The shot at 9:56 was siiick. Badass segment in general. Nailed the pseudo cyber noir 80's feel, hahaha. This car is so ugly, but it makes it endearing for sure. I think the Tercel wagon may still be uglier. Nice work!
My Grandfather had one. The fact that it had the sliding doors and (optional) 4WD was crazy! Unfortunately, the Upstate NY winters took their toll on it. I loved that car!
Those were called Nissan Prairie in Australia, the Stanza was a square 4 door sedan here. There used to be tons of them about in the 80's and 90's. Haven't seen one in 20 years! Nice work keeping the old and weird alive.
You're getting all fancy with these night drive sequences. We had a mid 80s boxy Sentra and when you pulled in the garage, that farty sounding exhaust really took me back.
I used to had 1990 AXXESS that was improved model of STANZA with similar need of repairs, but that was a great vehicle for ten years, also used for business.
First thing would be to use a can of Gunk Engine Degreaser and spray it off - cleans up that nasty engine bay, makes it easier to work on. Then some nice but inexpensive alloy wheels.
Ford also did a 2.3L 4-cyl engine with 8 spark plugs around the same time period. I had one in an '88 Mustang LX. It was in the same period Rangers, as I'm sure in many other Ford econo cars. Love seeing your daughter helping with the car wash. Reminds me of when mine did that many moons ago. Now I just send them out on their own to wash the cars.
Yes, I just learned that! Joe (the mechanic that does a lot of the work on my cars) has a 2.3L Mustang, he told me about this as well. And yeah, not sure how I ended up with a kid that likes to help wash my cars!! Lucked out I guess :)
This is still my favourite out of all your cars. I would be so happy if you decided to modify this in some way - nice small 80s JDM wheels with meaty tires, some lowering, 80s graphics paintjob on the site... or maybe the opposite - roof rack or roof tent with a lift. The shape of it just calls to mind road trips. Great job on the night ride I loved it.
Ah the old 2 plug per cylinder NAPS-Z engine came out in the 1980 200-SX.The Stanza engine was called NAPS-X.Just a way to try to beat the emissions rules without really detuning the engines.I had same type of system in my 93' Ranger 2.3 4 cyl.Mustang also used it with the 4 cyl 2.3 also.
Wagon Elitist Jerks welcomes you! So glad to see another night drive! Couldn't stop laughing at the clock flashing 12:00. The antithesis of the 80's living room.
That was super satifsying. That's the nastiest air filter I've ever seen! Would've been interesting to hold up the old one to your shop-vac set for reverse, and feel how little air was goin thru vs the new one.
That air filter... gross! I think people sometimes forget it's not just mileage but age on parts as well 😂 Great to see these obscure cars getting worked on and saved, that night drive was epic! We got these in the UK, but badged as a Nissan Prairie. So that might help, if ever you get stuck for finding a part? As the Stanza name here, was used on a saloon an hatchback model only.
I had a 1988 Nissan Stanza GXE sedan. I hated the engine, full of leaks and of course the notorious 8 spark plugs fiasco. But I love the styling of it.
The good old Stanza Wagon. Wish my brother and I could’ve figured out the no start issue on the Stanza Wagon he had... Did everything, checked timing and everything else, no dice. Ended up just scrapping it. 🤷♂️
Your car is so rare and becoming even harder to find ,i would try to hang on to all those OEM parts ! Keep this Nissan Stanza ,it might be bought by NISSAN for their museum. This car looks true to how they were sold ..Body looks perfect . You will be devaluating the price by trying to trick it out !
Nocturna - Ethan Tufts new retrowave / synthwave channel This one has a vibe similar to the movie Drive. Your last vid had a Michael Mann Heat / Collateral type vibe. I'd love to see a Repoman inspired night drive segment. As for the distributor madness the Japanese have no monopoly on odd dizzy designs. My 1993 Audi V8 has 2 distributors and the rotors are glued onto the distributor shaft. When I got the car the timing belt came out in 4 pieces and had all original ignition components at over 200k kms or 124k miles. Another awesome video!
When I was a kid, my neighbors had this vehicle! Although here in Canada it was called the "Multi". What was their 2nd vehicle?? An AMC Eagle Wagon! Funky family!
I like the effect of the non-time set clock flashing in time to the sick beats! It Seems to be happy with your efforts. Well done. How did you keep the placement of those 8 wires straight?
My 2020 Versa has 2 fuel injectors per cylinder. I thought that was odd and cool. When I saw this vehicle had 8 spark plugs, I thought that was maybe the '80s version of what they did on my car.
Hey Ethan! If you're still looking to sell your Stanza later on, I would be willing to pick it up from you. I'll gladly match what you paid to buy along with what you've already done to fix it up 🙂 looking to pick something like this up around August-October. SUCH a cool car.
Hello just found your channel on recommended feed. This is pretty cool I wish we could work together I have a 1989 Nissan Sentra as my first project car now.
great stuff! how bout picking up an 8586 Dodge Lancer/Chrysler GTS or maybe a 92-93 Geo Storm Gsi? I'd love to see an example of either of those still running :)
@@HelloRoad So, please look for one! 😋 I do own a 1986 Opel Kadett E, a real survivor. Jamaica yellow original paintjob and darkbrown cloth interior. 😍😍 Greetings from Germany. 👋🏻🇩🇪
Love this video ethan, the stanza reminds me of my old 1985 civic 5-door, even had the same faded blue paint. Just sub’d, looking forward to more content!
4:57 “good enough seal of approval” said as anyone who has a...uh...vintage car. FWIW, I am of the school of putting spark plugs that are as close to original as possible in. For example, if it had copper, stay copper. Try to get OEM/OE if you can. The car runs better. Remember, main thing platinum or iridium gets you is long-life, and I don’t think you’re going to put 100k miles on this car. Learned this on my 1985 econobox 4-cyl Mustang. Platinum Bosch gave it fits. Finally took it in and the shop said bad spark. Motorcraft copper brought it back to life. Same thing with the 95 Volvo. I am only putting 3-5k miles /yr on it so a set of original Volvo copper plugs will last me 4-7 years at least. That said, if the platinum work well, go for it. You’ll never touch the plugs again, as most will last 50k miles. Thanks for another good video.
Also, my mom had a 87-ish Toyota Tercel wagon. It was a 4x4 so was great in bad weather and snow, but it was way under-powered for hillclimbing in Colorado. I often couldn’t get it over 35 or 40 going over the mountain passes. It was nice and boxy, though. 💕 People are amazed at the headroom in those boxes. I just wish the seat traveled a little further back for us long legged folk. Not bad for city driving, but can get tiring on longer trips.
Good call on trying to get as close to OEM as possible. The Champion spark plugs I used in this vid were closeouts, they were only like 70 cents each! But after I filmed this, I actually bought NGK spark plugs and swapped them in, they were a direct part number match to the OEM plugs.
Omg that air filter was horrid! Thanks for the laugh 😂 love the car man and especially the content. Before you did the tune up the car sounded like it had a hard time starting, now it's perfect!
Pee smell could be from mice/rats peeing in the intake for the ventilation or possibly getting in the car. Always best to get the factory parts if possible for the distributor, but that may not be possible for this age.
I believe your big problem is that you buying parts online. I go to on parts store in person. They know me by name. The only wrong part I ever got pleas a oil filter. I enjoy the video
I've tried to buy locally. Many of these parts are unavailable locally. Sometimes the parts are discontinued and the only option is to buy factory close out parts...
@@HelloRoad I could see how that could be a problem. I haven’t seen some of tryout cars driving since the late 90’s. thank you for the reply and keep up the great work.
