1986 200sx

To start, some of you know me, some of you don't. I've been absent from this forum for quite some time now. Pretty much after my last S12 was totaled by a careless driver, I ended up just buying S13's and S14's. But I eventually found the error of my ways and bought another S12. I bought the car to use as a daily driver so I wouldn't rack up the miles on my S2000, but now I've decided to go a different direction for the car (the details on that will remain undisclosed until I'm finished)

So as it sits right now, its a '86 notchback. CA20E, 5spd, crappy paint job, body is in decent shape, interior is crap and is halfway taken out. odometer reads at 46k miles but I was told that the odometer was turned back and that its actually closer to 146k.. so who knows what it really is?! The previous owner apparently wasn't very good at working on cars, b/c they claimed they did the maintenance and well just for example the valve cover screws weren't even hand tight and the rear caliper bolts were half way backed out!!!!

A funny little story about the car.. I actually planned on selling the car again after having it sit in the parking lot for about 6 months. Well the day that I was going to sell it, the fuel pressure regulator crapped out and essentially I did not sell the car and then decided instead to keep it. So it was almost like the car didn't want to leave me, haha!

So far I've replaced the timing belt, tensioner, water pump, thermostat, fuel pressure regulator, radiator (S13, made a custom bracket to make it work), alternator (s13, for this you just need a shorter belt), brake master cylinder, rear brake pads, rear shocks, wheels (s13 7 spokes), shifter (s13), headlights (from german 200sx s13 w/ hid's), MR2 (sw20) 3rd brake light

Anyways.. here are some pics for now:

When I bought it:













Now:

Nice notch.

I don't know you from before, but you're not too far from me and you have a notch, so awesome.

Looks pretty clean, too.  Can't wait to find out these mystery plans.

Yeah man, it's a nice Mk1.5, good starting point for sure!

nice car...where in raleigh do u live?..i never see any s12s around here

I live in Cary. I usually only drive the S12 during the week which consists of me driving between cary, apex, and brier creek..

i think you've met my good friend Christopher (cls12vg30) before?

yea hes came by my house acouple times..we should get a small s12 meet together!

Yeah Chris is da man... hey dude nice to see you back in the game, the car looks good

that 3rd brake light is badass! and the car is looking way good, welcome back

Yeah clean notch. I know everyone hates on the SE s13 rims but I like them. Your car seems to be high though? My s12's sit much lower on stock suspension.

Dude you came back on the same day I did!!! Man this place is digging up alot of old guys lately!

swap the f20 out of one of those s2000s

brewster240swap the f20 out of one of those s2000s

NemisisOr not. Almost killed a guy who ruined a 1st gen Celica like that.

For me it always comes down to practicality. Can it be done? Sure. Is it worth all the work involved? Probably not. That, and you'd probably have to run stand-alone EM because most of the modern engines are highly integrated with the entire chassis harness and multiple modules. No fun.

Hey whatever happened to that blue beast you had man that was my favorite s12 of all time

sideways_s12Hey whatever happened to that blue beast you had man that was my favorite s12 of all time

hengeis that directed towards me?? if so I think you may have me confused with someone else b/c the only other blue S12 I had was my beat up '88 hatch.. it was automatic, stock, and dented up,.. definitely not a beast! LOL

ArroFor me it always comes down to practicality. Can it be done? Sure. Is it worth all the work involved? Probably not. That, and you'd probably have to run stand-alone EM because most of the modern engines are highly integrated with the entire chassis harness and multiple modules. No fun.

hengeis that directed towards me?? if so I think you may have me confused with someone else b/c the only other blue S12 I had was my beat up '88 hatch.. it was automatic, stock, and dented up,.. definitely not a beast! LOL

well it looks like i'm going to be getting another S12 here shortly.

'85 Notch, 5spd. 306k miles, but runs and drives, exterior is good except for rear trunk, and the interior only has the common issues with the door panels and the driver seat bolster.. the dash and dash vents look brand freaking new! but the guy said they're original

here are a few pics i took with my phone:

2 notches.  

<----Jealous

for right now the plan is going to be to pretty much swap all the interior out of the champagne car into the blue one and make the champagne one the track car

Next time I'm in NC, we should meet up.

Looking good, H.  Where are you keeping all these cars?  Isn't that black / silver S13 in the background yours too?  Or used to be, at least?

BTW, do you know of any locals looking to buy an S12?  I talked to the owner of pretty nice silver '86 Turbo that's sitting at a shop on Hillsborough St. near NCSU.  He's the original owner, he's not sure he wants to sell, but he might be able to be convinced.

