Choices...... Silvia content.

So this guy gave me an offer on the Skyline GTS-T i have stored in Canada, despite my never listing it for sale. I can't bring it here until august.

If I were to accept his offer I can get a 85,000km unmodded mint '88 Silvia K's from a contact in Japan that is high optioned (ie. has projector lights, HUD, etc) that I can import immediately. A 240sx unmodded is a significant overpriced sum here and rare, let alone this being an imported car. I can probably sell this for a ridiculous price down the road as well.

I'm going to have to mull this over, anyone here think I should do it?

No major opinion, but I would love to see some objective reports /pictures of the quality of these imports when they start coming in. I would want both of them. GRM needs to import a project car. That would be an awesome series for the mag.

Tyler H wrote: No major opinion, but I would love to see some objective reports /pictures of the quality of these imports when they start coming in. I would want both of them. GRM needs to import a project car. That would be an awesome series for the mag.

YES x1000!

Either way when I get one of those here i'll take some high quality pics if that would interest you.

Most of these cars have very low miles for their year and would probably match an american car in appearance for the mileage.

My dad used to be a messenger in the 80s and would put 300,000 miles in a car within 2 years and he said he would import engines from Japan because they were both cheaper and had significantly lower miles.

There is a reason for that because they have toll roads with ridiculously high tools. I've heard upwards of $60.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2354.html

Junkyard_Dog wrote:

Tyler H wrote: No major opinion, but I would love to see some objective reports /pictures of the quality of these imports when they start coming in. I would want both of them. GRM needs to import a project car. That would be an awesome series for the mag.

YES x1000!

YES X ANOTHER RIDICULOUS NUMBER!

This has interested me in the past too- it would be nice to see a nice article done on it that cut through internet rumors and laid it out cleanly what you needed to do to make it happen.

I've had my eye on a Suzuki Cappuccino for some time now.....

How much is the offer on the GTS-T, I have always wanted a RWD Skyline with the RB25DET?

Is it a stick?

I've seen some good deals, and some horrible deals on Japanese cars. There's a few guys here that would bring German or Swedish cars here from Japan, after they had sat on a dock for a year, after they hadn't had their last inspection a couple of years before that. It would often take thousands to get the fuel system happy again. Japanese models seem less troublesome, with one exception- JDM cars with engine modifications frighten me for a couple of reasons, but the primary one is this: There is no place in Japan to really stretch the legs on these cars, and they show up in the Midwest, and when the new owner decides to see whether it will really go 200mph...at which point everything that was happy for 5 seconds of boost is now melted, and discarded out the tailpipe.

Well done mods are fine, but its pretty hard to inspect a car that's been sitting on a dock 12,000 miles from here. I'm a coward when it comes to buying stuff I can't rub myself.

The Skyline is by far the more interesting car...But the Silvia can be far more easily converted to LHD.

I know if you are in the U.S. lots of people smuggle the Skylines in from Canada fairly easily. As far as a track toy goes, it seems like alot of places are cool with it.

I'd probably just stay the course......most will just think you rhd and SR swapped a 240.

Desmond wrote: I know if you are in the U.S. lots of people smuggle the Skylines in from Canada fairly easily. As far as a track toy goes, it seems like alot of places are cool with it.

I think the deal with (R34?) Skylines is that for track only use they are perfectly legal. For road use, some states don't seem to care, but the Feds definitely do.

I would love to see GRM import a noteworthy JDM sports car, and do a series of articles about the importation process and the overall ownership experience including how to find parts and tech support.

HappyAndy wrote:

Desmond wrote: I know if you are in the U.S. lots of people smuggle the Skylines in from Canada fairly easily. As far as a track toy goes, it seems like alot of places are cool with it.

I think the deal with (R34?) Skylines is that for track only use they are perfectly legal. For road use, some states don't seem to care, but the Feds definitely do. I would love to see GRM import a noteworthy JDM sports car, and do a series of articles about the importation process and the overall ownership experience including how to find parts and tech support.

I see no point in owning a car that the Fed's can confiscate at the drop of a hat.

I imported half of a '97 MR2 8 years ago and couldn't have been happier. I also had a hard time overlooking that the company I bought it from could go to Japan, buy a car at auction, send me videos of it driving, cut it in half, ship it to Tennessee, all for $4k and still make a profit. I can't help but think I would rather save them the effort of hacking up a car.

aussiesmg wrote: How much is the offer on the GTS-T, I have always wanted a RWD Skyline with the RB25DET? Is it a stick?

I wouldn't consider a car that wasn't a manual trans. Also the GTS-T is RB20DET.

I paid $6500 for the car and have free storage at a cousins. The offer is $7000 so it's no loss to me.

The Skyline is by far the more interesting car...But the Silvia can be far more easily converted to LHD.

Skyline is more interested although i wont convert it the fact that I could get every part here and that the CA18DET has a lot of support here and is considered to be more reliable in motorsports than the RB.

The RB20DET has the same oiling issues memetalk as the subaru engines with ringland failure due to oiling issues. The CA18DET is in a number drifter's cars and lasts forever.

I'd probably just stay the course......most will just think you rhd and SR swapped a 240.

lol ya that's what i've been thinking and why i havn't done it yet. However people who know that it's a real car seem to pay lots of money for them that are already stateside. I've seen ridiculous prices people paying for already imported cars.

Wait, is the '88 Silvia K the S12 chassis or S13? And are you sure it isn't badged as a 180sx? I could be remembering wrong, but I thought all silvia's starting with the S13 were SR20DET powered while 180sx were powered by the ca18det.

Oh, and FWIW, RB parts aren't hard to get here for the most part. I've had friends rebuild rb20's here.

In reply to aussiemg:

R32 GTS-T skylines had the rb20det, the r33 generation was the advent of the rb25det in the gts-t.

Personally I would stick with the Skyline.

Also the import rules equal bullE36 M3.