Sentra Engine swapping

Sentra SE-R (Spec V) with of course a toasty toast factory 2.5L engine....

Option one is replace with another 2.5L and get rid of the factory header. Although i do hear those motors consume some oil due to bad rings. Dunno how true that is. Will the engine eat itself again if an aftermarket header is used? Can i use any 2.5L? This link appears to agree with this but...

2.5 engine choices

Option two is doing a VQ swap. 3.5L out of a 350Z or similar. HOWEVER, everyone says do it but after diggin on the internet for the longest of time i can find only a few tiny bits of info and everyone just saying talk to Trav. Seems like its not just a engine swap but also need to change the top part of the trans case for a different bell housing.

Thoughts? Just swap in a stock engine and enjoy the car or pass on it cause ill just have problems again down the road with the engines.

Is the rest of the car worth putting work into? Is the SE-R that fun a car?

No, the new engine will not eat itself once the factory exhaust manifold (and its crumlby pre-cat) is replaced by a header.

Yes, its a very fun car with the stock engine.

And even better with a turbo:

Any other questions? PM me. Jerry

I had an auto with the open diff. Still fun. The 02 bumper looks way cooler than the later bumper.

I agree with jstein. Get another well maintained 2.5 and put it in. Headers and exhaust should liven it up a bit, and you can have plenty of fun with them. The son of an old coworker of mine had a Spec V, and he liked to blow away his uncle and brother-in-law off the line...oh, and the uncle drove a Mach 1 Mustang and the b-i-l a souped up Camaro. Definitely a fun car, and durable if well maintained. Enjoy!

IIRC, stock they're in the 2700 lbs range. Not too shabby.

If you don't want to get too involved in a complex swap, just stick with the QR. Preferably from an Altima or even better from a X-Trail. They'll swap right in and aren't as likely to have been abused. Once you remove the pre-cat and loctite the butterfly screws, they are good engines with lots of torque.

Depending on what you want to do with it, they can be very fun. While they are OK in stock form, they mostly are a great platform to build on. The HLSD is very good. They really need to be lowered, and are camber challenged in front. You can put a lot of rubber under the fenders, and they are pretty light. And once you add boost, like jstein77's Sentra, they'll give a modded WRX a fright (on asphalt at least).

At one time, the VQ swap was fairly well documented, but Spec V/SE-R message boards have a tendency to self destruct and take their information with them into some sort of internet black hole. The "Trav" that everyone mentions is Travis from FI-R Racing. Not sure whether they are still an available resource or not.

My Spec V was a decent, but not great, car. The stock shifter is terrible, but bushings, a short shifter and weighted knob helps a lot. It plows badly from the factory, but a rear sway bar makes it a decent handling car. I've heard (From our own J. Stein) that a drop and some negative camber in the front end make it an excellent handling car. I liked the power from the stock QR. I've never driven any 4 cylinder, including an S2000, with as much torque as a QR has with just an I/H/E. Boosted Spec's used to turn in mid to high 200's for torque and HP, NA with bolt on's just short of 200 for both. I never really trusted the motor not to grenade (probably largely due to internet hysteria), but it served me well through 40k+ of street driving and 3 years of autocross. Mine burned a little oil, about 1.5 quarts per oil change, but it never really got any worse than that. I've heard 04+ QR's tend to be slightly more reliable and less prone to consume oil, but not sure exactly why. The LSD on the Spec V is a gem. IIRC, mine weighed in around 2800lbs with me aboard and all the stupid, heavy optional equipment (Rockford Sub, Sun Roof, Power Everything)

Hope that helps.

Oh yeah, they aren't very refined to drive fast. If a Miata is a Katana sword, the Spec-V is a battle axle. I find that my stock 06 Spec-V responds well to being over-driven. The fastest method I have found around the cones, is really high rear tire pressures, then I just toss the car in and as soon as I'm pointing somewhat toward the exit, I mash the throttle and let the diff pull the car out of the turn. Not very sophisticated, but fun in a hooligan kind of way.

My old 02 Spec-V was more fun to drive. It was slightly lowered, on Tein springs, and it made a huge difference. It was more neutral and easier to move around.

And like kazoopsec said, the 04+ are less troublesome, because they changed the ECU to a more sophisticated CANBUS system. The 06 are the ones to look for, because the have the superior ECU, and have a wideband O2 stock.

lookin at an O2.

What other engine can i snag a 2.5 from? And they will bolt right up no mods?

What kinda MPG am i lookin at?

looking to have this be a entertaining daily driver

Altima had the 2.5, sentra obviously. They are good little motors. Buddy had 165whp with just bolt ons. The 6 speed is real nice for hihway cruisin. I think the can get 30mpg if drivin well?

No on the 30 mpg; never got that high in 8 years of city and highway driving. It was always about 25-26 mpg no matter how hard I beat on it. The turbo gets a little better mileage- 26-27. Go figure - add 130 hp, improve the mileage?

sr20 swap!

I drove mine pretty hard, but only got about 22mpg when city driving, and the rare times I took it on long trips, 27-28mpg highway. Neither great nor terrible. It does need premium too, but at almost $4.00 per gallon (here, at least) the extra $.20 doesn't hurt that bad. Could you, conceivably, crack 30 mpg? Probably. If mileage is super important, you'll probably be disappointed.

Also, be sure to check on your insurance. This is a direct quote from my agent: "Oh yeah, Sentras are very cheap to insure (long pause) as long as its not an S E R - Spec V, whatever that is."

Still a fun car. My son still complains that we sold it almost a year later. He likes the Miata all right, but misses the power and noise. (BTW - they sound fantastic if you can find a Nismo exhaust) Mine is slowly returning to the earth here in SW Michigan somewhere, as the next owner planted a tree in the radiator at high speed.

If you end up buying it, it might be worth trying to find my old one in whatever salvage yard it ended up in. It had a really nice TWM shift knob, FI-R shifter bushings, a TWM short shift kit, Nismo lower tie bar and rear sway bar, AEM short ram, UR lightweight crank pulley, XS power header, custom midpipe with a Magnaflow high flow cat and a Nismo catback exhaust. It also had the really nice Nismo wheels. Not sure what survived the carnage, but its pretty much a complete Spec V upgrade kit except for coilovers.

CarKid1989 wrote: lookin at an O2. What other engine can i snag a 2.5 from? And they will bolt right up no mods? What kinda MPG am i lookin at? looking to have this be a entertaining daily driver

Nearly every 02-06 Altima has one in it (My guess would be out of every 10 Altimas of that era, 7 of them have a 4cyl...just a guess). Replacement motors from Spec V's will maybe have been abused, while motors from Altimas will have been neglected. Seriously, in my 3.5 years at a Nissan dealer, it's amazing the idiots that drive 2.5 Altimas.

vq35 sentra seems like it would be great but man that is the most boring looking car ever.

EvanB wrote: sr20 swap!

A couple of SR20s demand quite the premium two weeks before race wars.

what year range am i looking for for a 2.5 engine?

Car is 2002 but is the engine the same year to year?

Any QR25 in a FWD platform between 2002 and 2006. 2007+ is still called a QR25, but it's a different engine that won't bolt in.

Do it!!! Sooner the better!

Full disclosure: The car in question is mine. Comes with a header...

I'd rebuild for a disco potato Turbo.