Advice needed... Cliff notes included! :)

[Bingo Jed]

I'm a new member and signed up due to the possibility of having a cheap nissan project. Unfortunately, half of what I was relying on got sold before I had a chance to do anything. Here's my situation...

A few years ago a neighbor gave me a turbo kit to sell for him on ebay. He bought it from someone who said it was for a sentra, which my neighbor owned at the time, only to find out the manifold was completely different than what he needed. The sentra got wrecked, and he was left with a turbo kit he couldn't use. I did some research on it, and the only information I could find on it was from a site in New Zealand, and even they didn't list a whole lot about it. So I checked ebay, and sure enough... 50 hits of the same thing I have. My neighbor passes it off as a loss and says I can just have it if I can use it, or to get him money for it later if I sell it.

Cliff notes: I have a generic ebay turbo kit for a ka24de that I got for free.

Between then and now I did a little research on the ka24de, just to know enough about what vehicles it was in. I keep that in the back of my mind when looking at craigslist for possible project cars. Lately I've been seeing a car lot selling a 95 altima as a "mechanics special" for 500. It's got a couple pictures of a decent looking car, and then a short note about it have a bad knock. Eventually the price gets lowered to 400. Sounds good, but I don't have another engine to put in there, and I'd rather not dig into an engine rebuild with 3 other project cars in my driveway.

Cliff notes: A car lot is selling a 95 Altima with a bad engine for $400.

While looking through another forum completely unrelated to Nissan's, someone puts up a post in the for sale section for a ka24de for 250. Not bad. As of now, I could possibly have a base project car for $650. I call the guy up who's selling the engine and he says it's still in the car, which is a 99 with 140k on it, so I can hear it run and check it out. Problem is, he's 4 hours away and I'd rather not drive out there just to find out it's got bad compression somewhere. He got the car from his friend to use as parts and is only taking a front fender, the airbags, and i think a control arm. He has no use for anything on the car, especially the slipping transmission, so he figured he'd part it out. Instead of going through the hassle of parting it out though, he'd sell me the entire car for $350.

Cliff notes: I find a supposedly good engine w/140k miles for $250, or I can get the entire (almost complete) parts car for $350.

This is a good thing and bad thing. Good because it's a hell of a deal, and I can definitely make all, if not more, of my money back by selling parts and eventually dumping it for scrap metal. Bad, because this now means I'll have another 2 non-running cars to add to my original 3, along with my truck and my girlfriends car. My driveway is only so big and I'm not trying to be like Fred Sanford. Eventually I decide to go for it and make arrangements with the guy selling the 95 altima to come by on Thursday morning since that's the end of my shift for the week. I make arrangements with the guy for the parts car to pick it the following week since I'll be out of town this weekend. Seems like it's all coming together!!!

Cliff notes: I decide to buy both cars.

I'm not superstitious, or Irish, but Murphey's Law is a b****! The 95 Altima was sold yesterday afternoon, 3 hours after I made arrangements to come in and see it. I didn't realize this until about an hour ago (3:30am here) after seeing the modified ad on CL. So now I'm stuck on what to do. Should I still get the parts car and part it out but keep the engine to prep for the turbo? Or just pass on the whole thing? I wasn't expecting anything wild with the turbo. I basically just wanted a decent commuter car that a little more ooomph and probably wouldn't have put more than 7lbs of boost to it. If it all falls apart and dies, no biggie... I'd only be in the hole for a couple hundred bucks.

Cliff notes: The car with the bad engine was sold before I had a chance to buy it.

Part of me wants to still get the parts car because that's still a good deal and I'd basically be getting an engine for free. The other part of me is reminding me about the 2 other engines I need to rebuild, along with the disgusting amount of spare parts already taking up too much space in my garage. Quite the dilly of a pickle.

So that's it. That's my story. Now I'm turning to you guys to help me decide. :|

[Bingo Jed]

Oops! I meant to post this in the ka-t section. Any chance a mod could move this?

feedback is still welcome though.

[WDRacing]

Just to be sure, the turbo kit is for the Altima and not the 240SX correct? If you buy the parts car you gain a motor but have no chassis.

I may have another option. Depending on the turbo kit, you can swap the manifold with another ebay type for the 240SX which is a much funner project car then the Alty IMHO. RWDFTMFW.

Details on the kit?

[motoman399]

RWDFTMFW!! also curious on the kit? pictures of the mani?

how is the mani different from the 240 ka WD?

[WDRacing]

They are shaped entirely different.

[Doya]

They are shaped entirely different.

I had to find that out the hard way

[Bingo Jed]

Just to be sure, the turbo kit is for the Altima and not the 240SX correct? If you buy the parts car you gain a motor but have no chassis.

I may have another option. Depending on the turbo kit, you can swap the manifold with another ebay type for the 240SX which is a much funner project car then the Alty IMHO. RWDFTMFW.

Details on the kit?

Yup. I just took another look and it is a 240sx manifold. Looks very similar to this one. The turbo is a t3/t4.

I've decided to still get the parts car. I can at least pull the engine, wiring, and ecu stuff to save for later. Once I have the time, I'll be able to go through the engine in more detail to see exactly what kind of condition it's in. I'll part out the rest of the car, and maybe even make a couple bucks out of it. In the mean time, I'll just have to keep my eye open for a 240sx, however... is it possible this would work the same in a hardbody? Nothing against the 240sx, I actually really like the styling of the later models, but I've had my heart set on having a first gen mr2 as my sports car project for a while. I'm not entirely thrilled with the vg33e in my frontier, so maybe I could have a little more fun with an older/peppier truck.