Well, HyperRev makes books which list all the aftermarket upgrades available.

You might want to get Corky Bell's Maximum Boost and other type books such as Forced Induction Performance Tuning.

As fart as teaching you mechanical skills, no book can teach you that. Your best teacher would be exprience. Everyone starts somewhere, so grab a wrench and learn to pull bumpers off and replace your intake.

 

i plan on slowly adding parts to the car, not sure what is even worth it but before I even start adding performance items I want to get it running well if it isnt already running well, the book you mentioned is out of my league, i need something more basic, anyways, my search continues, but still need to get the car first though.

 

I can't speak for the S14, but I can tell you that the S13 is a very easy car to work on. If you want something that is easier to find your basic parts for (ie intakes, headers) then you should get a 91+ S13. The 89-90 have the SOHC and if you want an intake, you'll need to get a custom one done, however, the piping on the 240sx is pretty wide to begin with, so you may only need a filter. I am going to buy a cone filter for mine and see how that works on my SOHC.

Also see if you can hook up with the local tuner crowd if you haven't already done so. There can be much experience that can be general knowledge for any car that you can pick up from a group of friends. And when you have friends, you also have an extra set of hands or two to work on the car.

 

oh so as far as S13, 91+ is the way to go, ill have to keep that in mind when looking for a car, is there anyway to see what year a car is just by looking at it and not knowing the vin?

 

To me, all Japanese cars are the same and easy to work on.
Making a 240 into a 180. WTF?!
on s13, 89-90 have pig nose and SOHC KA.
It's a lot easier to learn about cars if you have a friends that know about cars.

Just do a lot of reading on zilvia, freshalloy, etc.

 

240 into a 180.. sr20det swap obviously. in north america they have ka, in japan they have sr. same chassis, same body, everything except rh or lh drive

 

I know of 2 s13s that live less than 5 blocks from my house, thinking about asking their owners if they'd consider selling them, they both look stock, one of them has a good looking body, the other has some rust..

what should I look for when buying an s13?

 

haha, much better question than the how much would it cost to build a competetive autocross 240...

as for working on them and not having much experience, its nothing. i was in the same spot when i was 16 and bought my 92. i knew the basics and everything but had alot to learn. just trust me on this... buy a repair manual(you can even download the FSM's, i have a chiltons and it works great), if something breaks replace it yourself(save money AND learn more about the car, the repair manual is priceless at this stage), and stay on the forums and read and search until until you are sick of 240's(figure of speech, i dont think that could ever actually happen, but you'll learn so much by just reading intelligent posts and what not).

as for "what should i look for when buying an s13"? search search search noob haha...
check for the same things you check for every car, stuff thats broken, stuff thats worn, RUST(check everywhere, engine bay, underbody, etc.)... test drive it, listen for abnormal sounds, you could even bring a compression tester

 

Just go for it. You've got to learn sometime and why not learn on a 240? Just buy the FSM for you year and make a few friends in the import community and your set. You've always got this board to fall back on for problems you will run into.

 

To find out the year a particular car is:
This is real easy since there are only two "generations" of the USDM S13. Look at the engine block. If one is the 12-valve, it is a SOHC (89-90). If it is the 16-valve, you have the later USDM S13 with a KA24DE. The owner should know this information, but it never hurts to double check. If you are still not sure, ask if that engine was swapped in.

Two things to look for when buying a 240sx that are separate from the usual things to look for when you buy a used car: Does the car have a factory spoiler? You'll know if it is because you should be able to flex that bitch like a sponge. If it has a spoiler, you may be looking at water leaking into the trunk.

The other is rust. Look for rest underneath the fenders, the trunk, the engine bay. If you can bend carpet back and see metal, look around at the metal and see if there is rust. If you see exposed metal, look for rust. The undercarriage you should not have to worry about it. If it looks like rust on the exhaust pipe, it may not be. That's just heat baked dirt. You should replace the factory exhaust with a new catback, anyway. The probability of rust in the trunk will be much greater if the car has a spoiler or used to have a spoiler (that's if the owner removed it and sealed it up or shaved it to make it look like there never was a spoiler). Ask if the car ever had a factory spoiler. If the answer is no, still check. Never trust the owner you are buying from, even if they are the first owner of the car.

You can also post up a VIN number here in the General Tech section and some people here are setup with CarFax and can run a report for you.

 

I just want to thank everyone for their input, so, thanks

i know this is a vague question but how much can I expect to pay for an s13?
just looking for a range here..

also, where is the vin located?

