Project Nissan 200SX 1.6: Part 1

For the last few years, we have been devoting a large portion of our project car efforts to the first and second generations of Nissan's killer sleepers, the Sentra and 200SX SE-Rs. These two SR20DE-powered pocket rockets have proven to be modification-friendly, rewarding us with stellar performance on road courses, autocrosses and the drag strip.

When we first started doing our thing to these cars, there were very few hard-core performance parts available for them. We used the power of our editorial might to beg, cajole and convince companies to make parts for these Nissans and now, due in part to our efforts, there is quite a booming aftermarket for them.

Our latest project series will be devoted to the ignored and often forgotten red-headed stepchild of the SE-R, the 1.6-liter GA16DE-powered 200SX. SE-Rs are a fairly rare bird, making up only about six to seven percent of total Sentra and 200SX production. This makes them difficult to locate on the used car market and makes it a little hard for you to find a source of cars for your particular project if you desire an SE-R. As there were more than 100,000 GA16DE-powered cars built every year of production, GA16-powered vehicles are both cheap and easy to find on the used car market. Because of their popularity, many people already own or were given GA16-powered Sentras or 200SXs.

With its light weight, direct-acting, shim and bucket, four-valves per cylinder head and advanced features like variable intake cam timing, the GA16DE is a peppy engine just begging to be modified. Much like the D15 and D16 engine in the Honda Civic, we feel that the GA16DE can be modified to perform yeoman duty as a certifiably fun engine.

Due to the huge volume of e-mails we have been flooded with asking about GA16DE parts and the fact that most of the modified Sentras and 200SXs we see are powered by GA16DEs, we expect our new project car to be very beneficial for this large segment of the Nissan performance community.

For those of you that own an earlier B13 (1991 to 1994) Sentra or a B14 (1995 to 1999) Sentra, remember that most of the parts used in the B14 200SX will directly interchange with those in your car. In the case of the B14 Sentra, this includes suspension parts. B13 Sentras share the front suspension and the drivetrain with our project car. In most cases, the companies we feature for this project will also support the B13 in the rare case where the parts will not directly interchange between these two models, so this article can serve as a guide for a wide range of vehicles, ones made from 1991 to '99.

Since GA16DE-powered Sentras and 200SXs are often entry-level vehicles for the beginning or first-time car enthusiast, we will be focusing on a slightly different scope of modifications for this series. In our SE-R series, we have often focused on doing the trickest things possible without a whole lot of regard to price. For our GA build-up, our emphasis will be hardcore parts that give the biggest bang for the buck. At least that will be our focus at first. We may abandon that at a later date to push the envelope of what is possible, but our first installments will keep the beginners budget in mind.

That being said, let's get started.

SuspensionIf you are a long-time reader of SCC, you realize by now that our project cars are well-balanced vehicles. Since we are into a broad range of vehicular insanity, our project cars have to do more than blast down the quarter mile. Stopping, accelerating and turning are all priorities with us and this project car is no exception.

The B14 200SX/Sentra is a difficult car to make handle well. Although all the right basics are there, the car is hampered by two glaring faults. First, the car comes with a miniscule amount of wheel travel from Nissan, barely enough to keep the car off the bumpstops in stock form. Second, a high, chunky profile that makes for a high center of gravity and lots of weight transfer and body lean in the corners.

When conventional, off-the-shelf street lowering springs are used with regular stock external configuration performance shocks, the car ends up bottoming out the outside, front wheel under the loads generated by hard cornering on dry pavement. This causes the effective wheel rate to go to infinitely stiff when the suspension settles on the bump rubbers. This causes a massive gain in front wheel slip angle and the vehicle slides into terminal understeer. We have gone into the details of suspension theory in other articles, so we won't bore you with it here, but it is of utmost importance to keep any car off of the bumpstops while trying to turn.

