na12uto

Let's hear your mistakes or Learning curves

Let me tell you about the time I welded my diff and didn't realize it needed fluid. Blown diff on freeway, no bueno.
Or the time I was installing some fenders but it was too late and thought ziptied fenders were fine. They caught air and cracked at the top

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A day late, a buck short, nothing zip ties cant fix

lunchmeat

My mistake? Bought a 20 yr old 240 thinking I'd use it to commute to work. Been nothing but ass pain, so I parked it and it's old ass car problems.

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na12uto

Sounds like my friends Facebook feeds who still try to daily theirs

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A day late, a buck short, nothing zip ties cant fix

Malik

bad wiring harnesses are a pain.

JrDarknes

4 years ago I bought some wheels. Was so excited to put them on I forgot to tighten my lug nuts and one of the wheels came off while driving.

I double check my lugs nuts even if I didn't even take them off now haha.

jedi03

tried starting girlfriends car with no crank sensor...car backfired after overfueling for a while...engine bay was on fire till I found the only fire retardant I had at the time...milk...to put it out...now have fire extinguisher and water!

TheRealSy90

Gutted my first 240 I got in 2008 at 17, probably the second day I had it. Threw every interior piece in the dumpster because I thought it was going to be a racecar. It had probably perfect interior.

Removing AC components from the engine bay when doing an sr20 swap instead of keeping functional heat and AC.

Both happened the same day...

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Almighty So

^ ouch!

I made the mistake of being too anxious when I was younger. I was always comparing my car to other people’s rides. I had a semi clean zenki but I wanted an s13, a kouki, a Toyota.. I wanted to experience it all right away lol. Bounced around between a handful of different chassis just trying to find the “right one”.
Kind of a waste of time and money lol. But very happy with the chassis I have now.

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da_crew10

My biggest mistake was doing drugs for the first time 10 years ago, now I am hooked!

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DustinSixOh9

Downloading grainy 90s Japanese drift videos on kazaa in 2002ish, can blame that for this never ending rabbit hole of drift cars and poor financial choices that are still happening today.

R3b

I feel like I did the opposite of everyone. Got mine a 19 and was my first car. Knew from the get go I wanted to take care of it. After having it for a few months and seeing unreliable it was I got stubborn and decided to basically restore the car.

I fucked up thinking 25 year old car would get me point A-B with 0 issues.....

BUT now after nearly three years of owning it plus an undisclosed amount of money...... Its reliable as ever, drive it everyday to work/school, has AC, built ka on e85, have type x aero, have my blitz techno speeds z2 wheels coming next week. After tearing it down last year to build it the only thing to go on the car was plastic circle thing on the fuel unit not getting 12v to the wire and recently my turbo took a shit but its always given me issues. Other than that, starts up every day no problem.

Only learning curve I had was to budget my money for parts and I should of bought a "proper" daily so this could be on the side but hey not many people can say they daily there first car let alone a 25 year old nissan. Rather have my POS than a stock 86, subbie, lexus etc and its nice knowing I built it all myself with my dad as extra set of hands. Mechanics is easy, just need to do a bit of reading.

crash n' burn

Trying to do too much at one time.

College budget didn't exactly fund a full build from a shell and it took me 4yrs to finish it. I drove it like a dozen times before I parted it out

pacotaco345

I mean, the majority of the population uses their car as a daily driver, first car or not lol... We just ruin ours.

The worst thing I ever did was rip out the stock KA and put an SR in it, I've gone through 5 motors in the past 3 years now

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Almighty So

I have a feeling new people are going to be directed to this thread at some point lol.
The hindsight advice thread/what not to do thread.

Oh the things I wish I knew back then.

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encludemeout

Thinking I could swap an RB and it would be cheap and headache free.

It was a nightmare. I enjoyed the KA 1000x more.

Zenki_559

Decided to slam and drift my s14. Had a reasonably nice 98 civic hatchback, got the itch for something different, sold for $5k and picked up an absolutely flawless zenki. Full SE package with every factory option, except for an lsd. Flawless exterior with brand new paint and interior was good enough (semi cracked leather, swapped out with SE confetti later). Went from super clean dailyable s14 to slammed, fucked fenders, cracked bumper, rubbed fender harness, doesnt pass CA smog, blew 2 head gaskets, and dented QPs. Ended up going full kit and widebody, moved to TX and sold it withing 2 months because i hated what i had done to it.

