The Car isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination... but over all I'd say it's a 7 out of 10 and there are no MAJOR problems with it just lots of minor stuff.
Pics that the seller took:
The Exterior:A few problems here, there's a dent in the hood above the passengers side headlight where someone had backed up into it with a trailer hitch... it's ugly but the only thing it damaged was the hood.
The clear coat is pealing on the trunk lid and there is some very minor (half dollar sized) on the passengers side rear wheel well. Also the antenna is broken (happened some time after the picture was taken apparently)
Aside from that and 12 years worth of scratches and sun fading the exterior the body is in good shape. I plan on doing a front end swap eventually so the hood is going to get replaced anyway and it will likely get painted in a much brighter shade of red. at the same time fixing all the other issues... and antennas are cheap.
The Interior:Missing floor mats and apparently the guy owned another 240 where the previous owner had painted the trim pieces yellow so he decided to swap them out for the good trim pieces in this car
...whatever, I'll try to strip the paint and if that fails I'm sure I can find some junk yard/ebay replacements
Aside from that the interior is easily the cleanest interior of any 240 I've driven yet, no rattles or squeaks either.
The Engine:The owner claimed the engine ran strong and reliably and he had used it as a daily for a year leading up to last November when he took it off the road and replaced it with a real daily driver... it seemed to run great for about 10 minutes and then like a switch was flipped it started sputtering and had really low power then it would click back to normal... He didn't come with me on the test drive but stood by that he had never experienced that even after we signed all the papers. it seems to me like a sensor is wonky or something got gunked up with the car sitting unused for nearly a year.
Aside from that the only engine related problems is a small hole in the muffler, no big deal because the exhaust is the first thing that's getting replaced.
The Suspension/Drivetrain:The car has adjustable AGX Shocks in all 4 corners that are less than 2 years old... and you can tell. Every other 240 I've driven had blown shocks so it was refreshing to see how the car handled without a broken suspension
Overall it felt solid handling wise. There was a slight vibration on the front left wheel but it could have just been low tire pressure (again sitting for almost a year) he also threw in brand new drilled/slotted rotors and pad not even installed, so if it's a brake issue... well that's covered too.
He didn't know if it had the optional Limited Slip differential, I did a little drifting in some dirt during my test drive (he wasn't with me
) and it felt like it had an LSD but I wont know for sure until I get under it.
It also has ABS which is a fairly rare option in this model year, A lot of the wannabe drift racers pull it out because you can't lock the brakes but I actually want it in because I dont plan on drift racing and well... in my experience if you're not drifting ABS usually stops you better.
The one thing I didn't like about this car is it has 4 lug hubs and I really wanted 5 lug hubs.. No big deal really though poking around online it seems like a really simple install albeit a bit pricey... the hub&bearing units run about $500-$600 for the whole car NEW and it would probably take 2-3 hours tops to do the conversion. The expensive parts comes in when you also have to replace the rotors and wheels at the same time because they all rely on the bolt pattern.
Non Turbo 300zx brakes (front and rear) and rear hubs all fit the 240 as a direct replacement, and I can get the front hubs from either a JDM silvia or the 240sx SE model from the US.... so I'll probably see if I can find junkyard parts from a 300zx and save those parts until I need to replace the wheels and do them all at once.
The Modification plan:I had nearly $7K saved toward this project car considering I spent less than half of that on the car I'm a few hundred short of being able to do an SR20 swap right now. I was quoted $4500 for a complete turnkey SR20 + 5 speed swap with the appropriate year JDM motor for the car.
So I'll be dropping $500 for a cat-back exhaust right away. and I should have enough money to have the swap done within the next month or two.
At that point I'll have a WRX killer that looks like trash
I'm planning on financing a daily driver/winter beater and selling my truck and if I can get $3-$4K for my truck then I'll have enough to do the Kouki Body swap and a fresh paint job... And then Hopefully I'll have enough money saved over the winter so that next spring I can do the wheels hubs and brakes and drive around in my very own Silvia