I also looked into the repair manual, the chilton one, but its got bad reviews on amazon, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801982626/102-3526270-5249754?v=glance
are their any other books I can buy or is this the one to get?

 

usually it is located in the far upper right hand side of the dash, way in a corner, with a metal bar with numbers and letter on it.

 

Also on the inside of the driver's door in the jam on the side without the hinge ... two locations for the VIN.

If you want to know if the price you are looking at for a S13, just post up the information (mileage, condition, etc) of the car and what the owner is asking and we can all tell you if you are over paying. The price really depends on the car.

 

240 into a 180.. sr20det swap obviously. in north america they have ka, in japan they have sr. same chassis, same body, everything except rh or lh drive

Nice wrong information.
Japan:
Nissan 180SX are Fastback and are equipied with CA18DET.
-180SX Type-X came with SR20DET
Nissan Silvia K's came with SR20DET. Q's came with SR20DE, J's came with KA24DE?? and A's is very rare.

Europe:
They had 180SX fastback with CA18DET. Their s13 fastback with SR20DET were called 200sx.

 

Nice wrong information.
Japan:
Nissan 180SX are Fastback and are equipied with CA18DET.
-180SX Type-X came with SR20DET
Nissan Silvia K's came with SR20DET. Q's came with SR20DE, J's came with KA24DE?? and A's is very rare.

Europe:
They had 180SX fastback with CA18DET. Their s13 fastback with SR20DET were called 200sx.

wrong! japans 180sx did have a sr20det engine. type x came with a blacktop and i think they came out in 94. 93 and below had redtops and ca's (de's and det's)

 

http://www.members.iinet.net/~sayers/biscuits/history.htm
Introduced 1988 in three body styles - the coupe (Silvia), hatch (180SX) and convertible version. S13s produced from 1988 to mid 1991 were CA18 powered which unfortunately came under constant critism about the drop in power from the S12's FJ20DET (142kW) to the new CA18DET (130kW). This is not to say that the CA18's weren't bloody quick! On the upside however, the new S13 won numerous awards in Japan due to its high level of technology and innovation such as Nissan's HICAS four wheel steering which is still used on cars such as the Silvia and GT-R to date.

But Nissan decided to revise its forerunning 4 cylinder engine with thought of creating something less sophisticated (since the CA18 was very sophisticated in its components and thus very expensive to build!) and more powerful than the aging CA18 block.

In mid 1991, Nissan introduced the SR20 to the world which continues to lead the silvia charge today in the latest S15 model. The SR20 has been in other well known cars such as the Pulsar GTiR and the Bluebird 4WD SSS.


That is how the SR and CA went in the 180sx. Keep the thread on topic. I think we've answered the man's questions. Just drop it. If you want to argue, take it to the PMs or something not public.

EDIT: The 180sx is an S13 you doofs. Anything that resembles a 180sx or S13 Silvia is an S13. S13 is merely the chassis code. The USDM 240sx fastback and coupes are also S13s. The 200sx's in Europe and Australia ... guess what? S13s also!

 

:crazyrant oil filter is a mother fucker :rotflmao

 

:crazyrant oil filter is a mother fucker :rotflmao

:werd

 

Yeah ... I forgot about that one part. And changing the oil alone can be a bitch just because it is so damned cramped under there. Glad I only have to do it every 3k miles (a number which does not roll around often for me). When I changed my oil right after I bought the car, I had my arm buried up the elbow in the bay just to get to the damn filter. Took it off with my bare hand, though, and that bitch was on there. But if you got little dick beater hands, you might have some trouble getting it off unless you got some forearm strength like me.

 

Seat brackets are a nightmare...

 

S13s are just old so many things naturally fall apart. Other than the used/ old car smell... its pretty general in regards with maintainace...

 

Yes, seat brackets can be a bitch. It's much easier if you do install new seats, to keep the seats within the Nissan family (ie. get your seats from a Skyline, Z car, or another Nissan). I am doing 350z or GT-R32 seats in mine in the next few months.

 

Oh cmon!
The oil filter isn't that hard.
My little hand slides right in there, even with a filter wrench.
Also, I made custom seat brackets for my ebay seats, that was hard though.

 

where can i get this tpr magazine from?

 

Shwag, I said if you got dick beater hands, it's easy. I got big manly hands. Tough for me. But my fist is a wrench of its own, so I don't need a wrench.