This bothersome lack of travel phenomenon has a cosmetic downside. Nissan stylists are in love with giving their cars large wheelwell openings. This feature just plain makes the car look ugly. Thus, the first thing most owners do is lower the car, if anything, just to close up the offensive fender gap. Even when lowered an inch or two, the car goes from looking stilted to fairly normal. Unfortunately, on these small Nissans even a mild drop like this uses up just about all of the suspension travel. On most cars, a conservative lowering job improves handling but on these cars, it actually hurts.

While tuning our Project Sentra SE-R and 200SX SE-R, we have found out, the hard way, about this bottoming-under-cornering phenomena, eventually being forced into exotic, high-buck coil-over suspensions with shortened struts to solve the problem. These systems are priced beyond the budget of the beginner, so for project Sweet 16, we went in search of a lower cost alternative.

Motivational Engineering, a local racecar construction and fabrication shop came to our rescue with a low-cost coil-over shortened strut system. Motivational Engineering uses single adjustable (mostly rebound damping) Koni dampers that are modified to fit into a shortened stock Nissan strut housing. These dampers cannot be adjusted in the car, they must be removed, fully compressed and the shaft turned to engage the shock's internal adjuster. Although not the super trick, externally double adjustable units we've used on our other project cars, Motivational's dampers can still get the job done with a little less convenience in the adjustability department. Motivational's units allow the front of the car to be lowered approximately 2 inches with no loss of wheel travel, a boon for both handling and a smooth ride.

Motivational's shocks feature the use of Eibach ERS race springs with adjustable threaded perches, which allow the adjustment of corner weights and ride height as well as a big range of available spring rates. We selected a 300 lb/in. front spring with a 200 lb/in. rear, as our experience has told us that this is an excellent, all-around spring rate on these cars. ERS springs are available in 25 lb/in. increments if you would like to experiment with other spring rates.

Motivational also has a shortened strut that uses the same adjustable Koni Damper but has a standard spring seat so the strut can be used with regular, off-the-shelf lowering springs like the Eibach Pro-Kit or Sportline with no loss of travel. If your budget is even tighter or if you want a low stance without a loss in ride comfort. Many people already have these springs and these shocks are the perfect complement for them.

For the rear, Motivational modifies a standard Koni shock with an adjustable spring perch and an Eibach ERS spring. A special upper shock mount is used to gain an additional inch of wheel travel so the rear can be lowered with no travel loss. The upper shock mount will work with any coil-over kit, including the ones used in our 200SX SE-R project car.

When the suspension does bottom, Motivational uses soft, progressive, microcellular urethane bumpstops. This makes it almost impossible to feel the car bottoming and if the car bottoms in a corner due to hitting bumps, etc., it will make the car much more predictable, as these bumpstops act like a progressive extension of the spring.

With the shortened struts and shocks, we lowered the car about 2.5 inches in the front and 2 inches in the rear, an impressive drop that really cleaned up the car's cosmetics. Since we hardly lost any wheel travel, the ride is amazingly good--better than stock in some respects--and surely one of the best, if not the best riding lowered cars that we have yet experienced. This is amazing since our spring rates are more than twice as stiff as stock. This is yet another example of how matching damping rates and spring rates carefully can really stiffen the suspension with little ride quality deterioration. The ride is firmer than stock, but with no real harshness, much like an expensive sports sedan. The overall balance between oversteer and understeer is much like our Project 200SX SE-R.

As we have found previously, it is important to have adjustable camber when dialing in your suspension for optimal handling, especially in a car equipped with a MacPherson Strut suspension. Stillen provided us with some of its adjustable camber plates. The plates serve several functions. Most importantly, they allow adjustment of camber. For best balance of handling and reasonable tire wear on the street, we have found it is important to dial in between 1.5 and 2 degrees of negative camber. These plates allow that and make it easy to do so. The stock rubber upper strut mount locates the strut in a big, squishy rubber donut. This rubber flexes under hard braking, cornering and acceleration. This causes poor steering response while cornering and wheelhop under hard acceleration. It also causes a loss of negative camber and reduced front grip under cornering side loads. The Stillen plates replace this squishy rubber with a flex-free spherical bearing. The only drawback to getting rid of the rubber being a slight increase in road noise transmitted to the driver's compartment and a little more road vibration transmitted through the steering wheel. Most enthusiastic drivers find this to be a positive attribute. To help prevent wear to the bearing in the camber plate, the Motivational Struts feature an upper spring seat with a roller bearing, just to take the load of supporting the car off of the Stillen camber plate's bearing.

