Thread: Need advice, new guy from New Jersey

So, I usually do research prior to buying a car, but a good deal on a s13 with a black top came by and I couldn't pass it up..was going to post in the general sr20 but I couldn't so I hope people read the newbie area lol. Test drove the car last night and everything felt okay, the engine isn't tired and it seemed pretty happy. It did stall out while driving (specifically while decelerating coming to a light) which i'm thinking is either a throttle position sensor or a tune. tune wise it seems okay because it started up fine in 35 degree weather and ran smooth after, but who knows. After the drive it did smell a little of coolant but I didn't notice anything around the head gasket so i'm gonna have to hunt for that..

Like I said i usually research myself but this is happening tomorrow so...direct answers/opinions to those concerns quickly would be greatly appreciated!

is the bov open and not recirculated with a draw through maf. this will cause the car to run rich during deceleration and will cause it to stall out. I would pressurize the cooling system and look for a leak.

Pictars, please! Welcome to the forum.

thank you for confirming our suspicion. we took it for a test drive today..MIGHT have beat on it a bit, tough love ya know. haha anyway some info, its a s13 with what looks like a blacktop, but it might be a red top thats been painted...lol. bought the car for $4k. has been sitting for a while but it runs and it runs well aside from stalling, and definitely noticed it was running rich as well, we watched the BoV earlier and the fucking idiot that owned the car before painted the inside of the bov so its getting stuck. reading this a few hours later makes me happy that we're probably right.

a question though, the cars got an apexi ecu thats right above the radio head unit. we were fucking with it but didn't have too much time to mess with it. is that a common ecu for sr20s? i've never seen one before but i hadn't been involved or researching this stuff prior to 3 days ago haha. (don't remember which exact model it was but it had a color screen and an up, right, left, and down arrow with 2 buttons in the top right and left corner of the actual unit) sound like something worth keeping or just getting another standard ecu?

the car is mostly stock with apexi coilovers, a fuel regulator, welded heat shield over the brake booster, (this car has most definitely been drifted before) a huge mishi intercooler, turboback, and that ecu. thats all i can think of, still exploring it lol and as for pictures i meant to take some today but i forgot and now i'm at work, but i'm getting it registered tomorrow and will take some then. it's not much of a looker, like i said it's been drifted before so the drivers side QP was cracked, bondo'd, then cracked again lol, front sidemarker lens is cracked and the whole car is flat black.

i made a list of things it needs while going over it today..not too bad so far.

-speedo doesn't work. need to see what it is. can someone link me to a how to speedo cable thread or something, if there is one?
-rad cap
-brake resovoir cap
-coolant overflow tank
-tstat
-most importantly the BoV which is a nice tial.
there are of course body things and minor quality of life things but those will get fixed over time, just trying to get this running reliably at the moment.

any advice, help, blah blah would be cool, links to common knowledge threads or FAQs etc would be awesome. i do usually do all of this crap myself, which i still will be doing as i can, but haven't had too much time lately. thanks fellas

also, what is this plug...and why is it unplugged? they had it taped to a vac line i think, to the left of the block and higher than the top most pulley.


and this is the ecu i was talking about. this is the best pic i was able to get. pitch black so my phone wouldn't focus before flash went off lol