Build it or buy it ?

[Hitawall]

I i have a few 240's w/ different this or that but i want a rb26 to have not for any purpose other then to drive it once and see if power means that much ... now with sr swaps i know the cost to build and i always see kids selling theres uncomplete for big losses . so i am starting to think that all these new 240 owners should buy one with the motor they want and save there time . you could have $10,000 in car that some fool would sell for $4000 because he cant get the fuel pump to work . now before some professional zilvian tells me whats the point ... does anyone else hold this opionion or see this trend ?

i know buildingit is part of the fun but to use the $6g's to build it up sound like more fun . but i never seem to see any rb26's for trade or sale , but if there one for cheap pm me ill check it out and make it into a monster

[drift freaq]

I i have a few 240's w/ different this or that but i want a rb26 to have not for any purpose other then to drive it once and see if power means that much ... now with sr swaps i know the cost to build and i always see kids selling theres uncomplete for big losses . so i am starting to think that all these new 240 owners should buy one with the motor they want and save there time . you could have $10,000 in car that some fool would sell for $4000 because he cant get the fuel pump to work . now before some professional zilvian tells me whats the point ... does anyone else hold this opionion or see this trend ?

i know buildingit is part of the fun but to use the $6g's to build it up sound like more fun . but i never seem to see any rb26's for trade or sale , but if there one for cheap pm me ill check it out and make it into a monster

In response to your question. Fact is a lot of those uncompleted swaps are real piles of shit.

Fact is, yes I have sold very nice completed fresh swapped cars in the past. To people that wanted a good running car, without having to the build.
Issue is, a lot of people have the strange idea, that they can do it on their own for less. Most of the time unless they are in the business and have hook ups, they pay as much or even more and may not achieve the same results.
Now, if you think people are selling cars with 10k worth of parts and they just can't the fuel pump going, your wrong.
Most of the time they have much less into the swap , the engine is usually a high mileage engine.The wiring usually is either spaghetti or just looks like hell and is full of cold solder joints or butt connectors etc..

There is a reason these cars get offed cheap and its not as simple as you think. If it was, then I would have bought a lot more of them, fixed them and resold them.
If you think someone is going to start a RB26 install and not complete your dreaming. If someone has the money to go down the road of doing a RB26 install, they spend the money to make sure it works. They also do not sell the car right away and if they do sell it down the road want big money for it.
RB26 installs are one of the more expensive installs out there. Its at least 1500-2k more than a RB25 install. If you want to do it right and not hack style.
At this point in time, the only cheap RB cars I have seen for sale would be RB20 cars and one RB25 swap. A swap that was done so hack and poorly the guy could not sell the car for months on end. Anytime you see that you know its junk and buying someone elses headache is not fun.

[Hitawall]

i see a lot honsas with b16 jdm motors for less then the car would be worth with a us motor were i am at . sometimes you just run out of money and time passes and want rent money from a pile of parts . i dont disagree that a lot of them are junk .but i would make sure it starts if it was an sr or something . but some of the zlva mmbrs are selling nice cars cheap ... like the coupe w/69xwhp or smthg its not bad for $15000 if you are going to spend that much anyways and i always change my mind so if i sell a car you are getting a great deal on a nice car because i am stupid like that and a new harness is an easy upgrade all my cars have new oem sr harnesses just because i had a bad coil wire and it was toufgh to locate and took months so i go new all the time ... thanks for the post, it is a bad thread but i am glad to see one response ....

[fliprayzin240sx]

If you think $15,000 is cheap for a S13, ill sell you my S14 for $14,000. You make it sound like you can just drop $15,000 to build a car right off the bat. Not a lot of people can piece a car like that in a 6 months. Sure 600whp on a S-chassis with a RB would be great but not a lot of people have change like that in their pocket. Also not a lot of banks would be willing to loan out that much money on a 15-year old car thats in their eyes *blue book* only cost $3k tops. Another thing you gotta look at is that, nobody gets their money back from parts/mods they put into their car. Personally, i must have invested over $12,000k on my car the last couple of years. No way in hell id get that money back plus the cost of the car.

Its not that people cant afford to finish their car, its because something keeps happening to the car thats not expected and they just decided that instead of putting more money into it, they would benefit more cutting their losses. I almost got to that point, I went tru so many SR blocks its not even funny...but i decided to stick it out cuz i felt that ive gotten to the point of no-return.