New SR Owner

[kingdutka]

I was in need of a new car and searching around eBay, when I found this nice looking Ferrari. I thought, wow, that looks pretty sweet, and clicked on the listing. Turns out, it was a 1992 Nissan 240sx Convertible with Ferrari red paint and authentic Ferrari emblems. I did some more searching and found it to look just like an old 92 Ferrari 456. I threw a bid down thinking there was no chance I would win, but to my surprise, I walked away with the car for only $3k. It's in beautiful condition and only 132k miles.

I owned Trisha (that's what I named her :P ) for about a year and a half. Last year, she went to the body shop and got a custom Nismo style body kit installed (custom because we actually used 2 body kits and sorta melded them together to come up with something unique). I stuck with the wannabe Ferrari styling and emblems and even went all out and got some more emblems. My hood ornament was $150! (Hell ya I bolted that sucker down good!) I installed new wheels/tires, black "carbon fiber" leather racing seats, a MOMO quick release steering wheel, a 7" in-dash LCD wired to a desktop PC in my trunk with USB ports running to the dash, and a 2000 watt, 8 speaker system including Alpine deck and Sony Xplod subs in bandpass box. I also had a new convertible top custom made in Germany using materials usually used on Jaguars.

So now I am feeling good and the car is looking sweet, but then it start losing power. I won't accelerate like it should and just feels much weaker than I thought it should. Soon after, the transmission went out. I had been planning to upgrade the motor this coming October or November (when the snow falls so i could have it done throughout the winter), but it looks like I am forced to start the project much sooner.

Now, I am NOT a mechanic in any sense of the word. Granted, I am smart and learn things very quickly. I was able to do a full brake job including rear drums without any help using simply a Haynes manual, but a full out motor swap seemed like a lot of work, hassle, and like the skill level was beyond me. So, I scoped out some shops locally that specialize in performance street machines. I did my homework and picked out a shop I thought would be perfect. I bought my motor on eBay for only $1100 and it actually ended up being worth much more than that, coming in with only 33k miles. I had it shipped to the mechanic, dropped off my car, and let the worrying commence.

I am a full-time college student at Brown College getting my BA in Game Design. Yes, I am a computer geek, hence the desktop PC in my trunk (with wireless networking of course). I am sooo busy, I just don't have time to try to do a swap on my own. Oh yeah, and this is my ONLY vehicle, so the pressure is on.

My mechanic quoted me a 3 day turnaround time at no more than $3k. Sure, there are shops in CA that can do this swap in 6 hours, but I live in MN where we don't really see a whole lot of tuner cars. Mostly, we have American Muscle. The tuner cars around here are typically a Honda Civic with Altezza lights, a spoiler, an exhaust tip, and maybe a K&N filter. It doesn't get much past that (there are a few exceptions where we have some SWEET show cars, but not NEARLY as common as almost anywhere else in the country. we love pick-up trucks and american muscle around here).

So anyway, the car was in the shop for almost 3 months, mostly because we had to order parts from CA, wait on shipping, find out it's the wrong part or not done right, have to wait for shipping again, and then repeat the cycle 5 more times. So, the lengthy wait was not entirely their fault. Most of this wait time could have been avoided through research and planning ahead, but I am terrible about that. Not to mention, there is no way I could afford $4500 for a full kit and still have to pay to have it installed.

So finally, the car is "done", but it still doesn't run! The mechanic told me a few times he couldn't find any documentation on the wiring for the SR motor. I had to tell him which wires to use for the coils! This really got me fired up because I would FREAK if anyone ever drove my Trisha, and here is this guy wiring her up and not really knowing what he is doing! So I pulled the car from the shop and am going to get her today at 4pm. They did ALL the work except finishing off the wiring. I bought a detailed swap guide DVD featuring the SR20DET S13 going into a 240sx S13 (perfect for me) and I also did some research and found this wiring guide: http://images.google.com/imgre...3Doff

I am REALLY looking forward to getting this car functional on my own and if I had any advice to give to newbies out there thinking about doing this swap, I'd have to say, it's worth the time and effort to DO IT YOURSELF! There are plenty of guides out there, installation kits, forums, etc that will enable a person with no mechanical experience to complete this swap start to finish with no power tools and possibly even no help at all! (The only help you might need would be in guiding the engines in and out of the engine compartment.) You will save yourself a TON of money doing it yourself, it'll be more rewarding when it is complete, and best of all, you don't have to worry! You know exactly where the car is, what has been done to it, and what still needs to be done. You won't have to call up your shop every couple days to get a status report, and you won't have to freak when they tell you (for a week and a half!) that they are still stuck on the same problem!