Looking back i was young, dumb and essentially chalked it up to a learning experience, as i learned to tear apart KA's, some minor welding skills, dialing suspension set ups, and the like. Now that i have a career, house, and a wife, i recently picked up a s13 coupe to restore and use as nice weekend and track car.

majgoldfish

Getting rid of my first 240sx, a 1995 OBD1 Zenki SE. I used it as a daily driver and was great, started feeling like the engine was on its way out the door at 240,000 miles~ and got rid of it.

Saw it for sale multiple times later with the same ka and lots more miles, with various exterior mods done to it.

I am currently in the process of rebuilding another 1995 zenki, have poured quite a bit of money into it so far, and I still haven't been able to start it Sat for 3 years and was abused and neglected.

Hope to have it on the road in a few months, worst case.

Bushido

i threw away my wheel well splash guards instead of modifying them when i rolled my fenders

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anthony_240

I remember when I picked up my first s13. Suspension was first on mods, and big brake upgrade, went q45. I built it to run the canyons. Then came the “I need more power” since it was a single cam, I picked up a black top SR. Being a little idiot I remember getting countless parts off eBay for the swap, but that wasn’t the worst part, I had done the wiring for the harness myself, and overlooked the last wire, I was supposed to splice two wires into one, I believe for the spark, and when it all came together I got a crank no start. I didn’t know anything about diagnosing at the time, so it went to a few shops, and eventually ended up getting hydro-locked. RIP


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Reece

LITERALLY came here to say this exact same thing about myself lmao

Real talk though. Biggest mistake was trading my first S13 for an FC because I thought I needed an FC for some reason. S13 had a super strong SR, Vertex aero, Stance coils, SSRs, etc etc really nice car. FC was bone stock but rust free and minty. Spent a fuckton of money on FC parts, drove it once, and it blew up. RIP

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simmode1

Don't buy one of these cars if you don't have a reliable space to work on it and the resources to do so. Ensure that you are able to do the work yourself so you don't have to put so much faith in shops to complete your vision or even keep your shit running.

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"Simplicity is the key to brilliance." - Bruce Lee

anti tyler

I think my WORST mistake was when I was younger, buying a 5 bolt turbo downpipe that had a popcorn weld on it.

It cracked off at the flange while going 95mph testing somethings. Luckily I had the hood off, so it didn't melt my brake master and catch fire.

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KA-T for life!
Current for sale advertisement

lunchmeat

Selling my damn near bone stock, stick shift, cobalt green 97 and using what little I got for it as a down payment for my truck, nine years ago. Had that car for 9 years then had be be all adult and shit. Should have just kept it.

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smoked240

I've owned my s13 for 9 years and have only worked indoors on it 5 times. I've never owned a garage. When I swapped my Rb, back in 2009 I built a lean-to onto my shed because it was in the middle of winter.

What I learned from then? Don't cut corners, Save your money to buy a quality part.

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danshaz

bought the car with the attitude that i already knew every possible thing there is to know.

when i dropped the rear subframe i ended up stripping the threads on the chassis studs when i put it back on. im guessing it was a combo of the impact gun to take it off and new hardware on the old stretched out studs. so i just hammered the new nuts on and hoped to god i never had to drop the subframe again.

OutlawLui

Buying my 1st 240sx 6 years ago :/

It's and Addiction .


*Damn... it was actually like 8 years now haha

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hatch4life

welding next to a rag soaked in wax and grease remover laying on the rad support

spoiler alert, it went up in flames pretty fast and ruined new paint, but harness was fine

brndck

I wired an electric fan backwards once, in a rush to make it to ASB.
car kept getting hot no matter what I did, had to come in every other lap and spray it off with the hose, then I realized the fan was spraying water BACK at me.

OOOOOPS.

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dizzariot

I've had friends talk shit on how selective I am when it comes to buying cars...but I've never had a problem daily driving and S13 in the US. Fucc tha h8rs.

...but when I got to Japan I fucked up. Found a Midnight Purple Type X for sale in Osaka. I was so excited by the price and how quickly I had come across one that I bought it without traveling to Osaka to see it in person. My thought process was something along the lines of:

Oh man I'm in Japan and dealerships are obviously all good sellers. Way better than America.

Wrong. Car was more of a 'project' then it should have been. I ended up trading a newer, turbo car for my NA Q's two-tone. I guess it worked out in the end.

Oh and I had a coupe when I left for boot. It was the ugly champagne color but it was an SE with HUD, sunroof, and brown interior. Should have never sold it :/

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dallaschristman

Worst mistake I've made with my car? Buying a single cam to swap in my dual cam car. No compression test, no checking to see if it was running. Just bought it and figured it out. HUGE fuck up.