What should I be taking from the parts car.

I save almost everything unless I have to many of them already. When I'm done, its just a bare shell that goes to the scrapyard. If you have the space and are into selling parts take everything. Seems like once in a while I get lazy and leave stuff on the shell and I get a call a few day or weeks later looking for those same parts. I sell many more part on Craigslist than I sell on Z31P so I get a lot of calls for stuff.

Keep the struts if you plan to do coils any time soon. I'd take all of the calipers also - my beater Zs always seem to come with leaking fronts and stuck rears.

Distributor, MAF, and EFI harness are usually pretty easy to sell.

It still needs to be wheeled around until a truck can come get it, but what's different about the '87 struts compared to the '86?

Nothing really, it would be nice to have spares to send out for welding to minimize downtime. If you don't want coils, then there's not much point in saving them.

rear sway is bigger isn't it? and I believe the front sway is thicker to.

Keep the full driveline, suspension,cross members, tension rods ect.

its handy to have parts spare so you can clean them up, fit poly or whatever and do direct swaps and have no downtime

I'd take the front end but the kid drove it into a pole. Bumper is mangled and the hood is tweaked. Headlights are fine. Ill probably grab the headlights. Unfortunately its a 2 seater and my car is a 2+2.