StuartTheFish

No offence taken mate, I don't know you either. :)

Why would it take me weeks and weeks to do an engine swap? I don't need a car as a daily, since I ride my bike to work and back throughout the week, this would purely be a car that I can enjoy. I like my cars, and am going out of my mind not having something worth driving. Buying a runaround wouldn't do, since I wouldn't enjoy it in the slightest. My wife already has a crappy Seat Leon that I despise driving, so why buy something else like that? I need a car for my enjoyment, not as a day to day necessity. Even if my car really was on the drive for weeks while I work on it, I enjoy working on cars anyway, so I wouldn't be losing out. I'd still be happy enough driving an NA while I've got a TT engine build in the garage waiting to be dropped in once I've sourced everything. Know what I mean? I get where you're coming from about you always wanting an swb though, as I always wanted a gtr, but ended up with a gtst instead due to my budget. It's never measured up. But although a lwb zed can't be turned into a swb zed, an NA or auto zed CAN be turned into a manual TT with a bit of graft.

I know they won't necessarily be cheaper to buy, but I'm just not restricting myself to only looking at TT's any more, in the hope that somewhere I'll find a good shell worth having. I've done a couple of engine swaps before, so I should be able to fumble my way through. Ideally yes I'd just get a manual TT, but it seems my budget won't get me a good one nowadays. If only I'd bought one instead of my skyline 5 years ago, but needed the boot space for a pushchair at the time. :(

It definitely wouldn't stay as an NA mate, as yes that is the plan to end up with something that feels faster than the skyline. But since all the TT's I've seen in my budget have had problems and lots of rust, I'm forced to look at other options. I don't really have a means of upping my budget, other than saving for months and months, and I don't have a car right now. It may end up costing the same overall, but at least if I could find a cheap rust free NA to keep me mobile, I can buy bits here and there over time for converting, and I can do the work myself anyway.

At my budget, I have to simply look for the best condition shell I can find, regardless of what engine it has. There aren't many manual TT's in my budget, and the few that are all seem to be rotten.

Thanks for the replies. It definitely wouldn't be staying as an NA, so I'm not worried about tuning it. It's more just the weight I want to shed since I know they're not light cars. Whatever car I find, it'd end up being a manual TT, likely with the NA back end to allow me to have the 4.1:1 r200 diff. In fact, I have a 4.3:1 diff that'd fit on my skyline, so if I broke it I could even slap that on so long as it doesn't just end up wheel spinning everywhere. :) I appreciate the slicktop is lighter due to the different roof and presumably less reinforced chassis, but they're 2 seaters and I need it to be a lwb to get my kids in the back. I also kinda like the idea of having the t bar. :)

Hi guys, just wondering if anyone knows how much weight can be taken out of a zed? Since I'm considering an NA instead of a TT at the moment, are they much lighter? I know they don't have hicas for example, but is the r230 diff much heavier than the r200 diff? Did the TT get any additional chassis stiffening? And so on. Has anyone compiled a list on here somewhere of what things weigh? Also, are there any chassis repair manuals floating around online which could help me find out which bits aren't structural, etc?

I'm keeping an eye on it, already speaking to the seller. Three hours away though, but at least it'd already have the NA back end on it.

I found more, so left it alone.

Back on topic, did you get that swb I showed you Noel?

If only you asked last night, I was there today!

I'm one of those who wants to care for one, but my current budget simply won't stretch to much. That's why I wanted the one yesterday so badly, as at that price even I had enough money left out of my budget to fix it, or at least deal with over time. :(

So it's not something to be concerned about. Thanks.

I'll be checking, I don't intend to ignore it. Where's the main problem areas?

This is the first car it's not been able to bring up for me, so it's thrown me a bit.

It does tally, since the chassis number after comes up as the same colour as this one, and the month and year of manufacture adds up...

Even though I've got the Japanese version of FAST, and it recognised both the one before and after it?

It recognises one chassis number earlier, and one chassis number later, but not this particular one?

Just been offered a manual tt zed, and all sounds okay apart from a little bit of rust on the rear quarters, though he claims the struts are clean, had new sills last year, etc. Just looked up the chassis number on the MOT history checker, and it exists. Yet if I try to look it up on Nissan FAST, it doesn't recognise it. Cause for alarm?

Thing is when speaking to the guy on the phone, every bit he told me that was wrong with the car, I responded by explaining exactly what I thought it was and that I'd get it sorted. Couldn't have been any more keen if I tried, and he knew it. In his shoes, if my friend had turned around and done that last minute, I'd have told him to piss off since someone I don't know is coming out of their way specifically for it. If they were a friend who wanted it they'd have expressed interest sooner before watching me pay to advertise it, etc.

I really hope so, I'm this close to giving up on having a nice car at all, nothing seems to let me. Just about had enough. :(

That last bit's about the seller, not Noel.

My heart had already sank as you can expect, but when I saw that to I just saw red. I've already apologised to him, but still can't believe we'd said I was going round for 1pm as he asked, with a fistful of cash, taken the day off work and everything. Even my kids were in bits about it, which made things worse.

Well, it seems we ARE still friends on Facebook, so don't have a clue what happened. He reckons he's keeping an eye out for a lwb for me, and I showed him a car I'd seen which turned out to be an swb, so seems so. :)

Honestly don't know what happened with the Facebook friends thing though. It definitely said we were friends, then not, then we were again. Odd, but never mind, it's the seller I was pissed off with.