need your guys help, nissan 280z with 350 engine...

ok so this all started with me buying a ranchers ford ranger. i bought a 1994 ford ranger for $750 and traded a tv, so bringing it down to $500 cash.
specs 1994 ford ranger ext. cab 4x4 4.0 5speed man. 135,000 miles limited slip, ac works all stock.
now it needs the front end fixed up witch i am trading a laptop for parts and labor. and then a $250 set of warn hubs.

now i was on facebook lurking the cars for sale and found a datsun 280z with a brand new 350 installed for sale..... or trade for nice truck...
well i sent him some pics and he likes it... mostly everything is done but still needs shifter cable adjusted, and exhaust.. heres some pics what do you guys think i should do?

 

It depends where you live, if you live in a state where it is mandatory to smog i wouldn't go for it. If you don't have to smog I would say go for it, Datsuns are easy to work on and fairly cheap for parts as long as it isn't body panels. The major problems with Datsuns is rust, the engine and drive train will last longer than the metal surrounding it.
With the 240-280z's rust is common are here .

Personally I would rip out that 350 and put the L28 back in. Head on over to http://community.ratsun.net/ and http://forums.hybridz.org/ check out some build threads.

 

yeah no smog laws here.... nevada.. las vegas and reno have it but not were i am. the stock engine (in the far future) to me seems the way to go. they always caught my eye for the cool factor.

 

The problem here is can you really afford the Datsun. From what it sounds like, you may not be able to keep up with the expenses that you might be facing if you get that car, but then again, it's a fairly simple setup so I doubt it will really cost you all that much besides the gas expenses.

 

Since you live in the desert there shouldn't be too much rust on the car if any. Also how much is the guy asking for it? The 280z is less desirable than the 240z due to the fact that the 280z had emissions and added safety features meaning more weight. In Southern California a good quality 240z would be about $9000-$12000 and a same quality 280z would be about $4500-$7500, The price difference is pretty big with only 4 years between the start of production of each model. But those are SoCal price's, so in Navada it would probably be different.

 

oh i can afford it, i bought the ranger to trade then i grew an attachment... i try to save as much money as possible by trading up... hes asking 3500 for it and its a kid. but yeah if theres a lotta rust ill prob move on no sense in jupming in a bad deal. i like to weigh the situation.

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I would go for the Datsun. My uncle has a '71 240z and it is awesome.

 

A smart man once told me "You shouldn't trust people on the internet so much" after I asked him for advice If you got an attachment to your truck: Imho, just do what your heart tells you, if you're a car-nut. The only way you're gonna get rid of it is if you don't think too much about it. For me a flash-decision-sell was the only way I ever could get rid of my first car. It had gotten a new full year of MOT, and then litterally the next day I found a bigass crunchy hole in the floor. I loved the car but I knew it wasn't worth anything whatsoever to anyone else, especially with rust like that. I bought a different car in less than a week I think and sold my old car another day later. Missed it at first, but meh. What I found more heartbreaking is that that car no longer exists anymore. They somehow sent it to the junkyard after a month of owning it while the engine ran like mint, had 4 new tires, new brakes and new MOT... Personally think they ripped the oil pan out on a speedbump, it was slammed, I daily-drove it and couldn't go over speedbumps at any speed at all. During testdrive the guy was going over the speedbumps like an idiot but he said he'd daily it too... (I know the car doesn't exist anymore because I looked up the license plate in our government database and no data was found for it a month after I sold it)

tl;dr: If you wanna get rid of something you love, the only way to do it is if you do it in an impulse-buy/sell.