Found a 1984 Nissan sentra on CL, that has been sitting (yikes) and needs a head gasket. Its cheap. Real cheap. I've driven a B12 sentra, and it was underwhelming, but seemed to have potential. I know these cars are really like, and it wouldn't take much power to get one moving.
Anyone know 1.6 E16 motor in these things? Do they hate boost? I know probably nothing correlates between these cars and a B13, but I was thinking maybe drop even a GA16 in it, and that would really make it haul, an SR20 would probably just be scary.
I hate craigslist sometimes.
The front part of the car is the same as a B12 if I remember right, and the rear suspension is sorta like a 510. There was a magazine that swapped an SR20 into a B12, the article used to be online but is now long gone.
I had several in college.
My favorite was an '85 which I put a whole bunch of parts from a Pulsar on. Subsequently dubbed: The Pulsenta. I gave it to my brother at 250k miles. He drove it another 10k without changing the oil, at which point it seized.
Chronic shock tower rust, front and rear. Carbs go bad sometimes. I always had good luck just swapping another used one on, but that was over ten years ago.
I wouldn't bother boosting the E15/16 or whichever. But the pulsars which are the same, came with a CA16DE stock sometimes.
Up until the '89, the engine pulls all of 70 horsepower. In '89 Nissan switched to fuel injection (I'm guess a throttle body type) and horsepower jumped into the mid to upper '80s.
There's one of these near me for sale on CL, with low miles, and the same cracked head....so it must be a chronic problem.
The engine in the later Sentras is a DOHC 1.6 so I would suspect it is a bit of an involved swap....but it MIGHT be doable. Cars in other markets (the U.K and Australia/NZ) COULD have had the DOHC engine swap at some point, so if there's anyone reading from "Down under" maybe they can steer you to a website/webassist.
i haven't seen a lot of cracked heads, it's usually that they blow the headgasket out.
I wouldn't bother trying to make a GA16DE fit, even though they're cheap, since we KNOW a CA18DE bolts right up.
