Hey everyone. I'm quite new member on the forum but been reading your posts for a long time. Must say that thanks for a really good source for information! Now when I have made some mods and will continuing my project, I thougth to share results problems, and everything I have faced on the project.
I live in Finland where Sentra is known as Almera. Yo9ur B13 sentra seems to be N13 Sunny in here and B14 sentra is N15 almera, which I have. N15 almera has been made between 1995 to 1999. OK, thats for the backround info for now on. then to mods and my project.
I decided to improve my chassis a bit because I didn't like the way that car was acting on speeds. Reason for irrational manouvers was warn rear dampers. OK, so I thougth that we'll fix those and make the chassy a lot better so I decided to buy new dampers and springs to rear and front. I deciuded to buy Monroe reflex and lesförs springs which are also used on GTI almera (atleast I'm remembering so.)
Same time when I fixed the chassy I decided to do something to my porr brakes so I got a new rear axle with disc brakes and front end got new discs and pads too.
And the whole exhaust system has been rebuild. From the cat to backwards there is 2" piping (54 mm), at the center there is one small Simons muffler and at the rear end there is roster muffler 2,5" exit.
Before cat there is collector made of 64 mm pipe (I'll post the more exact dimensions later) And exhaus manifold has been completely rebuild and designed by my self. It's 4-->1 manifold.
And now when I have been testing the car it really seems very good. Chassy is calm and very easy to drive on tarmac and gravel. brake force is something totally different than before! And engine got some nice improvements on poower too. I loosed a bit on down torque but it was expecterd. Car is still easy to drive and nice to drive in higher velocities. I'd say that there is an area of 3000-4000 rpm where sound of an engine is totally messed up but aftert 4500 rpm suction sound and everything changes totally and engine begins to live. Then it really so9unds good and feels good! I can post simulated dyno charts of my current modding when I come from work later this evening....
Oh, damn!! I'm already in a big horry... so I'll post more info when I come work later this evening!... Now I must run!!
- No-pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
I forgot to say that if admins read this post and thinks why the hell this have been posted up to GA16DE section. Well, there is a reason. I'm gonna introduce some dyno charts, ideas and mods I'm gonna do and have done to my GA16DE engine. Above there is just backround information and with better time I will give more precice info about this project, about the engine and everything. So pleace, don't move it to anywhere.
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
OK. Back to busines! I just ran latest simulation of my GA16 and got this kind of a results:
Peak HP: 116
Peak Torq: 109
Quite good result, I'd say. And when I get my car to dyno we'll see whether this result was rigth or not. But the feeling of the engine supports the figure. It really starts to live on 4500 rpm and sound of an engine changes totally. You can hear how pipes begin to work and help on emptifying the residuals from the head... Engine really feels much better now!
I'm remembering that I also promised some dimensions from my piping... So, mabe few words at the beginning. Firstly I simulated with wrong dimensions because I had uinderstood inserting the dimensions to program a bit wrong. But when I got it rigths and changed the pipe to correlate my design I got somehow this kind of dimensions:
Exhaust manifold was 4--1 type and measured from the manifold to point where all the pipes joins together,
diameter: 38 mm
Length: 260 mm
At this point pipes jhoin together and collector part begins. Due to my design fault at the beginning I had to make a sort of cone shaped collector. First the pipe continues for 300 mm pipe which diameter is 54 mm.
Diameter: 54 mm
Lentgth: 300mm
And after this section collector still goes on and continues with 64 mm pipe with length of 950 mm
Diameter: 64 mm
Length: 950
And because there is a change on diameter on collector I let the simulation program to assume that there is some taper on it. So I calculated the taper degree to be: 2.55 degrees
Taper: 2.55 degrees
I'd say that it's quite interesting to see whether my simulations are correct or not. But must say that it has been seen on many different cars that these simulations correlate reality pretty well so I'm quite confident.
Next bigger modification will be completely new intake manifold. I can't provide you any graphs of what should be expected because I'm not so far on designing yet. But I will be posting all the updates as soon as I get some progress!
