# GA16DE upgrade



## ceejay (Feb 17, 2004)

OK guys & gals, I've had my Sentra since '91. Back then nothing was avail as far as performance. Back in the day I had one of the first 4 to 1 headers designed by Hideo in San Diego. I've gone up to stage 1, filter, header, exhast, ignition, and a 50 shot bottle. That was about 9 years ago. My love for the Sentra has grown again from just a daily driver to wanting to upgrade again, this time I'm trying to find out what's out there. Should I try to turbo charge this 1.6, 186k mile driver or do an engine swap? My budget is limited cuz I just bought a house so anything that can pep up this little motor can help.

And, anyone know of areas to get a good price on motors, ie SR20DE, DET.

Thanks. ceejay


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## NotAnotherHonda (Aug 7, 2003)

rebuild it, then slap a turbo kit on it


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## Chuck (Nov 19, 2003)

you have a GA16de?

buy a new GA, and new Tranny, and clutch... drop it in, go to hotshot.com and turbo it


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## NotAnotherHonda (Aug 7, 2003)

Chuck said:


> you have a GA16de?
> 
> buy a new GA, and new Tranny, and clutch... drop it in, go to hotshot.com and turbo it



go get a hotshot kit, or go custom, like me and you are doin chuck


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## Sentra_Industies (Oct 31, 2002)

ceejay said:


> OK guys & gals, I've had my Sentra since '91. Back then nothing was avail as far as performance. Back in the day I had one of the first 4 to 1 headers designed by Hideo in San Diego. I've gone up to stage 1, filter, header, exhast, ignition, and a 50 shot bottle. That was about 9 years ago. My love for the Sentra has grown again from just a daily driver to wanting to upgrade again, this time I'm trying to find out what's out there. Should I try to turbo charge this 1.6, 186k mile driver or do an engine swap? My budget is limited cuz I just bought a house so anything that can pep up this little motor can help.
> 
> And, anyone know of areas to get a good price on motors, ie SR20DE, DET.
> 
> Thanks. ceejay


SR20VE is the only way to fly. 195 hp non-turbo.


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## NotAnotherHonda (Aug 7, 2003)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^alot of time and money ^^^^^^^^^^^^


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## Sentra_Industies (Oct 31, 2002)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^and DET or Turboing the GA isnt? ^^^^^^^^^^^^

Total swap for VE thru SRSwap.com is $2400 + shipping for the whole swap package. Hotshot turbo is $3700. DET Swap is $2800 +shipping


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## NotAnotherHonda (Aug 7, 2003)

Sentra_Industies said:


> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^and DET or Turboing the GA isnt? ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> Total swap for VE thru SRSwap.com is $2400 + shipping for the whole swap package. Hotshot turbo is $3700. DET Swap is $2800 +shipping


haha...i dont know if anyone has even swapped that into a b13...theres alot more that needs to be done than just tranny, ecu, wiring, and engine and suspension...then its $500-$750 for shipping, then lobor, costing anywhere from $500-$1500+, not to mention the small parts that would need to be bought..prolly power steering pump, and anything else that needs to be swapped when doing the sr20 swap into a ga16'ed car


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## Sentra_Industies (Oct 31, 2002)

NotAnotherHonda said:


> haha...i dont know if anyone has even swapped that into a b13...theres alot more that needs to be done than just tranny, ecu, wiring, and engine and suspension...then its $500-$750 for shipping, then lobor, costing anywhere from $500-$1500+, not to mention the small parts that would need to be bought..prolly power steering pump, and anything else that needs to be swapped when doing the sr20 swap into a ga16'ed car


Labor, I would dedicate a winter to it. Good 6 months, which cost me nothing but time. 

If ya have everything needed for the swap its less complex cause the DET takes up more space with the turbo and stuff.

Whata ya mean no ones done it in a B13? Maybe not here, but on SR20forum.com they sure have into Classics.


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## NotAnotherHonda (Aug 7, 2003)

Sentra_Industies said:


> Labor, I would dedicate a winter to it. Good 6 months, which cost me nothing but time.
> 
> If ya have averything need for the swap its less complex cause the DET takes up more space witht he turbo and stuff.
> 
> Whata ya mean no ones done it in a B13? Maybe not here, but on SR20forum.com they sure have into Classics.



maybe you would dedicate a winter to it, but the guy in question might not know how to do it...being that it hasnt been done alot, there isnt alot of info on the subject as well...but maybe sr20forum can help him out


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## Sentra_Industies (Oct 31, 2002)

NotAnotherHonda said:


> maybe you would dedicate a winter to it, but the guy in question might not know how to do it...being that it hasnt been done alot, there isnt alot of info on the subject as well...but maybe sr20forum can help him out



Well, he asked what he should do. If your gonna spend the money anyway, why not go all the way?


