New Zealand Datsun Club

Hi there I've got a Datsun 120y witha 1500 ATM. Been wanting to change the motor for a while now but I'm bit unsure on what to do exactly. I don't mind rebuild the a15 and boring it out, plus doing all the other stuff too to keep it semi original , or just goin ahead and putting some like ca18dt or sr20dt.

in my experience,
The cost of building a decent A15, will wind up around the same dollars as buying a used turbo silvia engine.
Of course you'll need to upgrade everything else to suit, but that will need doing anyway with a fast A series.

The real question is, how fast do you want to go?

Barts is right
If you want easy HP a CA or SR is the way to go, 200hp isnt hard but everything needs to be upgraded. As for an A series 200hp is extremely hard and expensive.
I love the old a series and there is a heap of info scattered around. I hope to do a bit of a write up soon and pull as much info as I can to one area.

Someone should write a book about the A series. Although the day for that would have been twenty years ago.

Oh you know enough to take it to the track on a open day and surpise people , making her go sideways too lol same as keeping it my daily... I'm looking roughly round 10 to spend

For 10K you should easily be able to do a repower with a later model engine. With cert and a few extra goodies.
Best thing to do would be to plan the whole project, and budget out each expense. I think too many people (myself included) don't bother to plan the beginning middle and end. And cars take forever to build.

Sr20det and just use skyline running gear would work so I got told. But that means a cert for all the new mods eg gearbox engine mounts diff front back stubs and axels etc ??

sure does.

Mmmm 10K A Series, now that's a serious motor, and what a sound track! I'd be interested in laps times and car balance between the two. Dave's 1200 would be the quickest 1200 we have had at a track day I'd think, and the best sounding, (sorry Hayden, Bart, Vaughan) and it is a well sorted A series.
That said we haven't really seen a repowered 1200, and the 1600 with an SRs is quick, but Dave's car is reliable and seems easy to live with.
I wonder which would be worth more.
200hp A Series probably wouldn't make a good daily town car. SRDET would be driveable in traffic.
If it was mine, and I didn't have to drive it every day, it would be A Series every time, but I am loyal and love a screaming A series, but if I had to live with it everyday and max Horsepower was the quest? I'm not sure, you can't turn off a lump cam and fowled plugs.

It's more or lease going to come down to which is going to how much work in the two different motors. Ca18 is always a choice. Not crazy but still enough grunt to have some fun.