 |
|
|
|
|
|
After installing The Beast in my 1991 Sentra SE-R I just left the old engine on the floor of my garage for the time being. I didn't know what I was going to do with it besides keeping it around for awhile until I was sure that The Beast was going to be OK. After looking at it a few times and pondering, I started to think about buying a G20 that was in need of an engine. I did some searching on the Internet and came up with a prospect just outside Atlanta, GA. I called the seller and was told it was in good shape other than the engine. A few e-mails were placed to SE-R mailing list members in Atlanta to try to find someone to check it out for me. I found out that Jim Hudlow had already looked at it and he informed me of passenger side collision damage. Great. No joy.Disappointed, but determined I continued my search. A few weeks later I saw a post on the SE-R Mailing List by Rick Koch of St. Louis about his Dead Red G20. I immediately fired off an e-mail to him informing him that I was actively searching for just such a car and while I was not trying to be a vulture, I would be very interested in his car if he decided to sell it instead of fix it. A couple of weeks and a few e-mails later, he informed me he was indeed selling it and included his phone number. Since I was on-line when the e-mail came through, I immediately phoned him and made a deal contingent upon being able to arrange transport and having someone check it out for me. I was really only interested in someone verifying the condition as described after the Atlanta disappointment.
Dale Hinson was my first volunteered and he raised some serious concerns since I had not seen the car other than one small digital photo. I then contacted Vito Biundo (also a G20 owner) and he also agreed to check it out and give me another opinion. Vito did more than that. He took about 14-15 photos. His report, along with the digital images he e-mailed to me convinced me that this car was what I was looking for: a G20 in need of an engine and a little TLC. In fact, this car is in need of some serious TLC, but since it's an extra car for my wife (Kerry) and I, that's OK. We can take our time and whip it into shape.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jim Hudlow with his help on the Atlanta car and Dale Hinson and Vito Biundo for their help with this car. I owe you guys.
At of this writing I have not seen this car with my own eyes. Thanks to Vito's digital photos however, I have a pretty good idea what I am up against.
Update 8/19/99:
Last night the car was loaded on the transporter after a day of much stress due to the transport company sending a trailer without a winch. Should be here in 3 days!
These photos are courtesy of Vito Biundo Update 1/15/00: Oh my, it has been awhile. When the car arrived on the transporter, we were very excited. The exterior was in much better condition than we hoped. The interior was in exactly the condition we had expected. See below for our improvements.
The Purchase Mailing List Web Sites Improvements Top of Page
Mailing List:In January of 1997 I first went on-line on the internet. On a whim, I tried a search for Nissan SE-R. I was surprised at the wealth of information I found. The mailing list and the various web sites have saved me a tremendous amount of money and I've made some very good friends through the mailing list.
If you are reading this and are not yet a subscriber to the SE-R Mailing List and would like to be, just follow the link provided here. Beware. When I joined the mailing list my SE-R was almost completely stock. I had just purchased my wheels and tires (more about mods below). In the year that followed, I did mod after mod after mod. Most of them were never really planned before I joined the list.
Now, thanks to the mailing list, I am the owner of a G20. I cannot say enough about this mailing list or the people on it. Kerry and I have made met and made friends with folks from the list from coast to coast. We will soon be traveling to Germany and plan to meet up with a list member in the USAF who is stationed there!
By the way, don't worry about the fact that it's called the SE-R Mailing List. It is actually for all cars powered by the SR20DE and SR20DET engine. That covers the SE-R, 98+ Sentra SE, NX2000, Infiniti G20, as well as various international models and cars with transplanted engines (mostly RWD SR20DETs).
If you own or are interested in one of these cars, you should also seriously consider joining the SE-R Club of America (SERCA). This is a budding club at the moment. We are currently (8/7/99) in the process of creating the national entity that will pull together a large number of regional SERCA groups. Please contact me, Larry MacLeod (interim president and founder), or visit the SERCA web site for information.
The Purchase Mailing List Web Sites Improvements Top of Page
Web Sites:If you own an G20, or want to find out much more about them there are several web sites that should be on your priority list to visit.
These two point to one and the same place. Choose either link you like. This is the real hub of information regarding the G20 and all of the other cars powered by the SR20DE and SR20DET engines. You should also seriously consider joining the SE-R Club of America or SERCA. Please click on the logo to visit the SERCA web site. SERCA is dedicated to bringing SE-R enthusiasts together, along with the owners of other SR20DE and SR20DET powered cars.
Other must visit sites are:
The G20 Forum An excellent forum with an international membership
The SE-R FAQ (frequently asked questions) Many thanks to Ron Chong
The Nissan Sports Saloon Car Page A Primera/G20 page from England
Abadilla's Project Car This is my good friend Al's G20. It's the best G20 page I've found to date.
The Purchase Mailing List Web Sites Improvements Top of Page
The Improvements:
Since this car will initially get few or no mods, and because it needs some serious TLC, I've renamed this section Improvements rather than mods. There will be enough going on whipping the car back into shape that this section should get plenty of activity.The first things we plan on doing is removing the seats and cleaning and treating the leather. Then we will determine what needs to be replaced and what is OK. We will also clean the carpet or have it cleaned. We may even pull the carpet out of the car and take it to someone to be cleaned. We will know after we get the seats out.