Another tool to improve handling is the use of bigger anti-roll bars. Anti-roll bars are bars that interconnect the left and right wheels. Individual bars are used in the front and rear of a car. They help the car resist body roll under cornering while not increasing the spring rate of the individual wheels. Anti-roll bars can also be used to tune the car's balance under cornering. Making the front bar stiffer will increase understeer by increasing weight transfer to the outside front wheel. Conversely, a stiffer rear bar will increase oversteer for the same reason.

To be able to tune the car's balance with anti-roll bars, we selected NuTech's adjustable front and fixed rear anti-roll bars. The NuTech front bar is the same 1-inch diameter as the stock front bar, but is solid rather than hollow like the stock bar--a change which makes it approximately 30 percent stiffer from this alone. The NuTech front bar is also three-way adjustable. In the stiffest position, it is about 100 percent stiffer than stock. The NuTech bars also feature spherical-bearing end links instead of the typical compliant polyurethane end links found in other aftermarket anti-roll bars. Because there is no slop at all in these type of end links, the bar's effectiveness is further increased. As a nice side effect, this type of end link also eliminates bind, which allows the bar to move freely as the suspension reacts to bumps. Because of this, the ride quality is actually improved over the stock bars despite the increase in bar stiffness. Usually only racing anti-roll bars have this feature, but NuTech brings it to the consumer for an attractive price.

The NuTech rear bar bolts directly to the rear suspension's trailing arms, necessitating the drilling of four mounting holes in the arms, a relatively simple task. The bar is 7/8-inch in diameter. The stock B14 rear suspension has no rear anti-roll bar, so its addition will go a long way to reduce understeer. The anti-roll bar also gives the somewhat wimpy, stamped steel rear suspension beam axle some needed resistance to lateral flex by reinforcing the whole assembly. The anti-roll bars will go a long way to reduce the car's tendency to roll over in a corner and the adjustability will enable us to fine tune the chassis' cornering balance.

As we found in our previous experience with the 200SX/Sentra, the front control arm bushings are made of hollowed out soft rubber that allows an amazing amount of flex in the suspension. This causes torque steer and wheel hop to be a major problem as well as causing alignment inaccuracy under load. NuTech once again came to our rescue with a set of its remanufactured lower control arms. The NuTech arms are rebushed with hard Energy Suspension Polyurethane bushings that replace the soft rubber stock Nissan units. The arms are then treated to new Moog heavy-duty ball joints that are pressed in place. As a final touch, they have a coat of new paint. Since most of us do not have a handy hydraulic press installed in our garages, the NuTech arms can save a lot of work.

We also replaced the soft rubber steering rack bushings with hard polyurethane Energy Suspension units to eliminate deflection here. This also helps ensure the alignment will not move much under cornering loads--a problem with big sticky tires. While we were under the car, we also installed one of Energy's shifter stabilizer bushings. This gave the shifter a more positive feel while shifting.

Like their SE-R cousin, the GA16DE-powered cars also suffer from overly soft engine mounts. This allows the engine to crash around during shifting and when launching the car. This beating around and the wheelhop that the moving engine can cause, often results in broken drivetrain parts. To help prevent this, we found that the lower engine mount and the front dogbone mounts are the same as the SE-R. This means the parts can be upgraded by Energy Suspensions' engine mount kit for the SE-R. Since these mounts do most of the fore and aft engine retention, they are the most critical mounts to reinforce. The Energy Suspension mounts are made of hard polyurethane and are inserts that fill the airspace cast into the soft rubber stock mounts to allow the mount to flex. By filling these hollows, the Energy mounts significantly stiffen the mount and can be used to help rebuild old torn engine mounts.

