'clunk'. I just usually let it clunk a couple times and then it will crank over fine. This issue usually only happens when other people are around of course. I was unable to get it to do it in any of the videos, but it is quite common, and annoying.

***I have put about 1200 miles on it since owning it, but the speed sensor went out on the Stack dash pretty early on. I tried replacing it with a cheap substitute, but it still isn't reading MPH. This is how it calculates the odometer, so the stack only reads 42 or something. I saved the old odometer out of the last dash and it reads like 155k miles. Its not like every wear item hasn't been replaced or anything haha.

***I really hope whoever buys this is good at detailing, wire tucks, and making stuff look good. This needs a good buffing, a less ugly steering wheel, the engine bay cleaned up and some of the small stuff figured out. It needs to go to someone who will garage it, keep it out of the elements, get it to the 450whp it is capable of, and show it off. It is a sweet car, and I'll miss it.

[240dreaming]

Originally Posted by Whitey13

I should preface my comments by saying that you are trying to sell a car, at a premium price, during the worst recession/employment rate any of us have ever seen. That's your first challenge. 240's take forever to sell whenever they exceed the $12-15K price-point regardless of how well they're put together. And this car isn't well put together.

All the things you've listed above ae routine things that need to be done just to keep a 20+ year old car running. None of it ADDS value.

On top of that you have a 25 year old engine swapped in that you tuned. What evidence do any of us have that you have any clue as to what you're doing when it comes to tuning anything. Yes, it runs rich, with the timing retarded. We all agree that that's better than running lean, but how rich is it running and for how long has it run like that? Should the buyer assume the valves are completely smoked? Most should assume any R32 RB26 needs a rebuild abyway after 25+ years of service in stock form.

On top of that,

for $18,000 you get a car with no power steering
for $18,000 you get a car with a leaking sunroof
for $18,000 you get a car with no heat
for $18,000 you get a car with no air condiitoning
for $18,000 you get a car with barely functioning wipers
for $18,000 you get a car with overfenders I can only imagine had the OEM fenders hacked up and overs slapped on.

This car will need thousands of dollars just to run remotely reliably with a tune done by a professional.

For anyone who is interested why not post all the other things wrong with it, as you did in your Ebay listing?

Some issues that I would address if keeping:

***There may still be some lean spots so I never really push this car when its hot or in the upper gears. I would honestly upgrade to a Haltech before bothering with a professional tune. Something really never really sat right with me and this ECU. it works, but has some quirks. It is hesitant to cold start. A warm start is great. A hot start revs up and dies. When starting hot you have to keep your foot in it a bit to keep it from stalling, and it kinda stays this way until you get on it.

***I'm not sure how hot RBs are supposed to get, but I just drove it for a couple hours today (upper 80s and super humid) and it held steady at 200-205F. When driving cooler to cold days, It stays around 185-190f. I honestly feel like with the bumper, power steering cooler, intercooler, and two push-radiator fans, there is just too much air blockage in front of the radiator. The radiator fans are just hooked up to a relayed toggle switch. This relay needs to be hooked up to the ECU to control the temp at when it comes on.

***I had the power steering working great, and one day I was going to drive it to work and it was making a grinding noise when turning the wheel. I just pulled the belt and never looked into it. It's just mildly annoying turning grippy 255s at a stand still.

*** It is apparent that the wastegate is too small to be bleeding off the amount of boost it is trying to bleed off. Without the boost controller, the wastegate opens up at around 8psi, and it just creeps. In the upper RPM in 4th (sometimes 3rd) the boost creeps up to around 14psi. This will be a non issue installing the boost controller and setting it to 14psi, then tuning for that.

***I let the car get away from me while having some fun with it and whacked up the drivers side against some pylons. I found a matching door on ebay and replaced it. It was actually straighter than the one that was on it, but the paint is older and a bit more chipped around the edges. The color matches great though. The overfenders are covering a dinged up drivers side rear quarter, not that it matters anymore since the rear quarters were cut and welded for the tires to clear. The overfenders are carbonfiber, and they could use either a wet sanding or additional clearcoat. The wheels were just spaced out to make up for the additional fenders. They originally cleared the coilovers and un-rolled rear fenders with about 1.25 degrees camber and 275 tires. Replacing the lips on these wheels with deeper dish, one could remove the spacers and fit 315s easy.

