Flipper: The NX2000 That Won't Die

Today I have the absolute pleasure of introducing to you all my latest acquisition: Flipper, a 1991 hardtop Nissan NX2000, affectionately named so by a few POs back due to a roll-over incident at Summit Point Motorsports Park way back in the early 2000s. I saw the FB ad 8 minutes after it was posted and it was in my garage by noon the next day for the cool sum of 500$.  What's unique about these cars is that its basically a B13 Sentra SE-R with a body kit (and t-tops if yours was optioned like the majority of the ~3300 or so that were produced in 1991). That meant you got a ~2300-2500 lb car with an SR20DE and a 5-speed with a viscous LSD! Over the Sentra, the NX also came with better brakes and suspension and some more unique styling. Now onto my example: the seller had stated the car would not start and the last time he drove it, it stopped going into gear and puked trans fluid everywhere. Combine that with the trashed body and a smart man would stay far, far away from this crapcan. But I am not a smart man and was easily lured in by the fact that the seller lived 10 minutes away from me. 

The car was an old NASA/SCCA/HPDE car back in the day so it did have some goodies like a lightened Jun flywheel, short-throw shifter, pacesetter headers, a 6-point bolt on cage (though the front portion was removed from the car and in the trunk), front and rear strut tower braces, and a nice Corbeau bucket seat that wasnt bolted in. On top of still having the factory cat, worst case scenario I figured I at least can recoup my money in parts.

The seller had mentioned the car was infamous on the old SR20DE forums and everyone knew about Flipper there (which was honestly the selling point for me cause I'm a sucker for a car with a good story). I did some digging and found quite a history. Some highlights:

• It rolled onto its roof after hitting a gravel trap too hard sideways
• Its been rear-ended
• Its been side-swiped
• Its been on fire
• It once broke an oil fitting on track and dumped 80% of its oil out
• It was ran without coolant for 4 minutes after said roll-over incident
• According to a post in 2006, the engine in it at the time had been swapped and had 180k miles on it (currently the odo reads 192k but has been broken for a while)

Some pics of Flipper from back in the day

And as he sits now

Apparently at some point the roof was "repaired" (read:bondo'd) but at least the windshield was replaced.

Some juicy close ups of the roof

Getting Flipper to run:

Surprisingly easy feat, someone at some point installed a seriously janky 6-post kill switch. It was attached to the hood and no wires were really secured. All the posts that were supposed to create a ground loop for the alternator were instead tied into the grounds for the MAF and ignition coil for whatever reason. The killswitch stopped working properly so I tossed it and reverted everything as best I could to factory. Oh also, everything was twist and taped, as you do with racecars. This made sure everything got power properly but the car still wouldn't light off. Some investigating led me to the fuel pump and sure enough it looked like it came out of the wreck of the titanic (the rest of the tank wasn't much better, definitely gonna drop and flush it as best as I can).

I happened to have a fuel pump from my 300ZX back when it was NA so I went ahead and threw that in. Not quite a direct fit, had to hoseclamp the pump on and shave a bit off the strainer plastic but its in there and let the car run!

Surprising the car runs great on what is mostly just varnish spiked with a few gallons of fresh 87. Whats even better is the transmission seems totally fine. I checked the fluid and it was way overfilled so I drained it a bit and then went for a drive, grabs every gear perfect with no fuss/popping out. WIN.

And since I can't own a racecar that doesn't do burnouts:

https://youtu.be/WqPJhe1I6NE

Now on to the cars future:

Definitely plan on making an appearance at the challenge with this thing. Its got a title and I've already insured it so if I hate myself enough I might drive it down from Atlanta. The real question is what to do with the roof. I'm considering turning it into a permanent targa top and reinstalling the rest of the cage and tying in the pillars somehow not-permanently. I'd like to do a legit cage eventually post-challenge and let the car become a track rat but that would kill budget right now. I considered just cutting everything above the doors off but I think it would make the car look silly. Alternatively, I could also try my hand at actually properly repairing the roof, but that would definitely be the most effort here. Looking for some hivemind wisdom for sure.

