Happy Birthday, a new 240sx

[dickie]

No it wasnt a gift, even though im a couple weeks shy of 21. i paid for it with cash. I just bought my car after months of looking for the right one; it kind of fell into my lap, so to speak. its a dark red hatch in the SE trim with minor engine mods and adjustable shocks with tein springs and strut tower bars front and rear. a weekend modder, basically :P

So the very first night i brought it home some guys that live around the block came by to check it out. they own a shop and are constantly building crap and tuning cars and bikes in their garage. anyways, the guy shows me this head he had just built for his friends car that got repo'd etc...

it was made for a turbo KA build so its ported and polished and it has big fat cams, everything is complete and it looks really good. i checked online, the cams alone go for $600 a piece. he wants to sell it to me for much less. my question is, should i buy it and hold onto it for later, or would it be okay to run it on my car now even though im n/a? what kind of performance should i expect from it without a turbo, better/worse than normal mileage, etc...

seems like a simple question but i have never had to deal with it before...

and hello, btw.
Modified by d!ck at 12:37 PM 9/6/2005

[babowc]

welcome to NICO!awesome 240s are awesome cars to have fun in..

anyways, if you plan on doing turbo, what are the digits you're shooting for?stock KA can hold up to its fair share, at around 350hp, correct me if im wrong.

[dickie]

when i get my daily driver (audi or bimmer) this is going to be a weekend car. ill aim at upwards of 300whp, but no clear plans on how to get there as of yet. i want to have a basis of comparison between (mostly) stock and whatever i end up with.

any answers for me on the head issue? im def buying it, but should i put it on while im driving it daily w/o a turbo?

[Deadrodent]

a ported head should increase performance by a little bit, especially in conjunction with mods such as exhaust/intake/headers and the like. crazier camshafts usually just move your powerband around...but occasionally yield better hp numbers. so for example if you have stock camshafts you'll make large amounts of hp/tq around3k-5k...with a crazy camshaft you'll most likely LOSE power in the lower powerband but then pick up power in the higher powerband...lets say for the sake of an example around 5-7k rpm. really depends on how/what you're driving. a street car should have relatively docile cams. a race car should have a set of high duration/high lift cams since you're constantly at a high rpm. i'd probably put your stock cams in that head and bolt it in. i'm sure you'll make more power and still maintain drivibility. plus those crazy cams aren't always good for a turbo application...think no power under boost and then all of a sudden the cams kick in AND boost kicks in....well i guess it's cool if you like a laggy, extremely dramatic setup, plus you can cruise around town off boost too...sorry for the long post. hope this helps a little

[dickie]

yup from what i have collected, the cams would give me more high end than what i need right now, since the head was built for a track car. i might keep em and i might turn around and sell them, im not quite sure yet. in the meantime im just focusing on maintainance and getting everything cleaned up from the po.