***It has needed a starter ever since I bought it. At it's own will, it will either crank beautifully when turning the key, or give that stuck solenoid 'clunk'. I just usually let it clunk a couple times and then it will crank over fine. This issue usually only happens when other people are around of course. I was unable to get it to do it in any of the videos, but it is quite common, and annoying.

***I have put about 1200 miles on it since owning it, but the speed sensor went out on the Stack dash pretty early on. I tried replacing it with a cheap substitute, but it still isn't reading MPH. This is how it calculates the odometer, so the stack only reads 42 or something. I saved the old odometer out of the last dash and it reads like 155k miles. Its not like every wear item hasn't been replaced or anything haha.

***I really hope whoever buys this is good at detailing, wire tucks, and making stuff look good. This needs a good buffing, a less ugly steering wheel, the engine bay cleaned up and some of the small stuff figured out. It needs to go to someone who will garage it, keep it out of the elements, get it to the 450whp it is capable of, and show it off. It is a sweet car, and I'll miss it.

I was thinking the exact thing, the price on this is off

[Beebo]

I don't disagree with you at all, I am asking a premium for this. A car is only worth what someone will pay, and I am willing to keep it at much lower than my asking. I am thankful I'm fortunate enough to not be affected too greatly by this recession/whats happening in the world, If I was, I would be more flexible on price. I totally anticipated what people are willing to spend on 240's and accept that nobody may be willing to cough up my asking price.

Part of it is to just give it a shot and see what happens so it doesn't have to go the way of a lot of 240s and get parted out. I have a friend in Dallas that would eagerly take the RB swap for a Datsun project, and another that wants the wheels/tires. Just that would put put me in the territory of what you say people would be willing to pay for the whole car. I'm not saying that any of the maintenance items done add value, but when they have been done within the last 1000 or so miles, they should definitely ease the buyers mind knowing there's a lot of stuff that has already been taken care of.



I'm not trying to hide anything about this car. I abbreviated the ebay listing for this thread because it was just too much to read (many people told me that), and some of the 'issues may not be issues at all, just information that I put in the listing. I tried to list absolutely everything so somebody could decide in the timeframe of an auction whether or not they wanted to bid. With a classified listing, we have the luxury of discussing it, and possibly local people coming out to check it out. The rear quarters were cut, welded, caulked, undercoated, and like most overfenders they are covering some dents. Also, the speed sensor issue is currently being addressed.

One of my goals with this car was to learn the basics of tuning, and while I still can't admit to being that great, I think it runs pretty good. When I say rich, low to mid 12's coming onto boost, mid 10's to low 11's in boost. There isn't black smoke or anything. I can post screenshots of the state of my tune, or even some data logs if that helps. If this car doesn't sell, my next steps are to replace the starter, get the boost controller hooked up, and start tuning the higher load cells of the fuel map. Most of these issues may or may not be resolved by the time the right buyer finds it. Who knows, it takes me forever to do stuff nowadays.

[Triumphx]

Let the man advertise his car, i see piles of shit priced at 10-12k on here all the time. I was watching this on eBay until it hit $18,100. Buyer fall through?

[Kingtal0n]

I think this guy should get MAD CREDIT for being open and honest about everything

thank you for doing what so few people are capable of. He could have easily cut out the first part of that video for example.


that said, I've sold around 20 maybe 30 of these cars and NEVER not a single one of them EVER sold through zilvia. this place is more just for bragging rights than actual sales.

Also its good bait for people to come and bash your ride. Oh excuse me, point out issues that should be addressed that you may have overlooked ;D

The way I see it, engine/trans is 6k car is 6k, thats 12 right there. Add the wheels and various other gadgets... your parts out price is well into the 15k range minimum if done right
at least thats what they used to go for. These days idfk

[Triumphx]

^ Well said sir

[Whitey13]

Originally Posted by Kingtal0n

I think this guy should get MAD CREDIT for being open and honest about everything

You mean honest where he omitted the fact that he sideswiped a pylon? Are we talking concrete pylon or an orange traffic cone? Or the fact that the quarters were so smashed up that he need to cut them off.

