USA: Nissan S14 SR20VET Time Attack Build

Hey all,

This thread will be my attempt at keeping an up to date build thread for my 96 Nissan 240SX race car. It's a hardtop (no sunroof) 5 lug model with no ABS from the factory. Obviously, since it's a US market car, it came with the naturally aspirated 2.4 KA24DE over the world market SR20 series engines. So pretty unremarkable to say the least.

Pics of when I bought the car mostly stock in 2012:

Now I purchased this car specifically to make it my dedicated race car. However, at the time, I was racing my old S13 SR20DET coupe and so I used it as a daily driver for a number of years. Now the S13 is long gone, and the S14 has gone through a few mild updates (mostly suspension) over the past couple years. This past year it has been under the knife for a major transformation from a road car to a dedicated track car (and I am far from being finished). I race with the local NASA group in the southwestern state of Arizona, USA. I've gone through all the HPDE classes (high performance driving education) and have been approved for both race group and time trials. I am building the car to compete in a specific class (TT1) with NASA as well as a specific class in one of the main Time Attack series here in the states (limited RWD for Global Time Attack). I'll explore other series just for fun, but those are the main two.

The highlighted bullet points for this build are:

* Full aero pushing the limits of the classes.

* S13 SR20DET block with a P11 SR20VE head as the base. Stroked to a 2.2L with a borg warner EFR turbo (more on that later) running E85.

* Full suspension package. Mostly off the shelf bits, but some custom parts as well designed by myself.

* Complete custom electronics suite. Very little is stock here...

* Full safety suite, because that's the most important part in my book!

* Limited to a standard gearbox (no sequential) per class rules, so either Z32 box (which I already have) or R33 box (which I want).

I'll make another post in a bit to move the history further along, lots to post!

So the first thing I did (other than a catback exhaust change since the one that came on the car was horrible) was changed out a large number of suspension bits to make the car handle how I wanted. This was all off-the-shelf parts from a few companies, including solid bushes, adjustable links, gussets for the subframe, adjustable anti-roll bars, etc. I also fitted NT01 tires onto some SSRs I purchased. Apologies for the sub-par cellphone pictures:

Then I brought the car with all of it's ~100WHP glory to the track!

While slow in the straights, the car handled amazing. My initial setup was pretty spot on. Learned a few things as well, mostly by accident (in alignment settings).

Then came time to pull my original SR20DET from the S13 to sell the car (I've had this engine since 2005). At the time I was planning on reusing the block for the VET build, but later found out that I'd have to tear down and replace pistons, etc due to needing valve reliefs, so I decided to use the block elsewhere and start anew.

My original direction was to go with an internally gated EFR7163 for my goals, so I ordered the full kit from Full-Race which is local to me:

I also stripped the interior to prep for cagework:

Because I'm just under 6'4", I had to cut the cat-hump from the floor to drop the seat a couple inches.

Cagework all wrapped up!

Time to pull the factory KA24DE!

Pulled apart a low mile JDM Z32TT transmission to prep for the mazworx adapter kit

And did the same to the factory diff to prep for 4.35 FD and OSGiken 1.5 way!

Ready for some cage and engine bay paint!

Aaaaand the fresh color! Going for a two tone look with the inside and engine bay this color, and a red exterior.

Also picked up a Hypertune manifold and Bosch DBW for the VET. I also have an AEM Infinity 506 ECU and ECU Masters PMU going in (no pics)

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This is how the car sits today. I still have a TON left to do! Had a new baby and bought a new house, so I've been extremely busy as of late.

IG sticker in window is no longer valid BTW, new screen name is @SS.Maxey if you want to see instant updates on all projects, LOL

And lastly, this last weekend I picked up an already prepped P11 VE head from a friend of mine. It has oversized supertech valves, full port and chamber work by 5523 Motorsports, WPC treated everything, and new N1 cams with some JWT valve springs. Also has Inconel R35 studs on the exhaust side. Lash is all done, so it's basically ready to be bolted on.

Now the question is: Do I rock the N1 cams to see how they do, or do I pull them (and the springs that are meant for N1 cams) and swap in the Kelford 184-ST cams and Kelford beehive springs that I have sitting on the shelf? Bad thing is that I'd have to reshim the head (not the end of the world), but I'm curious how the N1 cams would fare with my setup. At the moment, I still have an EFR 7163, buuuuut, I've been considering swapping that out for the new EFR 8474. An industry friend of mine who was on the pilot program for tuning the new black series EFRs was raving about that turbo and it's capabilities. I feel the EFR 8474 will be able to let me hit 500whp early enough and let me hold that power (with boost control) to not go much higher, since I am limited to HP in my NASA class. The 7163 I am afraid will get me to 500whp, but only for a very small rpm range.