I do have the first mod already even though we just completed the paperwork and wired the funds only today. I have a set of Eibach Prokits. Somewhere along the line I'll get them on the car - probably when replacing the dampers. I will most likely have a Pacesetter short shifter in the car before it hits the road the first time as well. I think I may have a Stillen header lined up, but won't know for a couple of days. I'm sort of kicking myself for selling my old Stillen header from my SE-R. At the time, who knew? Besides, James McColl really had been wanting a header. Now he is enjoying it on his NX2000. The G20 may or may not get a POP. I want this to be a quiet car. Update: The car has a Courtesy Nissan short shifter and will soon be recieving a Stillen 1st gen header.
Update 1/15/00: When the car arrived on the transporter, we were very excited. The exterior was in much better condition than we hoped. The interior was in exactly the condition we had expected. The first thing we did was to pull out the seats. We used Leatherique Rejuvinator [sic] Oil and Prestine [sic] Clean on the leather seats. It did an amazing job. We put three coats of the Rejuvinator Oil on the seats before finally using the Prestine Clean. All we can say is WOW! The driver's seat was ripped in many places and was beyond reasonable repair. New factory leather was ordered from Infinity of Scottsdale in Arizona. They are nice folks as were quite helpful. They are just as nice to deal with as Courtesy Nissan.When the new leather came in we took the old leather off and installed the new leather. It was a bit tricky at first. Now that we have done it once, we could do a better job much quicker if we had to do it again. The new leather doesn't match exactly, but it's close enough. In the photos, you can see the new leather is more wrinkled. As the seat is used more and more, the wrinkles are going away. With the seats in the car, it is much harder to tell the difference.
Changing the cover of the seat was a bit tricky. Now that I have done it once and know what I am doing, it would be much easier to do again. A fair amount of the seat must be taken apart. Putting it back together was easier than taking it apart. The hard part was figuring out how to take it apart. When we pulled out the seats, we also pulled out all of the center console pieces. They were thoroughly cleaned and given at least two coats of armor all as well as the dash. We installed a new Blaupunkt Miami Beach AM/FM/CD head unit and realigned the storage tray since it didn't fit right. A stock shift knob in very good condition was purchased used through the SE-R.net classifieds. While everything was out, we cleaned the carpets. And cleaned the carpets. And cleaned the carpets. Three different spot removers were used. In the end, the carpets looked great. We ordered new floor mats from Infinity of Scottsdale and put everything back together.
The G20 got the engine that came out of my SE-R. It was thoroughly cleaned since my SE-R spent the first 5 years in Rochester, NY. The valve cover, fuel rail, and several other parts were powdercoated black. Everything but the valve cover were powdercoated to cover up corrosion. In the end, it looks great. The engine is completely stock. We will be installing a first generation Stillen header sometime this year. The car came with a poor after market exhaust and I traded an intake manifold for a good OEM G20 exhaust. Once we get a new cat for it, the header, cat, and exhaust will be installed. The G will retain the stock airbox for quietness which is why it will retain a stock exhaust as well. It got a new Value Line Nissan clutch and the stock flywheel was lightened and balanced.
The engine swap went quite easily. The new/old engine started up almost right away. We had to press the accelerator to get it to start. That is not supposed to happen with electronic fuel injection, but it did. Since that time I have not had to spend any time messing with the engine. The idle is a little high, but not so bad it needs immediate attention. To do the swap we had to disconnect the exhaust at the primary/secondary connection and at the muffler/mid-pipe connection. The secondary, cat, and mid-pipe were dropped and installed as a unit since the cat bolts just weren't going to give up their grip on the studs. Before installing the exhaust, a short shifter from Courtesy Nissan was installed. It is a high quality piece. In fact, I have the Stillen shifter in my SE-R and have seen the Pacesetter/SMC shifter and I believe the Courtesy shifter to be the best one of the bunch. It is also the least expensive.
So far there have been almost no problems during 15,000 miles of driving it. The only problem that developed was an appetite for fusible links. It turned out I routed one portion of the wiring harness wrong and it was rubbing on a stamped metal bracket. That shorted a wire in the starter circuit. Once that was found and repaired, the car has not needed any attention. Well, that's not totally true. There is an oil leak either at the rear main seal, or the input shaft seal. That will have to wait. It is not bad enough to get my immediate attention, but the gearbox will have to be pulled and both seals replaced. Rats. But those are the only two problems we have encountered.
The car is a joy to drive. It is certainly peppy enough and the handling is good with a very smooth ride.
Update 07/10/00: Well I had a set of underdrive pulleys from Unorthodox Racing sitting around, so I installed them in the G. They are a really nice mod for this car. They add a little power and some throttle response. The only real downside is reduced A/C at idle. No biggie. I also added a 1st generation Stillen header. It also is a nice additon. It's another mod that adds power and throttle response without any downside. The pulleys took less than an hour to install, including a new front main seal. The header took a few hours longer, but also included replacing the exhaust studs. The really nice thing about these mods is that they really don't add any additional noise. Ahhhhh, quiet power. I like it. I really recommend both for refined power enhancement.
I recently cleaned and waxed the car and used a product called Black Again on the door and bumper edging as well as the bottom portion of both bumper covers. It really made a big improvement. It looked so good I decided to go out and take a few new photos of it.
Coming soon:
SR20DET (very very soon to be installed)
KYB AGX with Ground Control coilovers (already installed)
Ignore the strange perspective making it look like the front is higher. I'll have better photos later. The weird perspective is due to the slope of the driveway. All text and photos copyright George D. Roffe 1999, 2000, 2001 except as noted
Many thanks to Vito Biundo who provided the photos before the car was actually purchased