The Energy engine mounts really helped reduce wheelhop, improved throttle response and slightly increased felt vibration at idle; a tradeoff that we felt was worth it.

To help stiffen the chassis, we installed a set of front and rear strut tower braces from Courtesy Nissan. Courtesy Nissan is a Nissan dealer that has a blooming nationwide mail order and online parts business. Courtesy helps support the Nissan performance community by offering club discounts and by sponsoring many Nissan club activities. Courtesy also has its own line of Nissan high-performance parts, these strut tower braces being one of them.

The braces are made of polished aluminum with welded steel brackets. We found them to fit perfectly, as they are adjustable with a turn of a wrench so they can conform easily to vehicle build variation. This feature also allows them to be installed with a little tension on them, which aids chassis stiffness. We found that the strut tower braces, like other brands that we have experimented with, make a large, noticable difference in both ride and steering response.

We also used its aluminum racing pedals. We have found that this type of slip-on pedal cover can go a long way toward making it easier to heel-and-toe shift. To avoid product liability issues, carmakers have been spacing pedals further apart. This makes heel-and-toeing difficult, if not impossible. The addition of wider, adjustable position pedal covers can reduce this gap, making heel and toeing easy once again. Did we mention these pedals look cool as well? After installing the suspension parts, we gave the car a quick alignment. Since we have found what a good compromise alignment setting between grip and tire life for street use is with our SE-R project, we essentially copied the settings here, setting the toe at zero and the camber at negative 1.7 degrees.

Wheels and TiresTo help hold the car to the road, perhaps the most important item to consider are the wheels and tires. Without sticky rubber, the game is off, no matter what you have done to the suspension. We are currently running Kuhmo Ecsta Supra 712 tires, which are a hard-compound street version of the well-regarded, multi-SCCA championship-winning Kumho Victoracer V700 autocross tire. We don't exactly get the name, which sounds like a modem or some other obscure computer part, but we are not exactly marketing hacks here.

Essentially this tire has the same carcass construction as the Victoracer with a harder, streetable tread. The carcass features twin steel belts covered with two nylon cap plies to help prevent growth and damaging heat build-up at high speeds. The Ecsta also features a high silica tread compound and a large tread center groove for better drainage of water. Like most high-performance tires, the Ecsta has a uni-directional tread. Another useful feature is a rim protector bead that helps protect the wheel from curb impact, something we accidentally tested on the second day we had the wheels. It worked! Although no gumball race tire, this tire features very respectable grip and a very competitive price. It is one of the lowest priced, ultra-high-performance tires on the market, perhaps the only economically priced tire with successful racing heritage behind it. We settled on a 205/45-16 size, quite a bit wider than the stock 185/65-14 rolling rocks, but not so wide as to bog the car down.

For a wheel, we all know light weight is where it's at when it comes to performance. Excess wheel weight is unsprung weight. Unsprung weight is the bane of a suspension designer as it significantly reduces the effectiveness of the suspension. The driver feels it as a harsh ride and hop in rough corners. Heavy wheels also slow a car down by soaking up horsepower needed to get a heavy wheel rotating. Heavy wheels affect even braking performance. We also know that exotic lightweight forged wheels are expensive, perhaps beyond the budget of the beginner. Keeping in that in mind we set out to find the lightest, least expensive wheel we could find.

Axis Sport Tuning offers a the Lenso VPD wheels that we used. The VPD is a wheel that is designed with both light weight and low cost in mind. We selected the Lenso VPD in a 16 x 7-inch size, which weighs a feathery 14 lbs. To obtain this low weight in a cost-effective package, Axis incorporated several weight saving design features into the wheel to pare ounces without adding to the cost.