So people here. Give me comments, suggestions and tell my I'm grazy cause doing this kind of mods or something... :P Oh, and that I forgot to mention that you have different intake manifold on stock than I do. I'd say you have a bit better, it's longer and basically should give you more down torq. But I'll post you some pics when I remember to take my camera with me.
And if some questions are popping up, don't be afraid to ask.
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
Ohhh.. and one thing I forgot was the ignition system. I think my car is running a bit rich and I have been considerin and wondering whether better spark would help. If the fuel/air mixture would ignite better or more precily. It might help but I'm not yet sure what spark plugs to try.
If I have time tomorrow I will try to search some better high performance spark plugs from Bosch or NGK. I also have planned to construct or buy an ignition amplifier. The main question is maybe that has anyone tried these kind of mods and has anyone got even a little gain to power or torq?
I can say that I migth have enough skills to build an ignition amplifier and even if not by my self then with help of few pro-friends. But I would be more than glad to hear other peoples experiences and ideas about this.
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
Ohhh.. and one thing I forgot was the ignition system. I think my car is running a bit rich and I have been considerin and wondering whether better spark would help. If the fuel/air mixture would ignite better or more precily. It might help but I'm not yet sure what spark plugs to try.
If I have time tomorrow I will try to search some better high performance spark plugs from Bosch or NGK. I also have planned to construct or buy an ignition amplifier. The main question is maybe that has anyone tried these kind of mods and has anyone got even a little gain to power or torq?
I can say that I migth have enough skills to build an ignition amplifier and even if not by my self then with help of few pro-friends. But I would be more than glad to hear other peoples experiences and ideas about this.
- No-Pain -
The general opinion here is that the stock ignition system is very good and doesn't need modification.
Also use NGK plugs and wires. The engine seems to prefer NGK to Bosch.
There is a lot of information here on the forum, search and you will be surprised what you find.
Thanks IanH. I will definetely be browsing the froums and searching for unread posts. But I have been here as a visitor for maybe a year now. And forum as a lot to offer and also some grab which helps no-one.
And I'll post some pics of my project as soon as I got enough out of my self and I manage to drag my ass down from our sixth floor flat. Pitty that I almost always forgot my camera when car was on project phase. It would have been nice to make some collection of different phases.
actually... I think I will now go downstair to take few photos so shortly you can expect to some photos.
to be continued....
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
OK!
Now I have some pics. There are pics of original airbox with filter and without filter.
Some pics of exhaus manifold, whole engine bay, interior and exterior pics. It's a bit pitty that my kameleon painting won't show the waqy it should these pics. It really looks cvool on right light.
Polishing work is maybe started but it was more like testing how shitty work it'l be.
Pics are converted into 1024*768 resolution and due the pretty high filesize I decided not to attach pics to this post but to throw you guys a link.
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
Hmmm....
I've been running simulations on different intake manifolds and it seems that sort of best results (so far) have been archieved with stock manifold. I think I must do some searching and studying on the area of plenum sizes and shapes. Has anyone any good links about this area?
This evening I have been simulating and trying to find working intake manifold, which might be able to provide atleast 5 hp more than this moment and a bit more torq but I haven't been able to design a proper manifold yet.
So if anyone has ideas of what kind of a manifold to simulate I would be more than happy to hear some dimensions. And ofcourse I'm also pretty much interested about dimensions of intake manifold on your country because it really seems to be quite different than manifold on my car.
Lets keep on posting!!!
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
I thougth to add links to pics so it's easier to browse. If you click a picture you'll find out that it's actually a link to bigger pic. These pics shown here should be small enough that too much bandwidth shouldn't be used... I HOPE!!!
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
Designing an intake manifold got a positive turn over. I atleast found some dimensions that migth be working. Trick on finding working dimensions was that I left the simulation of plenum totally apart of this design and let the program assume plenum to be "typical". (Program has some assumptions that typical plenum is x*(for example) diameter of runner).
And then to the dimensions. I ran quite a few simulations and found out that difference on gaining 3-4 more horsepower could be in a matter of 10 millimeters or when talking about runner diameter, it might be 1 mm.
diameter of runner: 37 mm
runner length: 390 mm
Figuring out plenums volume will be my next task and when I find some dimensios that migth work well, I will start fine tuning the whole package. Below is simulated power/torq figure with custom intake mani.
