You'll need to put in a little grinder time on these brackets to clear the new headlights.
With the parts now in hand, I procrastinated another six months before finally beginning my quest to find every possible way to incorrectly install Japanese and Mexican parts on an American Sentra. What not to do: I had moved three times since shipping the Sunny bumpers halfway across the planet, and each time the flicker of motivation I got after seeing the bumpers was extinguished as soon as I considered the prospect of getting them painted. Getting something painted means relying on someone else to do something right, and that's never a good idea, in my experience.
The headlights finally inspired me to try my luck with body shops. I found a local shop called the Bumper Medic that specialized in bumper repair. The constant stream of BMWs and Mercedes from the local dealerships lent it an air of credibility, so I dropped off the bumpers and crossed my fingers. The initial estimate of $350 seemed a little steep for painting two little bumpers black, but at the time I didn't realize that price included them screwing up twice, repainting, losing parts of the factory rear valance, two shouting matches, and a string of personal insults about both myself and my piece-of-shit car. For all that work, they informed me, $350 was quite a deal.
* Lesson #1: Car dealers can't possibly lend an air of credibility to anything.
Sunny bumpers aren't just smaller than the North American bumpers, they're much lighter. The front bumper shaves 16 pounds off the car and the rear saves 20. Knocking 36 pounds off any part of a car is a major feat, but knocking it off the extreme ends should pay big handling dividends. The savings do come at a cost, however. Aside from the shipping, the shouting, the money, and the installation hassles you'll soon learn about, there's the fact that the big, heavy bumpers actually did something.
The Sunny bumpers aren't made for bumping. The sheetmetal is only thick enough to hold up the plastic bumper caps, and it clearly will do almost nothing for you in an impact. Saving weight by removing bumpers is nearly as smart as saving weight by removing the seatbelts, but I comfort myself by realizing that Japan still has a very large population, so the small-bumpered Sunnys couldn't have killed too many people.
Less obvious than their impact-absorbing function, though, is the bumpers' effect on chassis rigidity. By tying together the framerails, the bumpers have a huge impact on torsional rigidity. After all the effort that's been poured into custom chassis braces for this car, installing weaker bumpers seems counterproductive. But seriously, 36 pounds!
Installing Sunny bumpers is almost easy. Both the North American and Japanese bumpers bolt into the front framerails, but while the old bumpers filled the framerail and were attached with long bolts that passed all the way through the rail, the Japanese bumpers bolt only to the bottom of the rail with short bolts. Finding shorter bolts is only the beginning though. The U.S. framerail has a unique flange somewhere in the darkness along the bottom of the rail. You'll have to measure carefully and notch the bumper mounting brackets.
* Lesson #2: Measure twice, cut once. Trust me on that one.
Rear bumper installation is more straightforward, but be prepared to remove the muffler to access the mounting bolts. While you have it off, cut a few inches off the tailpipe so it doesn't stick out like your puppy's lipstick.
* Lesson #3: Shorter bumpers are shorter.
Now for the headlights. This looked easy, but installing the headlights took weeks of half-hearted effort. Read carefully and this can be a simple swap. First, don't go to Mexico to get the lights. Mossy Nissan in Oceanside, California, is less than 100 miles from Mexico, and they stock the Mexican lights at a better price than Acapulco Nissan. They also speak English and sell everything you need to do the conversion in one handy kit. That includes some trim pieces I had to find in an American junkyard, the hideously ugly Mexican grille I didn't get in Mexico, and the new electrical connectors for the updated headlights and turn signals that I finally got from Mossy.
* Lesson #4: Buy Mexican parts in California.
This conversion is relatively easy if you have a 1993-94 SE-R. I have a '91. 1991-92 Sentras had a single metal trim piece stretching below both headlights and the grille. The 1993-2007 cars had separate plastic trim pieces below each headlight, with the grille trim integrated into the bottom of the grille.
By Henry Z. Dekuyper
Enjoyed this Post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed, or use your favorite social media to recommend us to friends and colleagues!