I am going to go against the grain here. A Nissan Pulsar is a collectible car. It’s not a daily driver. It will probably cost at least $1500 to make this thing reliable, and to get it through emissions. That should not be a problem if you like this type of car. If you’re just looking for a cheap “beater” to drive to work each day, look elsewhere. Using a Nissan Pulsar for that purpose would be a waste of money.
One more vote for ‘don’t consider buying the car unless the current owner gets it to pass emissions testing’. I wouldn’t buy it regardless, 69 hp (which can’t be reasonably increased) and the crash protection of an empty Coors can? No thanks. And good luck finding a mechanic that can deal with the crazy smog equipment on an '80s carbureted engine.
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They did a factory turbo version back when this car was new. A multiport EFI setup from a later car could give a decent bump in power (up to around ~90-95 HP). The engine should be robust enough for that. But this isn’t a car that I would choose to use as a daily, Given it’s age and everything, it seems like it would be a weekend “fun” car at this point.
1985 cars – unless fuel injected designs – in general tended to have very complicated carburetors. Needed to pass federal emissions standards of that era. If OP decides “yes” on this car, expect to be experiencing some hard to diagnose & repair carb & related air/fuel mixture related components. Not necessarily a deal killer, difficult to solve problems can be looked at as fun challenges. IIRC one of the posters here has a Corolla of similar vintage, they might chime in on mid-80’s carb challenges. My parents had a mid-80’s Subaru, carb-design, worked well for about 10 years, then they were forced to sell it to their mechanic, became too expensive to take it to the shop to figure out why the engine continued to misbehave.
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That’s not exactly a recommendation for getting a carbureted vehicle, George 
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I remember all those vacuum hoses! I had an 1983 Accord. One year after I had work done on it, the car would start but immediately shut off. After much searching, I found two vacuum hoses to the carb were interchanged. When the car was perfectly tuned, it would start and run, but after a year, there was enough change that it wouldn’t. I remembered that the mechanic who last worked on the car had kept the car for an extra week without explanation. I think he spent that week getting it in perfect tune.
In any state but California, you’d remove the troublesome carburetor and “rat’s nest” of vacuum hoses and install an electric fuel pump and TBI kit. Because fuel blends change twice a year, unless you have a source for ethanol-free fuel, trying to run a vehicle with a carburetor on modern fuel is a fool’s bet.
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I’d be surprised if there’s one that’d fit the Pulsar. Who sells them?
Screw that, my friend and I just took the cvcc carb off an early 80’s Civic along with all those troublesome 100 vacuum hoses off and slapped a old used Weber carb on it for a couple hundred $$ and called it a day, runs great for what it is… lol
That was the easy part, the hard part was making a 4 door gas tank fit a 2 door hatch that is no longer available… Had to custom make tank straps and a filler hose as both were way different…
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Calif resident, 50 year old Ford truck, stock Autolite 2100 carb. I’ve never used any used special gasoline. Whatever is sold at the pump is what I use, which apparently contains 10% ethanol according to reports here from other posters. I do have problems w/the carb’s idle passages plugging up from time to time, but usually it is a just 15 minute job to clean the gunk out and get it purring like a kitten again.
I’ll grant this method is probably not practical for the highly complex mid-80 carbs.
Don’t know if it’s completely stock but there’s a Nissan Stanza wagon with those sliding doors that’s a local guy’s regular if not daily driver. Seems maintained well and in perfect tune. There are a couple of shops downtown that are fluent in 70’s-90’s Japanese cars and trucks, one’s been around since 1971 and the customer base well let the shop close only after a fight. You’ll see a mix of 70’s vehicles in the same shop as a later model BMW or Volvo.
I grew up with a 48hp '78 VW Rabbit Diesel which was replaced with a 103hp 90 Mazda Protoge, the major change is that the Mazda was actually powerful enough for the real world and happy going 70+ compared to the Rabbit’s 65mph top speed downhill with a heavy tail wind. We did loose about 10mpg compared to the VW but the Mazda was a lot more fun to drive.
Well I was going to mention all the Torque of the diesel engine, but at only 71 ft lbs… never mind… 
- Horsepower: Gasoline – 78 @ 5500 rpm / Diesel – 52 @ 4800 rpm
- Torque: Gas – 88.2 ft lbs @ 3200 rpm / Diesel – 71 ft lbs @ 3000 rpm
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The Mazda had 111 ft lbs @4000rpm and weighed about 300lbs more thn the VW, having a 5spd instead of a 4spd manual made a difference also. We had the SE with the SOHC 1.8 instead of the LX with the DOHC that had about 125hp.
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Update: Thanks for everyone’s input. So right now I’m leaning towards not getting it after all even if it passes smog and although it ran really well when I test drove. A lot of you are making really good points about not getting it. Also found out that an electric fuel pump was put in. Don’t know if that matters.
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They did that because the ethanol gas was eating the mechanical one.
Tester
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A fuel pump can’t be expected to last 38 years. I don’t blame the fuel for everything that fails.
I see. So would it still need ethanol free gas as someone said before?
Everyone in California has been using E10 for more than 30 years, do you think people stopped driving 1980’s cars in 1990 when non-ethanol fuel was no longer available?
The fuel pump in my Plymouth is at least 15 years old, I use regular unleaded E10.
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I must live a charmed life, at least when it comes to unleaded gas w/ethanol. I still run cars from back in the day when there was a bunch of gearheads predicting the demise of my valve seats due to unleaded gas. Never changed any to hardened seats. Then the ethanol scare. Same thing. I have numerous carbs, pumps etc never been swapped out or rebuilt with ethanol compatible materials. I will say, the newer formulations of fuel do seem to degrade faster so I don’t leave it sit as long as I used to…