Some more shots of the inside of the roof:

Damn, I have a sneaky suspicion I've seen that car on track way back. Will have to check to see if I have any pics but would have been one of the early hyperfest events like 02/03/04 window.

This is a car with a story, let it tell it. Get rid of all the bondo and properly prime and paint the dented roof inside and out.  I also think I saw this car run at Summit Point early 2000s

I also recommend keeping the roof until you're ready to do serious sheetmetal work. Cars without a roof are a pain to store outside. And I would just keep the roll bar the way it is. That's plenty for most track day stuff without being dangerous/inconvenient on the street. You don't want your noggin hitting a cage without a helmet on. If you still have the 3-point seatbelts, keep them for street driving, and flip the track harness behind the seat. Keeps it more sell-able later too.

I love it! Needs more dolphin stickers. Let me know if you need a hand with anything.

OMG it's Flipper!!!     I never thought I'd see that car again lol!  I'm paNX2K&SE-R from the SR20 forum and a previous owner of Flipper.  I bought it from my good buddy Lee from Northern Virginia and brought it back to Pittsburgh in 2005.  Lee owned it from the late 90s until I bought it (and was also the guy who flipped it).  I sold it to a guy named Joji in Atlanta in the fall of 2006, my wife and I drove it down and then flew back.   I had a string of somehwere around 14 fwd SR20 cars from '99 to around 2009 and Flipper was definitely a memorable one.  I made the "mistake" of driving a Miata one time in 2005 and ended up jumping ship to that platform a few years later.  I'm still driving them to this day.

BTW that's me on the track in the 2nd picture on the North course of Pocono at the 2006 SE-R National convention being chased by a guy named Jason (who was driving Jim Schumacher's old SE-R).  Here is another shot from that day:

The roll bar was painted blue because I bought it from Lee a few years before I bought Flipper and I had the roll bar in my Sapphire Blue '93 NX.  I cut off the forward mounts and turned it from a 6 point to a 4 point.

I'm looking forward to seeing the further adventures of this car, it makes me so happy to know it's still around and will be back on a race track.

I'm the one that flipped the car. I turned in at the first access road instead of the second at turn 2?, through the sand and bumped the tire wall and gently rolled onto the roof, with an instructor in the car at a FATT. After that another driver helped me kick our the windshield and lent me some sunglasses and I drove it home to Alexandria. I would wave to people at stoplights out of the windshield, it was fun.

It was "repaired" and spent a few more years running events. Nelson Ledges, Pocono, Watkins Glen, Summit, Jefferson. 

I originally bought the car in Tennessee and learned how to drive stick on my way back to NJ.  I previously had an automatic NX I bought from a dealer, which met an unfortunate end when I was delivering pizza, the engine from that car is what is in flipper today.

The wiring wasn't that janky it only caught fire once, I borrowed some speaker wire from Matt's car to fix it 

Thanks for keeping her alive!

​​​​

Ha this is crazy! Matt I read through all your posts and was trying to find a way to get in touch, good old GRM always delivers. What a cool story of a car, I'm amazed its avoided the junkyard for so long and I'm happy to keep Flipper going as long as I can. I actually bought the car from Joji so looks like we've got the full chain of owners here.

Some updates: I got the car on jackstands to start tearing into her some. The fuel tank is bigger than I thought so that's gonna be fun to drop. Also cut out the cat for recoup but its pretty wasted so thats unfortunate. But on the bright side Flipper already has ss braided brake lines so thats nice! 

I just reread your post and wanted to make a correction, it did not lose coolant after the rollover, that happened when the engine was in the previous vehicle and that was an incident with a guard rail.  

Here's a video of it running in the olden days.

If you are interested I dig up all my pictures of it and share them with you.

In reply to NxFlipper :

Ah gotcha, yeah I was just relaying my interpretation from a few forum posts.

But please I would love to see any old pictures or footage you got!

Other fun fact, it was supposed to run a 3 hour enduro at the Glen but one of the co-drivers over revved it and the rocker arm flew off in practice and we were able to switch to another friends Sentra SE-R for the race.  That evening I was able to fish the rocker arm shims out of the oil pan and repair it for the sprint race the next day in the rain: Results Yes I was a terrible driver, but my friend in the car we used the day before won the sprint race.

