By Eric Rood
I love Hooniverse’s CraigsList Crapshoot, where my colleague Robert Emslie gives us Hoonitarian Hooniversalists the task of finding some specific automotive characteristic on CraigsList and posting for all the Hoons to see. This week, Robert asked for T-Tops and while I found a glorious Chrysler Cordoba, it was commenter Vroomsocko who took my breath away with this find: A 1988 Nissan Pulsar with the 3.2-liter Yamaha V6 from a Ford Taurus SHO stuffed in the engine bay, allegedly hooked up to a 55 shot of nitrous. Ordinarily, I would have left it alone, but this car’s very presence has gnawed at me for the last 24+ hours. Follow the jump for the complete ad copy and more photos. [Source: Fort Wayne CraigsList] 
Here’s what the seller wrote:
Hello! Today you have the the opportunity to own a truly one-of-a-kind, custom built street/strip beast that will surprise even the most knowledgeable car nut! I’ll give a short and sweet description and then go into greater detail later.
This all started with a very rare, fwd 1988 Nissan Pulsar NX. The factory 1.8 DOHC 4 cylinder was enough power for this little rocket, but when has “enough power” ever been fun? Solution? Replace it with a 220hp Yamaha 3.2 V6 out of a Ford Taurus SHO, mated to a manual transmission, remove excessive weight(for a curb weight around 2300lbs without a driver), and enjoy the ride! STILL not enough for you power hungry monsters?!?
Ok, let’s throw a 55hp dry shot of nitrous on it! Sounding better? Well, here it is!
The car overall is very clean, but is not perfect. Custom black paint with Firemist metallic flake added looks pretty good, but is not a high dollar job.
The engine has had a recent tune up, many new gaskets, high flow Nismo fuel pump,new front wheel bearings, and new struts all the way around. Front brakes have been upgraded to the
Nissan Sentra Se-r calipers/rotors for more stopping power! All new shoes and hardware on the rear.
This car has no problem beating a lot of “fast” street cars and will hang with or beat most V8s on spray! It has been sprayed mostly to test for proper function and of course it has been sprayed a few times for fun! No issues with it at all.
As with any custom built project, you will have your pros and cons. Let’s get into those now.
Pros: Car is very fast, pulls hard, and will induce excessive smiling! It’s a great car to enjoy on a nice sunny day with the removable t tops and hatch cover(see pics) Cons: No power steering, I prefer it this way, especially being FWD and making this much power. Most gauges do not currently function. Fuel level and temp come on randomly, but I haven’t had time to trouble shoot it. Interior has some “custom” yellow paint, its not my style. Driver seat has a small tear in the side bolster, but it is in very good condition overall.
Those are the issues I can think of. Car has been very reliable and has been driven quite a bit this season, with no issues! Hood, T-tops, and hatch will be included with sale, but are not currently installed.
Now for the details of the sale. This car can be sold with the ZEX nitrous kit(for full asking price or fair trade) or the kit can be removed upon negotiation.
NO JOYRIDES! If you are serious and want to drive this car, please have proof that you can afford it. No nitrous will be used on the test drive, but you may ride in the car while on spray so you can see that it works and feel the difference it makes. Comes with a full 10lb bottle.
Trades?!? I’ll listen to all offers. Other cars in good condition, 4 wheelers, and other general guy stuff. IH, Mazda, Merkur, SHO, SVX, Subaru, turbo, supercharged
Car can be viewed almost anytime with proper notice. Feel free to text(preferred) or call anytime. Thank you for viewing(more details below)
Taurus SHO can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 6.6 seconds[5] with a quarter mile time of 15.0-15.2 seconds. Car and Driver reported in their December 1989 issue a top speed of 143 mph (230 km/h)”
(Disclaimer: LeMons content ahead) If you’ve hung around the 24 Hours of LeMons at all, you’ve seen that the SHO engine is entirely capable and powerful. It can even live relatively happy in other chassis: Charnal House’s mid-engine, SHO-powered Geo Metro (the MetSHO) has run eight races and managed a Top 10 finish while Blue Oval Cult ran seven races with a Fox Body Mustang powered by the SHO V6 (the ShoStang). I’ve even heard rumors of a SHO-driven Mazda RX-7 (the SHORX7?) in Texas that’s run ChumpCar races. But in my mind (an admittedly dangerous place), stuffing it in an already-weird front-wheel drive car is nothing short of brilliant. Here’s a piece of Ford Taurus SHO trivia: The 3.2-liter version of the Yamaha V6 was sold concurrently with the 3.0-liter version with the bigger bore being mated to automatic transmissions. The extra couple lb-ft. of torque was designed to offset the mechanical loss from the slushy four-speed auto. The SHO crowd likes to use the 3.2, which is identical to the 3.0 except for the piston bore, as a replacement for exploded three liters. This Pulsar, of course, is built to accept the Sportback to make it into a kind-of-wagon-kind-of-liftback thing. By a strange coincidence, the 24 Hours of LeMons running, Class C winning Nissan Pulsar from Red Shirt Racing recently went up for sale and it actually has a Sportbak. The team actually tracked down the Sportback after several failed attempts to get one; apparently, they are exceedingly rare. I’m not saying you should buy that and this SHO car, but you should probably buy both of them. 
But back to the task at hand: This Pulsar’s rear glass cleverly bears a nod to the high-revving beast of an engine in front of the driver. The tachometer, you may notice in the lead photo, perches atop the firewall outside of the car. For me, this car embodies everything right with automotive nerds with imaginations and the audacity to answer questions that have probably never been asked. What do you think? Is this a winner for $2,600? [Screenshot here for posteriority.]
Jeff Glucker