| so far I've broken cost categories down into quarters. 1. $6-7,000 for the basic donor car. Mine was $2800; then paint, suspension, brakes, all the standard upgrades. Got lucky on finding one with a good interior. 2. $6-7000 for the Engine and Trans combo, plus upgrades if you get a run of the mill LS motor. They're pretty cheap to upgrade, much less than the TT motors, but still I would expect most guys here would end up spending between five and ten thousand on the driveline to get want they wanted. In this case we're looking at about 425 hp at the crank. 3. The cost of conversion parts are all over the place. Some guys fab everything; some buy used parts and make them work; and some, like myself buy the LOJ kits; which are designed for this swap. My cost for the complete ready to go, plug and play thing was $7500. I still need another $500 for custom driveshaft so Call it $8,000. 4. I am guessing on labor to install. If you buy the complete ready to go conversion kit, the fabrication charges drop considerably; and I think this is something most guys here could do in their own garages. But I decided to use a pro, and let them deal some of the electronic glitches of getting General Motors to talk to Nissan. So far I'm thinking its going to be around $3-4,000 for the shop fee. But well worth it for the reliability factor. Even if you do it alone in your garage, you're going to want a mentor or two to consult or make a home diagnostic call. Totals: So we're now just topping $20,000 for the parts and materials and adding another $4000 for shop fee; I'd say the median costs for something like this to be done right and look good is about $25,000**. Like everything car related, if I did it again, I could probably cut my costs by 25%. So if someone really did their due diligence they could do this swap for between $15-$20,000 and have a very nice car. Is it worth it? It depends. I didn't expect it would cost this much. [famous last words after 'while we're in there']. I thought more it'd be more in the neighorhood of $10-$15,000. But I'm blessed to have a good financial situation; and at my age you don't want to leave too many things on your "to do list" undone for very long. I've always loved the Chevy small block series. And I've always wanted a real hot-rod coupe, like a 53 Stude. After I sold the 93TT; as predicted by everyone but myself, I wanted another one... So you could say this project was the culmination of combining all three of those factors. And finally there's the one factor you kids will learn in your own time.... and this is YOLO. _____________________________________________ ** Total construction costs are an on-going argument on the Nissan V8 Conversion FB page wherein the kid/fabricators swear they can do the whole thing for less than $8000-$10,000. Some even say five! But they're all two three years into their projects; and I know half of them will be selling their cage twin turbo nightmares on EBay for the cost of their LS motors and transmissions; with the Z32 chassis merely functioning a something to facilitate moving the valuable parts around on. Some of them are truly creative; but most are hack jobs whose only purpose will be to educate them on what not to do next time when hot rodding a car.
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