The engines shipped over from Japan are pretty well trashed. True that most of these engines have under 25,000 miles on them; but they are hard Toyko miles and most of them have never had as oil change. Most Japaneese don't own cars they lease' and when they hit about 20,000 or so they turn them in and the process starts all over again. Under those conditions the engines are rarly if ever serviced. No one I have ever known has had any luck with them. You would be better off going to the boneyard and trying to find an engine. Ideallly you could score on a 1.6L and gain some power.

 

BS-Ive had great luck with them. You have to know who the distibutor is getting them from. Ive got three in Cali that I can get them dirt cheap, with a sixth month warranty. Im currently running a swift block(imported from Japan), eight valve head with a weber and she screams. Dont know what zippy is talking about, but for the price of a rebuild kit, I can get a whole motor delivered to my front door. I have also hooked a couple of friends up with Toyota motors, no problems there either. If you want any information, just let me know.

Kamazuki

 

I have herd good and bad storys about motors ship from japan. The reason they have low miles is because a car over there have to go through a JCI. Its a big inspection. The engines are usualy in great shape they fail because of how rusted the bodys are. And the cars over there about a quarter of how much they go for over here. So its cheaper to buy a new one than to get it fixed. Most cars overthere fail there JCI after a few year of use. I rebuilt mine but for how much I spent on Machine work and rebuild kit you can probably find a new one. If your head, crank,block is good you could probably rebuild it for pretty cheep. It depends on how you feel about rebuilding a engine, and how much spair time you have.

 

You might get SUPER lucky and find a good low milaged used engine at www.car-part.com
I bought a swift GTI 16v off there for 350 shipped to my door, then I sold the head and other stuff for 300.

Granted, then I bought a head for 500 and 500+ on engine work (new rings, bearings, balanced the flywheel, engine professionaly assembled, etc..).

 

howdy,
rebuild it yourself. it the best way i feel. this way you know what is there, and you become closer to your sammi. but then again i refer to my sammi as MONZUKI, becuase she is part of my family.

 

Kamazuki, all I can say is that you got lucky. I use to work for the largest west coast distributers of used Jap. engines. All I can say is I wouldn't use 99% of them as boat anchors. We would also offer a 6 month or 6,000 mile warentee, that usually wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Where the co. would make their $$$$$ is on the install. That was $300 a pop and if the engine died the next day, as many of them did, we would replace it FREE, and it would ony cost you anothr $300 for the install.
AS P.T. Barnum once said "there's a sucker born every minute."
Another excellent source of income for the company was little "mom & pop" car lots. They would buy these engines 3 or 4 at a time, clean them up and throw them into some old beater with a decent body that they bought at the "junk" auction. Buying more than one engine would bring the price down to around $150 each. Add that to a decent used car with a blown motor, about $500. And now for a $650 investment plus some wrenching time you have created a $2500 vechile that you will swear was owned by some little old lady from Pasadena and only driven to church.

 

I went through SOKO and got a Japanese spec 2.0 for my Sentra SE-r. I was VERY happy with it. I beat the poo out of it (street and strip raced) and it died just after I put 100K on it myself. It served me well.

 

If money is the concern and the engine is in good shape (except the water in the oil)

Find where the water gets in the oil. Head gasket or intake gasket mabe?
And fix it. Will be cheap and worth the try IMHO.