Originally Posted by Char

Okay NissanForums.. I have no idea what to do so Im basically bugging everyone I know for opinions. lol

I bought my car over 6 months ago, its a great little thing. I bought it for "As-is" for $2,100, 145.4K on it and had to put a new (stock) exhaust on it because the old one was rusted to hell. The only thing original for the exhaust is the catback and the headers. Failing emissions now, but it looks to be my cat... will get more to that later. I was never really looking to make this a preformance car, being my first and FWD. I did advance the timing and put a new intake on it, but the main reasons I did that for myself was better responce and it just runs better.

Little did I know till about a month later.. it has a miss-fire. It rarely happens and only around 2,500 RPMs.. but its already burnt my cat up to where its letting out too much HCs to pass emissions. Ive replaced the Coolent Temp Sensor (as it was throwing a code) and the Cyl 1 injector... still comes up. The only thing my mechanics can see it being is something serious like a sticking Valve.

I talked to my mechanic (I work at the same place so hes really closer then the average mechanic, he will do work for me outside of the job and I pay him directly) about fixing the issue. Short of taking off the head and looking for a problem.. there is nothing else he can do. And being without doing so he doesnt even know where to look (everything seems fine, runs fine, compression is even normal) that it could cost so much he said it may be better off putting in a new engine.

So now Im here with choices, none of which I can get a clear answer with myself.

A) Tell him to go ahead and take off the head and look for the problem, HOPE its something easy and quick and cheap and be done with it.

B) Buy a Junkyard engine (around $700, depends on supply and milage) and he swaps that into my car.

C) Buy a lower milage SR20 from places like JGY Customs, have it shipped and him install it.

D) Sell the car...

Option A.. no idea how much it will cost in the end, but he said in all, the time it will take and parts will make it about the same as a engine swap.

Option B and C.. he will do a full swap for me for $700. Im not 100% sure if hes willing to do a different engine then stock though. But... I really dont want a turbo anyway. Then I got the idea.. VE! Almost Everything is a dirrect bolt. All I would need is new headers, new ECU (about $500) and a bit of rewiring for the distributor and the selenoid and one additional 2-wire harness. Im sure he could do it easily but Im not sure if hes willing to do such a thing. Plus with the engine from JGY costing almost 2 grand Im looking at spending nearly $3,500 on it all together. Will the VE give me emissions close enough to the DE that they wont notice and I pass? Being Maryland in a 95, they dont scan it, they run it on a treadmill and collect the exhaust gasses.

Money being a issue.. I have $500 to my name after bills this month.. haha Current pay I have about $600 every month I can save. Current plains... well, emissions is on my ass about all this. Either I have a signed paper with paid reciept by the end of May to have the date pushed back or my car isnt legal. And Im trying to move so I wanted to save as much money as I could for that. It seems the only thing keeping my car from passing emissions is my Cat, but I dont want to replace that now just to have my engine burn it up again before I deal with the real problem.

Option D... I dont want to sell this car, I love it, but the cheapest road does seem that I sell it for "as-is" like it was to me, not telling them about the miss-fire and have some poor soul buy it. With everything being stock and pretty well maintained (new exhaust too...) it should sell for over $2,000. Then I could always buy a different car. Then again I may run into problems with that car.

What to do what to do what to do...

Oh, and yeah I figured this may go in B14 forum, but considering it mostly has to do with the engine.. and being the next one (if I went with that option) would be a VE, I threw it in here.