This is far from a transparent seller. Why not post pictures of the damage? It's 2020, we know there's pictures on your phone somewhere.

[S14rebuild]

Originally Posted by Whitey13

You mean honest where he omitted the fact that he sideswiped a pylon? Are we talking concrete pylon or an orange traffic cone? Or the fact that the quarters were so smashed up that he need to cut them off.

This is far from a transparent seller. Why not post pictures of the damage? It's 2020, we know there's pictures on your phone somewhere.

U got a personal vendetta with the op?

[NukeKS14]

Originally Posted by Whitey13

This is far from a transparent seller. Why not post pictures of the damage? It's 2020, we know there's pictures on your phone somewhere.

Are you trying to buy the car? Make him an offer or move on man. You made your point to any prospective buyers already. Not defending seller but what's the intent of keeping at this? His price is above what 99% of the lesser versed in this community are going to spend on an S-chassis anyhow.

[Whitey13]

I'm looking out for those uninformed that the OP is trying to screw over. I only jumped back in because his buddies are praising him for his "honesty".

I'll bow out now.

[Beebo]

Originally Posted by Triumphx

Let the man advertise his car, i see piles of shit priced at 10-12k on here all the time. I was watching this on eBay until it hit $18,100. Buyer fall through?

Thank you, yes it was bid to $18,100. The high bidder was sabotaging a few other auctions as well from what I can tell. The $18100 was a legitimate bid, but I'm sure the winning bidder just entered in something ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Whitey13

You mean honest where he omitted the fact that he sideswiped a pylon? Are we talking concrete pylon or an orange traffic cone? Or the fact that the quarters were so smashed up that he need to cut them off.

This is far from a transparent seller. Why not post pictures of the damage? It's 2020, we know there's pictures on your phone somewhere.

If it were concrete, I'd be listing an Rb26 and a set of (3) Panasports haha. No it was those narrow plastic things anchored into the ground that discourage people from turning left where they shouldn't. People in trucks just run them over, but when you go into them sideways in a 90's Japanese car, they aren't as forgiving. The damage wasn't extreme, but a good deal of surface area was peppered with dents. The two big dents are in front of the rear wheel above the side skirt, and right in front of where the rear bumper meets the rear quarter. In my mind, I had two options:

1. Spend weekend in the garage discreetly replacing the drivers door with an extremely close matching one that I had available, and installing the carbon overfenders.
2. Explain to my pregnant wife that I'll be dropping the 240 off at the body shop to have $3-5k worth of bodywork and paint done because my dumbass was out doing stupid shit, forever compromising future "I'm just going out for a quick drive" situations.

It was easy to make that decision. Bye OEM metal. You can still see on the drivers side skirt that it's all scuffed up.

Here is some evidence of the damage before/after.

Originally Posted by S14rebuild

U got a personal vendetta with the op?

It's cool, I actually appreciate his honest insight on how much something like this would bring, as I do everybody's who have posted. It's just crazy to think one needs to defend his/her character to list a car on a forum. I'm not some shady criminal looking to pull a fast one on somebody. I even volunteered the information about the damage to Nissanlover when he was PM'ing me, and I would've gladly supplied any additional pictures requested.

--

If I've priced it way off base, then that's on me. I'd probably have to keep it for a while and get more enjoyment out of it more before coming down that much. I'll keep the ad going for bit longer regardless.

Thanks everybody!

[Whitey13]

Kudos to you. I respect your response and apologize for being harsh.

[NY2NV Miner]

It might be on my end, but the picture link isn't working.

I'd be really interested to see more pics.

[Beebo]

Sorry for the delayed response, My wife and I just had our baby boy, so they've been my full focus for the past several days. Here is a link to my photo album of it. Let me know if this works.

https://ibb.co/album/kKNXP2

Cheers!

[4drsleeper]

PM sent check your messages

[Beebo]

Car sold today. Goodbye Zilvia!

[voiddweller]

Congrats!

Hope it went to a good home and you were reasonably happy with the final sale price.