Is this car a good deal? Buy or stay away? Link inside!

[Absolomb]

Hey everyone i've been looking for a z32 and this one popped up close to me. I'm supposed to be looking at it tomorrow. I really appreciate any and all thoughts and opinions, as this is alot of money for me to be shelling out in cash. I was hoping to finance one, but this private sale popped up. My concerns in general are getting a z32 that isnt a total basketcase, so knowing this one has had alot done and essentially an engine rebuilt less than 800 miles ago seems to look in my favor. Should I watch out for anything? Would you buy it if you were me? Is it a good deal? Any thoughts appreciated.

https://baltimore.craigslist.org/cto/6033910365.html

[rgregoryb]

Seems a bit pricey to me, but I will let some of the owners who have modded their cars speak. Mine is just a bone stock 2+2.

[NolimitZ32]

Stock internals (no upgrades mentioned), over-boosted turbos (t25/t28 usually means machined factory units with over-sized wheel). overall the collection of parts plus a clean car you may be hitting $14k (that's to build the car). Obviously its whatever your willing to pay, for someone like me who does all his own work I wouldn't pay over $8k because you never know what kind of gremlins are hiding in someone else's project.

[Absolomb]

Stock internals (no upgrades mentioned), over-boosted turbos (t25/t28 usually means machined factory units with over-sized wheel). overall the collection of parts plus a clean car you may be hitting $14k (that's to build the car). Obviously its whatever your willing to pay, for someone like me who does all his own work I wouldn't pay over $8k because you never know what kind of gremlins are hiding in someone else's project.

True, thanks for your input, he has receipts for parts, receipt from the shop who did the rebuild and gave me the information for the guy who tuned it. I doubt he'd ever let it go for 8k lol. Yes the engine was rebult to oem specs, can you elaborate on the over boosted turbos? I can't do my own work yet, i have some friends willing to help me, and this would be my first car in enthusiast territory. A stock good condition 300zx is running me 15-20k anyway, and thats with basically all stock (old and brittle) parts, and maybe a timing belt/water pump, spark plug kit. Hoses were changed, timing belt was done, its been started and ran regularly over his whole ownership, claims 3rd owner. Are you saying 14k in parts or parts+cost of car he's at 14k, cause that definitely isnt right.

[NolimitZ32]

20k for a stock 300zx is INSANE! In response to the turbo question, a very basic explanation: a turbo is limited on it's efficiency by the size of it's components, turbochargers are optimized by the engineers that design them to produce a certain volume of air at a certain velocity, when a larger wheel is installed in a smaller housing (which is machined to accept that wheel) the turbo compresses the air more, exponentially more, compressing the air past a certain point exponentially increases the temperature (compressing a gas heats it up). Higher temps decrease efficiency and increases combustion temperatures which leads to a whole slue of tuning (detonation) issues, etc. This is actually a very very in depth thermal dynamics subject. The most basic explanation is PSI is bad, volume is good, heat is bad, velocity is good. small housing + big wheel = less velocity and volume at lower RPM and high temps at higher RPM. I hope one of the actual engineers on the board will chime in and shoot some holes in my explanation but that is the best I can do right now. if you want to learn more I'd suggest you google volumetric efficiency of an engine or of a turbocharger and go from there.

[DCaff300ZX]

No engineering info here, but my take has always been that buying a modded car is not a very wise choice unless you are looking to do all work yourself and have done so for quite some time, and you have done this on that particular platform enough to be able to determine just what is good, bad, and in between.
Also, I have traditionally never even considered these type of cars because the owners are trying to recoup mod money which never IMO is something a buyer wants to do (buy your own stuff, and know why!) for several reasons, mainly as NoLimit suggests you never really know what's going on in someone else's work but also whether everything is necessary or not, and correctly installed.
I would not even spend 5 extra seconds looking at that car, buy a near-stock one and KNOW what you are doing to it or move on to something you ARE comfortable and experienced with.