Thanks. Guy who owned it first did consulting work for Nissan in CA, you can see the local SoCal influennce on the parts choice from back ~2000. Same for the exhaust combo, etc. Cams and stuff all ordered new, same for brakes and other OEM stuff. The guy paid a fortune in new parts.
Lucky kid, yeah, but yeah, he gets it. If I offered him a new econobox he'd take this in a minute - his reasoning:
Awesome motor
Drives like you think, it goes there
Can learn to work on it not be dependent on someone else
Holds a ton of shit
and More
Got a swap coming later this year, and the deal was conditional on his ramping up to do all his own work with my help and from others.