Nissan CA18DET - uber cheat, or just thrifty?

If you say CA18 anything and "cheaty" it doesn't give the perception of honesty, it gives the perception that you're any idiot for thinking those motors don't suck an insane amount.  The CA18 sucks.  If anything, you should get a penalty for being dumb enough to swap it into the car.

In summary, should be perfect for Lemonizing your vehicle.

Dude, you're in the Stanza wagon.  You could swap in something amazing, like even a Quad4, and be fine.  Go ahead with the CA18.  Bring documentation and you'll be fine; without documentation, Phil might sweat you for a minute before saying "get this piece of crap out of here!"

Bring all the engine documentation (eBay screenshot, receipts, etc) and you should be OK. Also bring the documentation for the stuff you sold. We tend to include shipping costs in the prices of parts (unless you're bringing a whole Hillman Imp over from the UK), so account for engine shipping cost as well.

By the way, what's the procees for swapping out a well-running engine and keeping it as a spare instead of selling it? Cause I see little sense ripping out a slow, but perfectly running motor, selling it for $200, and then buying another identical, slow, but perfectly good running motor for $200 as a spare just to "cover" for the engine upgrade in case it explodes within the first 10 laps (very likely)...

Now I really confuzzled myself.

Yes, you can ship a Zaporozhets and not count the shipping cost against the $500 budget.

I'm looking at importing a Soviet car myself, via a friend in the Czech Republic. I really want a GAZ-24 Volga, for that Brezhnevian aura. Any idea how hard it is to register such a car in the US?

zaz-968... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c … _front.jpg only a 965 would be better http://faimg1.forum-auto.com/mesimages/ … Zaz965.jpe

965 is cute, but I have a soft spot for non-M 968 (the one with ears). Always liked them, for some reason.

Phil, if you're not in a rush, we're seriously thinking about booking a container for 4 cars from Odessa towards the end of this year. It's ~$5000 per container and ~$500 to pack the cars; we have enough relatives all over Ukraine to find them, inspect, pick them up, and get them to port of origin. I'm thinking of ordering two Zap's for myself, one for $200 for Lemons and one good one to make my dad cringe every now and then (car of choice to pick him up when his oh-so-reliable Camry finally breaks down). If we find a 4th buyer, we're golden.

Also, I recommend the original Pobeda, if you're looking for something truly classic. One of my dad's friends gave us a ride in one, and it drove incredibly well.

BTW, the engine is finally here and it's an ugly piece of junk. No flywheel/clutch (UGH - it's an 8-bolt flywheel, different from ours), lots of bent/broken brackets/lines, no exhaust past the turbo, varnish inside, the whole deal. This thing looks like it spent the past 10 years being moved from scrapyard to scrapyard.

On the good side, while the turbo has some side play, it's not too bad and it still spins; the varnish is not all-black and has some golden color to it, and at least we have all the pieces to make it run. As long as they work.

Does anyone have an 87-88 1.8 Pulsar and want to upgrade to a lightweight flywheel? I could give you a nice discount on your first genuine Tavria, Zaporozhets, or Oka

SOHC engine uses a different crank with 6 bolts, not 8.

There's a possibility of USDM SR20DE flywheels bolting up - if that does it, I'm golden. Doesn't hurt to try, given that Pulsars are quite rare around here.

i DO actually want one of those Russian Limos they featured in Babylon A.D with vin Diesel. the model keeps escaping me. I know they had one in TopGear a few seasons back, and my russian budy back in school used to tell me of all the soviet junk that was considered a car over there.