xTomCatt

Hey guys, about 5 months ago I purchased an all original 1990 coupe which has been a dream car since I was in high school. Now the catcher is, it's an automatic, which makes the car an absolute bore to drive as we all know and only has 20,056 miles. I purchased the car with 19,659 miles. And I'm really just trying to figure out if I can justify doing an SR20 swap. I'd like to know if you guys/gals would do it if you had bought one in this kind of condition? Any feedback you guys could give me would be a huge help in this decision making process.

xTomCatt

Here's a few pictures for you guys.

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ehhhregartless

Not only is it a boring drive but it looks boring too. I'd liven that car up by going 2J swap, robe font end while you're at it, full duraflex kit, grip royal wheel, xxrs, pladti-dip exterior, welded diff and hyperwhites all around. A roll cage would help too. Then it'll be fun.

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xTomCatt

You have a good sense of humor bud!

zenkicpe

Nice pick up man! You wont find many 2 tones in PA..

Ill give you my 2 cents, in this all PA thread so far

Id go CA18det, keep it as close to oem looking as possible. Maybe deviate to front mount intercooler but thats about it. If you do that (and do it clean) it would only be worth more.

Personally I think that would be fun to drive and be close to "stock". A nice set of proper offset quality wheels with properly sized tires, lowered a little... sex

Good luck, choose wisely

xTomCatt

Thanks man! Like I said, any feedback is good feedback. The CA18 would be year correct based of the year I have and I have always thought they were interesting motors. I'll have to read up on them to get a bit more knowledge. But I agree. Keeping it close to stock is what I want to do. There aren't many of these cars left in this kind of condition, so I truly baby it when I'm back in Hawaii.

tuzzio

Wait until you realize your "dream car" is something you'll absolutely hate.

xTomCatt

Haha I feel you man. I've already pored quite a bit into it just on maintenance shit alone.

Nissan2nr22

Don't go ca18det. LOL. Ca18 is 100% fanboy status.

If you dont beat on your car and maintain it put a stock sr in it, and maintain it right with the proper fluids, wont give you issues if done right and last you long, never had a problem with a SR, owned many. I only had one SR knock on me and I bought the car knocking to flip it.

Trap Star

Why not just do a 5-speed swap with this engine? Much cheaper, pretty easy, and it keeps more of the original equipment. As soon as you swap in an SR you destroy the entire point of buying a car with 20k miles on it.

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86 300zx/90 240sx/97 240sx/96 LS400/03 350z
-Shake N' Break Racing-

travon47

No, Its original in collector shape and mileage. I think you would be crazy, but im sure everyone else will say go for it. Your car, your choice

5280VertDET

You have 2 options IMHO:

2 Trade it for a good decent build with the parts you want already on it

OR

Keep it and 5 speed swap it.

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S13 Vert | SR | PE1420 | 5-Speed | 15x9.5 - 0 |

pacotaco345

This guy's onto something. Just go pick up a stock SR and keep it stock with the exception of some breather mods. A set of nice coilovers and bronze TE37 wouldn't hurt either.

Just don't do anything that you can't unbolt and make sure you take your time and do it right.

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d9m13n

Damn thats the stuff of my dreams.
My 2 cents, stock sr20 swap with a 5 speed (obviously)
Tasteful correct fitment wheels, decent shocks and struts or coils to drop it a bit and improve the handling.
Keep the paint in excellent shape, as well as the interior.
We're probably just a couple years to a decade away from clean, stock(ish) s13s appreciating providing the market for this sort of car remains relatively stable and demand stays in place.
Overall, just dont fuck it up and youve got yourself a diamond in the rough

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S14kouki805

I'm interested to know the story on it...

Who owned it before?

S14kouki805

Fucking aye...damn it if this isn't the truth

lunchmeat

Only 20k miles? I'm still trying to get my head around that.

Nissan2nr22

Me too, OP can you send a photo of the cluster? They are quite easy to flip back and when you flip back the mileage they become uneven across the board.

Trap Star

This has definitely been going on for a while already.

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86 300zx/90 240sx/97 240sx/96 LS400/03 350z
-Shake N' Break Racing-

dezzS13

I would just 5 speed swap it and run the KA24E until it died. But maybe prep an SR along the way :P

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xTomCatt

Here you go man. It was a two owner car before me. The original owner was an older Japanese lady living on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. She didn't have a far commute to work and stopped driving it in her later years and put it into storage. The second owner was a middle aged man that impulse bought the car off of her based off of the condition. He barely had the time to drive it and only put 600 miles on it from when he bought it off of her. Fast forward 2 years and I have a super low miles, full maintenance record from the day it left the lot to today. It truly is a 20000 mile car.

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xTomCatt

It was a two owner car before me. The original owner was an older Japanese lady living on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. She didn't have a far commute to work and stopped driving it in her later years and put it into storage. The second owner was a middle aged man that impulse bought the car off of her based off of the condition. He barely had the time to drive it and only put 600 miles on it from when he bought it off of her. Fast forward 2 years and I have a super low miles, full maintenance record from the day it left the lot to today. It truly is a 20000 mile car.

lunchmeat

Got a gem right there.

xTomCatt

Thanks man. Appreciate it

S14kouki805

Soooo no one has asked, what'd you pay for it??

240boi115

man and I thought my 90 coupe with 91,xxx on the clock was a rare sight.... do what I did. 300zx brakes, nice wheels and suspension because even a low mile car like that could handle better, and well screw the swap... be different and turbo the damn thing. your engine is healthy and if you build it right that could be one quick car.

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my 240 broke down..again

Mitsubayati

IFF at some point this becomes a collector car, I would assume that you would have hurt the value by doing anything other than preserving it's original equipment.

If your goal is to eventually try to sell the car and make as much money as possible, then you should probably leave it as-is especially in the case mentioned above.

If you don't care about resale but want to be true to the car and bring out it's potential, an SR would be the only acceptable swap as long as it was done very clean and as factory as possible. These are all opinions of course.

If it were me and there was a market I would just sell it and buy a car I wouldn't feel bad about swapping or modifying.

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240boi115

^^^^ true true, I feel guilty enough modifying my car but I rarely drive it and know id never sell it unless someone offered me a ridiculous amount of money. xD you could always store this one and buy another you don't mind messing with.

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my 240 broke down..again

tlieberman240

Leave it alone. Preserve it as best you can. No point in hacking up a perfectly mint car. Only way I'd be taking that engine out and putting an SR in it, is if it was a brand new long block... and even then, I'd wait.

Leave it be. Keep it in the garage and keep it mint. If you want something to put an SR, go buy another one that has a busted motor in it that's on its last leg and swap that.

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leedle-leedle-lee

Honestly, my suggestion would be, regardless of what you swap in, be it CA/SR/KA, just keep it stock! Why are kouki bits worth a shitload? because OEM.

But whatever you do to, just leave it nice and factory, don't hack the guards, don't put a stupid wing on it (obviously you can do whatever because it's your own car). but how rare is it to see a nice, factory looking car with a few simple and subtle mods?

You can run coils without it being stupid, you can have nice wheels with the correct offset on factory guards. Just look after it, and it will look after you, (hopefully) Regarldes of what you do, keep us updated!