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## sno (Oct 4, 2002)

there is no way putting a sr20ve into a ga16 powered b13 is gonna be cheaper then doing a sr20det swap.

back on topic: www.hotshot.com <~they have the turbo kit for you.


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## Sentra_Industies (Oct 31, 2002)

sno said:


> there is no way putting a sr20ve into a ga16 powered b13 is gonna be cheaper then doing a sr20det swap.
> 
> back on topic: www.hotshot.com <~they have the turbo kit for you.


They cost the same. I never said one is cheaper. Their initial prices are within $300 of eachother. The "little parts" that you would need to buy outside of the swap kit/ front clip would be the same. 

A non-turbo engine is less complicated to install in every case. If you get the engine from a good place. 

The way I've always looked at it is. youve got 195 hp non-turbo out of the box, add turbo and your into the upper 260's easily on low boost even. 

It leaves you room to upgrade. And your gonna get better gas milage from a VE than a turbo anything.

$3700 is quite a steep price for a turbo kit, if I had the money I'd rather swap in a 30k-60k engine. 

Just my $0.02.


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## NotAnotherHonda (Aug 7, 2003)

Sentra_Industies said:


> $3700 is quite a steep price for a turbo kit, if I had the money I'd rather swap in a 30k-60k engine. .



thats why we go custom... kits are usually always overpriced


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## bryce (Nov 30, 2003)

Hey, I just had a quick question for you guys. I always see you guys writing about the "front clip", can someone please tell me what that is????


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## Harris (Nov 11, 2002)

This is why hate these kind of threads, where it gets every party involved in useless arguing, while the question remains pretty much unanswered.

Ceejay, look at this thread for an estimate on how much a DE swap would cost you. If you want to go for a DET or a VE, contact the following shops for a price:

1) http://www.jgycustoms.com
2) http://www.soko.com
3) http://www.nipponmotors.com

And please search before asking questions, especially opinion-based stuff like this one. Ask only when searching hasn't helped you.

Bryce, a front-clip is a cut portion of the car from the hood to the end of the b-pillar. They do this in order to save costs to ship the essentials (motor, wiring, etc).


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## Sentra_Industies (Oct 31, 2002)

bryce said:


> Hey, I just had a quick question for you guys. I always see you guys writing about the "front clip", can someone please tell me what that is????


 A front clip is when the salvage yard chops the front of the car off at the dash....sometimes if you are lucky you will get the dash and steering collumn.

You get the whole front of the car so you dont have to go searching for those little parts. You have something to reference to when doing the swap. I would never do anything without the whole front unless there was huge price savings. Generally, a clip is $300-$500 more than a so-called "swap kit", but it saves alot of aggrivation. 

Ive never done a performance swap, but I have helped other do the same thing on standard cars (my dad used to own a body shop and did rebuilders)

Basicly, any of these options are gonna cost you a minimium of $3000 (thats for a custom turbo kit for parts alone. IF you have the knowledge and facilities to do the work yourself, then you save money, but costs you lots of time. Even if you were to Hotshot turbo your current engine, I would expect a good 80 hrs to install everything and get it running, then tuning is more time. 

Unless you are filthy rich, if you cant do the work yourself, everthing here is a waste cause to pay someone to do this would push $6000 easily.

A buddy of my brother who didnt know a thing about cars wanted me to swap in a 4G63T into his Talon, and I told him I would do it for $3000 plus the cost of parts (approx $2500 cause I knew where a parts car was)and expect a month to do it in my spare time. He ended up going somewhere and paying $7000 total, and it still took 3 weeks for them to get it done.

I have a buddy that is a DSM'r that would have helped me so I had that aspect in my favor, but having other people do the work is a waste of money.

You could buy a B14 SE-R and buy a DET or VE and get that installed in there for cheaper than putting it into yours...if you pay someone else to do it.


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## ceejay (Feb 17, 2004)

*Thanks*

Thanks for the info guys, I'll look into the websites.


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## ceejay (Feb 17, 2004)

NotAnotherHonda said:


> haha...i dont know if anyone has even swapped that into a b13...theres alot more that needs to be done than just tranny, ecu, wiring, and engine and suspension...then its $500-$750 for shipping, then lobor, costing anywhere from $500-$1500+, not to mention the small parts that would need to be bought..prolly power steering pump, and anything else that needs to be swapped when doing the sr20 swap into a ga16'ed car



If the VE is the same as the VVL, then my buddy dropped one in his '93 SE-R. It's like having a VTEC in a Nissan. The thing screams above 5000 rpm. My other buddy custom fabricated his own turbo. I think he probably has one of the fastest here in San Diego. The thing is they are both married with kids so it's hard to get them for a weekend.


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## danifilth (May 14, 2003)

indeed.VE is the last 2 letters in engine code and VVL is the technology.


