Here's something you don't see too often in the states!
My 1989 Nissan 240sx on small wheels with a semi built CA18DET!
Spec Sheet:
Drivetrain
-Built JDM CA18DET. Forged 83.5mm CP Pistons, Spool Forged Rods, ACL Race Bearings, ROSS Harmonic Balancer, Spool stiffer valve springs w/ Titanium retainers, ARP Head studs, Tomei head gasket, stock cams.
-Dual AN Head Drains
-Koyorad
-DMAX Raised Engine Mounts
-Unknown Tubular Manifold to stock t25 turbo with a modified moonface downpipe
-PBM High mount intercooler
-Stock ECU w/ Wiring Specialties swap harness
-DW200 Fuel Pump
-Spec Stage 2+ clutch w/ factory 5 speed trans
-One-Piece Steel Driveshaft
-Welded 4.08 Diff
Suspension
-Silver Neo Max 6k/8k Coils
-PBM Power Brace
-GKTech V5 Tension Rods
-Villains Cut Knuckles + 30mm Extended Lowers + Tie Rods w/ Rack Spacer
-Stock Sway Bars w/ Gktech End Links
-GKTech Adjustable RLCA
-ISR Pro Toe, Camber, and Traction arms
-GKTech Poly rear subframe bushings w/ risers
-GKTech handbrake cables and extenders
-Eccentric Lockout
Exterior
Pretty much the only thing note worth is the SSR XR-4 Longchamps (15x7+5, 15x7.5-7)
As well as a Pignose front lip
Interior
-RockAuto Dash Mat to cover the grand canyon
-P2M Floor Mats
-Real v1 C's Short Shifter w/ GKTech detent springs and brass bushing
-ShirtsTuckedIn Shift Knob + Shift Boot
-DEFI Oil temp, Oil Pressure, and Coolant temp Gauges
-Not pictured but I have a HUD cluster to swap in
-All other interior is stock and complete including the hatch privacy cover
With all that being said here's where it sits today
Broken and on jackstands, as all 240's should be. Before I left for college I had just finished the engine swap and got it running. But not 100 miles into the break in period of the engine a ticking noise developed in the head and once I opened up the valve covers I discovered that my cams had become heavily worn presumably from stuck lifters
Tick/Squeak from head
Cam Wear
I'll be honest, this almost made me give up. But with help and inspiration from my brother we dug into it and I decided to purchase a spare stock head (Lucky find not far from me) and take rebuild the lifters from it to put into my engine to get it back up and running.
For me this was a daunting task as I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to this sort of stuff, but after watching the few videos I could find and reading some old forums I got to it. To be honest I found it almost enjoyable and after a couple long nights I had them all fully cleaned, reassembled, and bled (pretty stiff and hard to compress with your fingers) which from what I had read is how they should be. After all that work came the task of swapping out the old lifters for the freshly rebuilt lifters, which took maybe 2-3 hours as it was our first time (of many) taking apart the head in car. The time came to hit the key and wouldn't ya know it, now it would barely run and had no compression on cyl 1 and cyl 3. Which prompted a second wave of wanting to give up. But again I did some more research and found some people saying the lifters should be squishy and easy to compress after they are bled. So we ripped it all apart, made all the lifters squishy, put it all together again, and once again no compression on cyl 1 and cyl 3. This only left me more confused than I already was, and after a good bit of thought and some more messing around with swapping lifters around, the only explanation we could come up with was perhaps the machine shop (I had them do some light head work) messed up the valve heights and as a result the lifters are holding the valves open. That's the current theory, and my next plan of action is to take the stock head I bought and slap it on with the stock springs, lifters, cams, everything to test and make sure that fixed the issue.
Hopefully, this winter when I'm back on break I'll have ample time to swap the head and get it running. But till then it collects dust lol