Chris, I've got the S2000 in the garage, the blue S12 parked at my apartment complex (since its my DD), and I'm probably going to park the champagne one at work... the S13 did used to be mine, but then I sold it to Frankie, and he in turn sold it to Dave

picked up the car today..

dude that is bad a$$!! Very nice, thats cool that you found 2. i have not even spotted 1 were i live.

well it has been some time since I have updated! I've finally gotten around to doing some work on the S12's again. First job was fix the brakes. I replaced the front and rear rotors, front and rear pads, e-brake cables, front wheel bearings, and rebuilt all four of the calipers. I also got lucky and found a set of wheels at the junkyard and cleaned them up a bit and put them on the car too!

Before:



After:

Looking good

Nice man. I wish I had a coupe. Looking good man.

i love swazis!!!

methylprop on 06:34:54 PM / 21-Apr-11Nice man. I wish I had a coupe. Looking good man.

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Post Merge: [time]11:35:32 PM / 21-Apr-11 [/time]

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What seat is that?

^ Win lol, Wish i had the room to make one. I got the seats out of my car right now

henge on 08:55:51 PM / 21-Apr-11
thanks! Seat is out of an '84 celica supra. it did take some custom fabrication to get it in the car. right now it still sits a little to high, so i'm going to have to do a little more work before i'm satisfied with it. the passenger seat to match is actually being used in my living room right now on my home made "GT5 gaming rig".

installed the SE lip and side skirts that I got from Sean!

Kustamogen on 11:01:44 AM / 22-Apr-11MKII Supra seats are some of the most comfortable stock seats of any car EVER

I've done quite a bit of work, but haven't updated in a while.

I got around to putting some fog lights on, installed hids in the headlamps and fogs. Then I finally got around to putting the S14 SR20DE in. The CA20E still ran fine, so that is getting transplanted into the other notch I have to finally give it some life again. To anyone who has never done a swap, have someone give you a hand if you can, it definitely makes things easier. This is my second swap that I have done without anyone's help (first was 3SGTE swap in a 91 MR2).

Here are pics:

very nice bro, good to see someone else in NC kicking ass on there S12,

bump that ca20e bs lol

leme get my s12 together and we should roll to the sonics meets and represent ;)

Well, I haven't really updated much lately. I've been busy with other stuff, but now it's time to get back to the S12's. I just picked up a parts car that will help bring the other too back to life.
Here are some of the goodies off of it:




I also managed to get lucky and score the rear valances off of a SE to complete the kit on the '86.  For the '85 (which will eventually become my DD) I got a turbo hood scoop, turbo lip and side skirts, and SE fog lights, then it's also getting swapped to 5 lug and I have some Z32 wheels to throw on. I should have a decent pair when I'm finally done with the two.

henge it was nice meeting you in person and talking about s12's i really liked your notch. i am doing a job over on 147 and will be down there from time to time over the summer maybe we could meet for lunch sometime

keep up the good work

I'm just going to update in this thread since I've already posted pictures and what not about my '85 notch.  Anyways, I was going to sell this car. I had a couple of people try and screw around so I decided to keep it for now. I finally decided to swap the engine that I took out of the '86 into this one. That engine had about 150k on it. It also recently (within 2000 miles) got a new timing belt, tensioner, water pump, and front cam and crank seals. Now with the engine out, I replace the rear main seal, oil pan gasket, pilot bushing, clutch, pressure plate, and resurfaced the flywheel. I swapped over the crank pulley, intake manifold, distributor, alternator, and power steering pump from the black top onto the silver top. I had a good condition steering rack from the '86 (it got a new one) that I put into the '85 to replace the leaking one. I did replace the tie rods on it though. It still needs some work tracking down vacuum leaks and I'm probably going to have to replace the radiator. Next up, I have new kyb shocks and struts, control arm bushings, sway bar bushings, sway bar end links, tension rod bushings, front wheel bearings, brake pads and rotors, e-brake cables, clutch slave and master cylinders, and a few other things. I'm also going to repair the door panels and the driver seat. For the exterior, I'm going to keep it 4-lug for now and put the s12 turbo snowflake looking wheels that I have on it. I also have the turbo hood scoop, side skirts, and front lip to put on.  Here are some pictures from the swap. Once I get the engine running nice, this will be my DD.

I've been collecting some parts, will have some more updates soon

About time! :P