I also made a discovery. This is so fresh document that I haven't read it yet, just gave a small look to it. But those few lines and index I read told me that this might be useful to me and to you guys here. There some theory of helmholz, plenums and other cool stuff.
Tomorrow hopefully something new again. Now I'm gonna go to sleep...
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
Today my work mate brougth one air-filter to work with him to show off how cool filter he has. Well, he shouldnt have done that. I looked at it, made a vision in my head. Then I went to my car and tried how it would fit into engine bay. OK, everything looked very sweet! So when I went back in, I had left the filter to my car and said few words to my bud. And at the end of pursuations, blackmaling, admiring and showing off a little bit of money I had a new air filter. Lets say that he really had no other choice but to sell that to me.
It looks way cool and the better thing with it is that you can attach a pipe to both ends of the filter. This will make it possible to make a real cold air intake which is located at the front bumper where air flows to to radiator. Check the pics and tell your opinions!
And again, by clicking picture, you'll be able to see a bit bigger pic.
So no new simulations today but maybe tomorrow. This nigth I'm gonna fall a sleep because last nigth I was unable to do so... dunno why... :/
Keep reading the post! Will be updating when ever I figure out something new or some new idea comes into my head.
- No-Pain -
__________________
Nissan Almera (equal to Sentra) 1997 1.6 litres
Mods so far:
-Added disc brakes to rear
-All corners have got new springs and shock absorbers (monroe reflex)
-custom made 4-->1 exhaust manifold with 2" piping -Some cool kameleont painting
-Head work done. Porting, some valve job (lightening, cleaning and polishing). Intake- and exaustports on the head totally re-designed and grinded.
-Some gauges: oil temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, meter, lambda and external rev. meter with change ligth
-Free flow air-filter (calculated intake pipe lenght) with CAI.
-Lightened battery, moved to back
So if anyone has ideas of what kind of a manifold to simulate I would be more than happy to hear some dimensions. And ofcourse I'm also pretty much interested about dimensions of intake manifold on your country because it really seems to be quite different than manifold on my car.
I have a modified 'stock' intake manifold from a '91 Sentra GA16DE. I used the standard lower runner section (ported to match the head), but I fabricated a custom sheet aluminum upper plenum. It just bolts to the stock lower runners, effectively shortening the runner lengths by some 6-7" or so. The plenum is also larger than standard, and it's sized for an SR20DE 60mm throttle body. I have not tested it yet however...still waiting on my camshafts to complete the engine.
no limit- I do not have the valve lift #'s. Rally Bob can probably help you there...
As for the intake manifold I am up in the air on this. Me belief is that on an NA motor it will be hard to improve on the OEM manifold. Many highly modded SR20DE's found little to no improvement on intake manifold upgrades. Usually gains in some areas and losses in other areas. I believe the key is exactly what you are doing. Lots of simulations and research. I have a few questions about your current simulation. What does it use to simulate plenum volume and shape? They certainly play a role on how and where it makes power. Also how long are the stock IM runners?
I have wanted to have a custom intake manifold makde for a long time, I haven't yet because I do not want to sacrifice low end power for peak HP. Granted my car is turbo but I love the linear powerband that it has and do not want to lose that.
Hey wes.
My stock intake runners are only 170 mm long which means about 6.5 ". And I'm rememberig that diameter of runners were quite close to 35 mm (1,35").
And then to simulation engine of my program. This isn't based on facts but I believe that program uses Helmholtz theory, standard formulas for wave calculations. Program uses the plenum volume but does not take into account the shape of plenum. So I'm guessing it just assums that there are no sharp edges or something. But on the otherhand I haven't yet ffound reliable information about how the plenum shape would affect to whole package. I have thougth that it's more important to have correct volume than some special shape because the volume inside the plenum stil is on the most important role considering the waves and reflections and pulses that are moving and facing each other inside the plenum.
At this moment it seems that I will have about 400 mm (15,4") long runners and at the same time as I attach my new intake I will have to do some head work because it seems that headwork will signi