,.,

Those are some fantastic pics. I can only hope to restore Flipper to his former glory.

Did some minor work today, I didn't quite button up the fuel tank hanger after replacing the pump since I couldn't get the o-ring to fit properly. Honestly not convinced it is sitting in its groove right still but I buttoned everything back up anyways and at least it doesn't smell like gas all the time anymore in the cab lol.

I was planning a battery relocation to the rear and installing a proper 4-post cutoff switch but honestly after looking at it today, it seemed like it was more trouble than its worth for the time being. I'd rather spend that money on track time and my efforts on my other neglected projects lol.

What I did do how ever is install some gauges. I hate not having reliable data coming from the engine and the stock temp gauge wasnt working so that was enough of an excuse for me. Luckily the previous owners were kind enough to already have a t-fitting for the coolant pipe to place an aftermarket sender in! Also seems like the autometer oil pressure sender screwed straight into the oil tree which was nice but also concerning since my experience with Nissans is that these ports are usually BSPT and not NPT but it doesn't seem to leak so whatever lol.

Might have to get Flipper a nicer steering wheel soon...

Did some exhaust work over the weekend on Flipper. Full header back 2.5", a bit overkill but I got the bigger piping with a big kit so I can redo the exhaust on my 280Z later as well. Plus doesn't hurt to have the extra flow for some future boosted applications...

I'm running some straight through resonator I had and what I read was supposed to be one of the quieter cheapo amazon mufflers but its still an absurdly loud, buzzy 4 banger. Oh well race car.

Also took the car through a drivethru wash because why not. Yes it leaks alot lol. Cleans up good though.

I also put the bucket seat in but it was pretty miserable so I'm gonna install these early 2000s eclipse seats I got at a junkyard a while back for 25$ when they were doing 50% off seats. Also noticed temps would creep up to 210 in traffic and the fans would never kick on so I hard wired them to a switch because racecar, stays right around 185 now.

I'd say I drove Flipper close to 100 or so miles today, he's doing great! Some tires and further buttoning up and I might have to hit the track soon.

That is so awsome, I am glad it is getting some love!

Flipper updates! I haven't done much to the car but some buttoning up (fresh 25$ reman axle to fix the torn cv boot, some wiring de-jank, replacing the gas tank pump assemvly o-ring to stop it from leaking onto the exhaust, and had to some quick exhaust repair as the old resonator i put in exploded). But I did finally manage to take him out on track. Romping this thing around Atlanta Motorsports Park was a blast.

https://streamable.com/jhk82k

https://streamable.com/uu5nza

Now I need start thinking of livery ideas for the $2000 challenge this year...

maschinenbau threw down a gauntlet for you.

Looking forward to seeing you and the car at the Challenge.

In reply to Stampie :

Its on baby

Getting ready for comp! After selling a bucket seat the car came with, im sitting at 826$ in budget. Need to throw in some nickel and dime stuff but should basically be good to go. 

In reply to papamilad :

Nice color on the numbers.

In reply to papamilad :

I too have better luck applying decals with a mallet

Flipper and I had a great time at the challenge, though not without any issues. I finally figured out that the reason he randomly puked gear oil was that the bracket for the passenger side axle support bearing was just dangling loose so the axle could pop in and out of its seal. Discovered that after flipper puked just about all of its gear oil out onto the paddock before I got any runs in. Fastest time by a pro driver ended up being a 51.58, not bad but I think he had more in it since the car started breaking up at the end of the autox. Turns out an injector decided to crap out on me. The car always had a weird stumble returning to idle every now and then and sometimes would turn into a 3 banger but usually sort it self out quickly. This time flipper decided to stay running on 3 so I put down a blistering 19 second run down the strip. The injector seemed to be clicking and would intermittently cut in and out so could just be a clog. 

Great weekend overall, camping was a good time and loved seeing some old friends. Glad I could get some issues revealed to me so I can fix things before a track day at road atlanta first weekend of november!