Gunmetal grey S12

[Anonymous Waffle]

Oh yeah, I bought another project. 1986 Nissan s12, another car I've always wanted!! Drove from Missouri to Memphis Tennessee to pick it up and bring it home. 

 

 

 

 

 

It needs a fair bit of small work. It's mostly complete, but pretty beat up. 

 

It's a base model 86, CA20e, manual windows, no sunroof (win!), manual locks, and manual. Simple!!

 

Front and rear bumpers are pretty wrecked. Rear has a big chunk missing, the front bumpers lower valence is completely missing. 

 

 

 

 

Interior needs help. It's mostly there, but one of the previous owners was halfway into gutting it. Every single screw and plastic clip is completely missing in the interior.

 

Rear carpet is gone, and the original fuel tank is completely missing. A poorly installed race fuel tank is in the back and plumbed up. Absolutely hate it. There's a S12 in a junkyard about a 100 miles from me that I hope has a fuel tank. 

 

 

I yanked out the Turbo seats to give everything a clean to the best of my ability. Lots of mice poop 😤

 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Anonymous Waffle

[Anonymous Waffle]

 

Ca20e. It's a replacement engine with "supposedly" 70k miles. The chassis has 198k miles on it. Sadly the engine wiring is pretty junk. Lots of shoddy wiring and chewed up wires from mice too. 

 

 

This is the only actual rust on the car. Battery acid and mice poop = rust I suppose lol. I'll do a battery re location in the future. 

 

 

 

I spent some time cleaning up wires.. you can see all the terrible splices on here, all of these were just twisted together or completely exposed. 

 

 

I don't have a mechanical clutch fan, and didn't want to just buy one, so I found this dual fan setup from a 93 maxima in a junkyard for 20$

 

 

 

Then these popped up from a local datsun Z guy in Kansas City. Panasport "racing only" in 14 x 7. Aluminum, thankfully, not magnesium. They were used by some other SCCA racer in the 90s and are wrapped in some old Hoosier 225s. 

 

Plan is to make them my "fake" watanabes because im broke 🤘 Ill get them powdercoated that gunmetal grey and wrap them in a 185/60 for that slightly fat tire small wheel look that I love. Like these.

 

 

 

 

Does give off 86 vibes here lol.

Edited October 26, 2023 by Anonymous Waffle

[Anonymous Waffle]

After fixing some wires, and finding blown fuses (probably from all the exposed wires I found) I wired up a inline fuel pump to the fuel cell. It's very temporary and just wired up separately from the harness. 

 

Gave it fuel, and after some fiddling, I got it to fire up. It's got a super short, side exit exhaust with a tiny little "race" muffler, and is very loud. Also there's a wicked metal noise coming from the loose heat shields on the exhaust. 

 

 

[1001001SOS]

A fuel cell and side pipes, basically a race car already.

[datzenmike]

NAPS engine. The '87 had a VG30 option, the same engine as the 300zx.

[bilzbobaggins]

I approve.

 

 I got all excited about one close to me recently.   Fucker had a salvage title.  No go in Georgia.  There was/is a really nice turbo one somewhere in the south that I saw on bookface.

[thisismatt]

Cars in California, Vermont, Missouri, Tennessee? What are you, the international man of mystery?! 

[Anonymous Waffle]

15 hours ago, bilzbobaggins said:

I approve.

 

 I got all excited about one close to me recently.   Fucker had a salvage title.  No go in Georgia.  There was/is a really nice turbo one somewhere in the south that I saw on bookface.

 

That's a damn shame.. its definitely not common to see s12s out where I am in MO, or anything really old datsun/nissan, but I'll have my fun with this one. 

 

It'll be the winter beater out here, so I don't accidentally wreck my maxima with the possibility of salt out here. 

[Anonymous Waffle]

2 hours ago, thisismatt said:

Cars in California, Vermont, Missouri, Tennessee? What are you, the international man of mystery?! 

 

I should try and get a datsun/nissan car from every state now! Lol

[Anonymous Waffle]

I'm on the lookout for a KA24E/DE to do a swap in the future. I know the ca20e isn't that great of a engine, especially when it comes to power adders, so a swap is logical. 

[Anonymous Waffle]

Got some winter tires installed on the 14" panasports for the s12. 185/60/r14, for that thick meat look for the tiny 14s. I fricken love it, and now it needs more low haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've also got the lineup for a ka24DE, 5 speed, with all the accessories and wiring and driveshaft coming up. Waiting on more suspension parts, foxbody shocks, and more s13 goodies for the front. I'm on the lookout for s14 tension rod brackets so I can run the s13 LCA and s13 adjustable tension rods. 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Anonymous Waffle

[KELMO]

Always wanted one of these as well. Actually tried to buy one in '87 but the Nissan dealership I worked for only paid me Sentra money.

I ended up with an "87 Sentra Coupe.

[Anonymous Waffle]

Happy holidays and a happy new year to all of y'all. Just a little bit of a photo dump of whats happening with the s12. I think ive put about 250 miles or so on the S12. Got it tuned up and driving pretty good, but I just dont trust it enough to be reliable enough to drive for long periods of time. 

 

Found a guy a few hours away in Oklahoma who collects S12's and has some really nice cars, and I bought some good parts from him. 

 

 

He has a really nice Skyline wagon and a very clean VG S12..

 

 

Bought all kinds of small things from him, to include a good rear bumper and a clean gas tank, which is a hell of a score!

 

 

 

 

 

Got exhaust work done, added a extra muffler in the system so it wasnt so loud and annoying. Its very quiet at idle but screams pretty good in the higher rpms. 

 

 

 

 

Snow and cold weather is finally approaching in Missouri, and the car is not happy about it. Ive got a weird intermittent issue, where if I dont fully warm up the car and go for a drive, then park and shut the vehicle off, and return to it 10 minutes later, it does not want to start back up. Itll start, run for 15 seconds, then cut ignition. Then it doesnt start at all unless I let it sit for 5 minutes, but continues to have the ignition cut issue. It almost feels like the coolant temp sensor is faulty and cutting ignition/fuel.. The only fix ive had for this after many different tries, is to just let it sit overnight. Its happened about twice now. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 4 by Anonymous Waffle