M/T Ignition: 240SS project

[kevm14]

This is a 300ZX with a Nissan VH V8. What's wrong with this picture:

[kevm14]

Max irony:

I found reading some the comments more entertaining then the video, so many offended JDM fan boys.

I like how there's butthurt JDM fanboys for taking out an engine that was never available in a Japanese market car.

I guess the KA24 was never offered as JDM. Ha.

[kevm14]

Welcome to Jalopnik. Here, we appreciate a... slightly more subtle rage about engines. I think what you are experiencing may be some 4chan-injected-I-am-a-child-of-the-90's-and-I-know-a-2JZ-is-the-best-because-GT4-and-2Fast2Stupidest.

Sounds about right.

[kevm14]

I answered my own question. Very strange way to position the intake manifold.

[kevm14]

Yeah buddy.

I see lots of people posting the same points over and over and over... But nobody seems to mention ease of wiring or plumbing. You can take a stock LS harness and hook up ~3 power and ground wires and have it run the engine if you supply fuel. GM ecu's are also lovely because they require nothing more than software and an OBD2 cord to tune like a standalone. The fuel system is constant pressure and returns/regulates through the fuel filter, so that's incredibly easy to hook up as well.

I was one of the early adopters of this swap and haven't looked back since. When my motor was stock with a tune and basic intake/exhaust to fit the swap it made 355hp to the wheels and my partially stripped car was around 2750lbs. I took it to the drag strip one night and ran 11.7 on street tires. Now with heads/cam it's at 415rwhp and stripped down closer to 2600lbs. I'm able to take it to track days at Road Atlanta and easily outpace other similarly experienced drivers in hardware with at least 5 times the amount of money in them. I change the oil and put gas in the car, and that is the only maintenance I have to do. It just plain works.

[bill25]

It would be nice if we could come up with a profitable business model for doing these swaps. Sadly, I am not sure that is possible because I doubt that there is a demand from people that actually have the money to buy something like this.

I think that the benefits to driving something like this are so overlooked:

Virtually no yearly property tax which at say $35 per 1K for a 35K vehicle would be $1225 per year, decreasing every year.
You end up with a really fun car for much less than that of an equally performing new car (depending on how much is redone)
You could potentially end up with a sleeper depending on the donor, which is nice if you don't like getting pulled over
The insurance would likely be less than that of a new car.
Sales tax on initial purchase - if these were sold for 15K compared to 35K you would save another $1400

If you save 2K per year in the beginning, and saving less towards the end, 10 years driving this would save you probably 10 to 13K

Problem is that historically, modded cars don't sell well. You would have to prove that you are credible enough as a dealership to be doing the work - Kind of like Coddington did with the hot rods. He did the whole package including body and paint though.

The other problem is finding RWD cars to do the swap to than to sell. The "cool" nineties Asian cars are ridiculously high priced still. As far as American cars, what would you do, swap a gen 4 F-Body, nope. There aren't many other RWD American that aren't either classified as collector priced, or to new for the donor to end up being profitable.

[kevm14]

The very thing that may theoretically allow you to charge for a swapped car, would also increase its resale value to that first owner, making him more likely to pay up in the first place. That's a tough nut to crack and I don't know if even the very well established tuner shops (like Hennessey or Lingenfelter) really have resale on the secondary market.

A warranty would probably help.

[kevm14]

Carlos Lago (or should I say Larlos Cago) gathers impressions from his coworkers on the 240SS. I missed this originally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLsGtgeo-Kg