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## siliconmatrix (Feb 25, 2004)

My only suggestion is to do a rebuild using the 8.3:1 pistons from courtesyparts and go grab up a 14b turbo and BOV from the DSM trader www.dsmtrader.com You can get a mitsubishi starion's intercooler for pretty cheap too. Then go get yourself a turbo flange, an old stock manifold and get access to a chop saw and a descent arc welder and make a turbo manifold. You can use PVC pipe for intake tubing to save some bucks but there are a lot of sources now for aluminum piping for your intake. You are gonna want bigger injectors and probably an S-AFC to compensate for the added air intake. This process will save a lot of money but will eat up lots of time and be quite a pain.


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## NotAnotherHonda (Aug 7, 2003)

siliconmatrix said:


> My only suggestion is to do a rebuild using the 8.3:1 pistons from courtesyparts and go grab up a 14b turbo and BOV from the DSM trader www.dsmtrader.com You can get a mitsubishi starion's intercooler for pretty cheap too. Then go get yourself a turbo flange, an old stock manifold and get access to a chop saw and a descent arc welder and make a turbo manifold. You can use PVC pipe for intake tubing to save some bucks but there are a lot of sources now for aluminum piping for your intake. You are gonna want bigger injectors and probably an S-AFC to compensate for the added air intake. This process will save a lot of money but will eat up lots of time and be quite a pain.



LOTS of BAD STUFF in this...
1) dsm turbos require alot of work to match up with nissan manifolds and non-dsm piping
2) making your own manifold is VERY hard..TIG welders usually cost thousands of dollars....a "descent arc welder" isnt gonna cut it
3)NEVER EVER EVER use PVC piping as intercooler pipings..EVER


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## toolapcfan (Jul 10, 2002)

> I've gone up to stage 1


WTF is "stage 1"? Is there some sort of "stage committee" in existence that I'm unaware of, that decides what modifications to a car make up a given "stage"? I'm not joking, I'm dead serious, where does this "Stage" B.S. come from? That's like people saying they've got a "Stage #" clutch, when the clutch company doesn't refer to their clutches in stages. I don't get it. The word "Stage" pisses me off almost as much as when I hear "Honda", "B16a", "H22", Type" or "R", and those things actually exist! I wonder what "Stage" my car would be in, maybe I should consult this mysterious committee? Ok, I'm done ranting, and to think, one might wonder why my avatar fits so well?  If I had a car with that many miles what I would do depends on the condition of the suspension and body. If that's all good, then I'd say upgrade the brakes first. Get the MC, e-brake cables, front and rear spindles and calipers from an SE-R. Since you're there you might as well get some decent stainless hoses and some good fluid. There's no sense in making your car go faster when it can't stop worth a shit with the brakes it has right now, upgrading to a more powerfull engine first wouldn't be too bright. All this will likely cost you about $500. Then get yourself a progress rear swaybar to put on, and no you don't need different rear struts to put this on, it doesn't utilize the crappy OEM rear swaybar mounts found on OEM b13's with rear sways. As far as go faster goodies, I'd dump that old engine for at least a JDM sr20de. If you're gonna stay NA see if you can't get a nice high compression 10:1 motor. You'll also need a tranny. Might be a good time to consider getting a 6 speed from Andreas Miko, might be worth spending a couple hundred more than just any old SR 5 speed tranny, and have him weld the case and cryo treat the gears for you before he mails it off. Get some decent axles, parts store ones will do fine for NA, an ECU, injector harness for the SR, and motor mount brackets all around. All this stuff will cost about $2000. You'll need a new exhaust, $300-$500 for an SR. For another $1K you can buy a VE or DET to swap in instead, but the VE will need another hundred or two so you can utilize the cam switching using some rpm switches.

A front clip usually means the firewall forward cutt off a car. Usually the dash and steering column are all there. Some use the word to mean a tranny engine, harness and ECU, but that's more of a swap package than a clip.


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## Matrix021 (Aug 21, 2002)

toolapcfan said:


> WTF is "stage 1"? Is there some sort of "stage committee" in existence that I'm unaware of, that decides what modifications to a car make up a given "stage"? I'm not joking, I'm dead serious, where does this "Stage" B.S. come from? That's like people saying they've got a "Stage #" clutch, when the clutch company doesn't refer to their clutches in stages. I don't get it. The word "Stage" pisses me off almost as much as when I hear "Honda", "B16a", "H22", Type" or "R", and those things actually exist! I wonder what "Stage" my car would be in, maybe I should consult this mysterious committee?


HAHAHAHA... that's great... seriously... pardon my ignorance, but every time I hear "stage", I have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.... I've heard it used so many different ways and in different context... I'm lost... I'm just gonna ask them what the hell they mean next time... good rant tool... I feel your pain...


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