First, the wheel is made with a low-pressure cast construction. Although not as strong as the forgings used in high-dollar, ultra-lightweight wheels such as the famous Volk TE37, low-pressure castings are superior in strength when compared with the very inexpensive gravity cast method. This is because low-pressure castings have better control over gas pockets, oxidation and other weakening inclusions than simple gravity cast wheels.

To save weight, a standard type lip is used on the outer edge of the wheel instead of the more stylish radiused lip. Another weight saving measure is the simplistic, five-spoke construction. This wheel was designed for caliper clearance, good air circulation for brake cooling and weight savings with a fashion show being secondary. Personally, we like this form follows function approach to design. Another area where weight was shaved was in the hub center, which is generously cored out instead of simply being a solid hunk of aluminum like most other wheels. Finally, the VPD is rated at 620 kg per wheel as opposed to the 680 kg that other Axis wheels are designed for. Since the wheel is slightly downrated to save weight, the only bolt pattern that it is available in is the 4x100 mm bolt pattern. Only small cars like Civics and Sentras use this bolt pattern. This ensures that these wheels will never be bolted onto your diesel work truck, which may overstress them.

With better rubber and a suspension that works, Project 200SX 1.6 has been transformed. Our lower cost, longer travel suspension set-up really awakens the cornering potential of the car. In comparison to the sophisticated high-dollar suspension that resides under our SE-R project, Project Sweet 16 is almost as good, the only major advantage that its stablemates have is the ability to make changes to the suspension with more convenience and speed in the pits. We can hardly wait to get the car to the track and put the hurt on some bigger and more expensive cars!

CosmeticsTo freshen the look of Project Sweet 16, we had some aero and other minor enhancements done to the car's body. Our senior editor once said of the car, "the 200SX has a face only Mother Nissan could love," and we were eager to apply some cosmetic surgery to give Project Sweet 16 some curb appeal. For that we used the Kamikazi Racing Xenon urethane nose. It was used because of its resistance to cracking and stone chips. If you have ever seen Fiberglas kits, they usually look pretty sharp when they are first installed, but after a few months, the paint chips and the material gets cracked from minor contact with any sort of road hazard leaving them pretty shoddy looking.

For the side skirts, we contacted Stillen, who makes a flexible urethane kit. Once again, they resist cracking and chipping. The tasteful mixing and matching of different body parts helped to ensure Project Sweet 16 has a unique look, as well as a measure of streetable practicality.

The clear H4 headlights came from Nis-Knacks. These new, clear lights really freshen the look of the front end. If it is not apparent in the pictures, the difference is quite noticeable in person. We also installed a '98 Sentra SE grille like we did on Project 200SX SE-R, as we liked what that did to the looks of that car. The crystal clear side marker lamps came from Kamikazi Racing, another subtle touch that makes a huge difference in updating the looks of the car.

Our aero parts were then sprayed to match the car's finish by Motivational Engineering using PPG Deltron polyurethane paint. This tough paint is very similar to the OEM paint and is very chip resistant. It is also the same paint that Nissan recommends for the repair of its cars. While the aero parts were being painted, the taillights received a coat of candy paint to give them a uniform red tint. This is very similar to what we did to Project SE-R.

Since Motivational Engineering is a race fabrication shop, we had them fabricate a custom roll bar for Project Sweet 16. This is a four-point, 0.080-inch thick wall, mild steel bar that is not SCCA legal, but is designed to give some protection in case of a roll-over. With this bar, the rear seat remains fully functional and the main hoop is far enough rearward of the driver that head impact should not be a problem, making the bar acceptable for street use without a helmet.

The end result is really striking, as you can see in the photos--no longer is our 1.6 a never-been-kissed ugly duckling begging for a prom date. With some new clothing, makeup and a hip hairstyle, she looks as cool as the popular girls the guys drool over.

In the next installment, we have a few bolt-on engine modifications that need testing, a few more suspension tweaks and some work to do on stopping the car quickly. We will test this stuff and report to you what works. We are hoping that when we are done, the little brother of the SE-R will not have to play the role of a weaker little sibling anymore. Stay tuned!