A paragraph up, I posted a link to an engine harness wiring guide. I CAN'T BELIEVE my mechanic didn't see this! I was told they spent hours working on it and researching it on the net. I found that guide after literally 2 minutes of searching. I found this forum after 3 minutes, and once I got here, the flow of guides hasn't ended.

If you are a new 240sx owner looking to do the swap, heed my advice! Do this on your own, do your research, don't take shortcuts, don't "settle" for anything less than perfection on every step you do (this is your baby!), and if you found this post, you can find anything you need to do this swap on your own. Don't listen to people try to tell you how hard or time consuming this will be. It's worth EVERY bit of effort you put into it.

I suppose I should end this whole thing with a picture of my car, but the ones I have are old and outdated. I'll get one sometime before the weekend and post it here.

One last thing, WISH ME LUCK!! I have literally cried over this car several times and NOTHING would make me happier right now than to fix the problem and get her running.

-Nicolai DutkaPresident of King Corp Digital Media

[S13FASTBACKSR]

dude......do you realize how much you just wrote....its like the length of a dictionary...there is no way in hell i am going to read all of that lol..so all im going to say is congrats on the title of this post, congrats on being a new sr owner.

[kingdutka]

I didn't realize how long it was until it was done. :P I didn't feel like shortening it up, so maybe this should have a different title "STORY of a new SR owner" LOL

[adrianfromthecastle]

too long... I'm too lazy to read =P

congrats on going sr.

[bone_stock_240]

cool story. Don't really get the whole imposter ferrari thing though. Yeah, even if it takes longer, doing it yourself is rewarding as hell, and cheap. I want to see pictures of this custom car!

[S13FASTBACKSR]

^^^ this guy read it all..good job bro lol..imposter ferrari? haha what?

[slowzenki]

I took a nap halfway through, then I finished reading the post. After all that, all I can say is "Congrats"

[joshcereal]

wow alot of lazy people on nico..... well im glad for you hope the sr does you good.. really dont like that you are puting ferarri emblems on a 240sx but ehh your car not mine..... post some pics bro love to see it ..... i took my car to a shop here in mich and they told me they couldnt find a water pump for it cuz at the time i didnt know **** about it well i found the awater pump and all and ther like oh well we dont deal with imports.... so i havnt taken my car to a mechanic sine than i do it all on my own and its really easy to pull that motor with 2 people......

[adrianfromthecastle]

^^^ this guy read it all..good job bro lol..imposter ferrari? haha what?

lmao... someone do cliffnotes...

[GoTRicEo0]

240 looking like a Ferrari..... with badges and the hot red paint...

Show us a Before and after pictures! I know the other guys wanna see it too!1!1!

~EditBTW congrats!

[bone_stock_240]

-he bought his 240sx vert on auction for 3k. -The owner did it up to look like a ferrari. -He kept the theme going and spent 150 bucks on a hood ornament. -He put a custom body kit on it, and got a new top put on made from material usually used on jags-enjoyed the car, but the KA started driving slow as ***-bought an SR on ebay for 1100-took it to the shop to install it-took a lot longer than expected because they had to wait for alot of parts-finally got it finished but the n00b of a mechanic couldnt figure out the wiring-bringing it home to do the wiring himself.-he is studying at brown to be a computer dork.-has many leather bound books.-thinks he is kind of a big deal.

[adrianfromthecastle]

-he bought his 240sx vert on auction for 3k. -The owner did it up to look like a ferrari. -He kept the theme going and spent 150 bucks on a hood ornament. -He put a custom body kit on it, and got a new top put on made from material usually used on jags-enjoyed the car, but the KA started driving slow as ***-bought an SR on ebay for 1100-took it to the shop to install it-took a lot longer than expected because they had to wait for alot of parts-finally got it finished but the n00b of a mechanic couldnt figure out the wiring-bringing it home to do the wiring himself.-he is studying at brown to be a computer dork.-has many leather bound books.-thinks he is kind of a big deal.

OooOooo....

cool thanks

[S13FASTBACKSR]

what about this part...

I owned Trisha

....who is trisha and what did you do with her!!!!????

[bone_stock_240]

Trisha is the cutie pie name he gave to his car. I call my car Teerock the gigantic warrior. I am not over compensating.