Sr20
 

I know im going get some different opinions on this but i blew my engine about a month ago and have decided to put in an sr20 det. The guys over at 786 Motoring in houston, tx will be doing the swap. Nothing against rotory but after doing some looking around i found a lot of people had the same problem as me. I will have pics up asap motor and trans will be pulled this week then the fun stuff starts. let me know what you think.

There's another guy who did the same thing with you, let me find his thread.

Found it: https://www.rx8club.com/non-rotary-swaps-196/sr20-det-136119/

Have they done this before? This is being done already. Have fun.

yeah i read a little about the other guy doing this but from what little i know about the nissan engine he is doing a red top and im doing a black top.

as far as them doing this yes and no they specialize in the nissan motors but they have not put one in an rx8 yet.

good luck!

If you know so little about the SR20 as to only be able to distinguish between redtop and blacktop (probably not realizing there are multiple versions of the SR20 called the blacktop), why are you putting it in your car?

What made you decide on the SR20 is basically what I'm asking. Not to be an asshole, but it sounds like you saw some drift video and decided that it was a good idea.

I'm not saying the SR20 is a bad engine, I had one in my S14 before the 8. I'm just saying it doesn't seem worth it, especially the price you are going to pay for a shop to do it. Your money though, not mine so good luck with it.

Now that turbos are becomming so easy to do and get good hp with on the renesis this idea seems like a backward step to me :dunno:

I am not that familiar with this particular nissan motor but as for why not the renesis is because it blew at only 40k miles and im not going to spend that kind of money for the exact same thing to happen i have heard of plenty of ppl who have gone through more than one or two motors. after discussing the 2jz, 13b rew, and the sr20 we agreed on the sr20 cuz of price and reliability. Later upgrades should prove to make some good hp.

sounds good.

but imo i just feel like piston engines dont belong in rx cars...
it feels like car blasphemy..

but anyways gl with your project. takes lots of pictures and make videos a lot of us. me included would like to see this.

expect your car to be out of commission for a while with this swap. You'll spend a lot of money and time to get this done. Most engines last past 40k. The only high risk years are 04 and 05 honestly. You'll probably spend more on this swap than for 2 engine replacements probably. I would honestly think about this a bit longer and do more research. You would honestly save time and money by turbo charging the 8, even if the engine does go bad. Replacing the engine would be quicker, cheaper and easier IF it goes bad.

What are your final goals for the car with the new engine? Did you have a certain horsepower number you were looking for? Certain power band? You could easily get a quick spooling turbo kit for the 8 for $7k and have it running within a week (once the parts are in) and have 350 hp. If you read the other page, it sounds like he's invested quite a bit of money and months of effort and still has not been able to complete the project. Just know what you're getting in to.

In AZ an sr20det can't pass emissions. You should check that out in your state.

thanks for all your comments and advice. i am going over the final plans later today and everythig that has been brought up in this thread will be talk about. i will keep everyone updated.

Is there a reason you can't get a re-manufactured engine under the 8 year 100k warranty?

At least start with that option, it is FREE. Then you have a working car and a good engine. If you are still unsatisfied and want to do an engine swap for whatever reason, you have a nice new Renesis you can sell to offset some of the costs of the swap you want to do.

Maybe I'm just frugal, but FREE is way better than 10-15k for an engine swap that may or may not retain all the same functions of your stock car.

Just something to think about, good luck either way.

I am a firm believer in that if you take care of your motor, it will last a long time. Do all the scheduled maintenance on time, and since this is a rotary, make sure you pay attention to all the special precautions. Something is wrong with they way an engine is taken care of if it only lasts 40k miles. The engineers at Mazda didn't design the engine to last only 40k miles, they designed it to last a lot longer, if it is taken care of.

I see the same thing in the 300ZX world, the VG motor in the 300ZX can be reliable, if taken care of. I have had a Z for over 5 years and every time I see a thread about someone's motor blowing up pre-maturely, it is because they abused it. I have been to multiple track days and multiple seasons of auto-x with my Z and there is 165k miles on the engine, and it is still going strong.

I don't know....
I would worry about the extra weight and placement because the balance would be all out of whack.

If it were me [not that you asked for my 2 cents anyway] I'd go with another rotary engine or just a different type of car all together if I had doubts about a replacement rotary lasting longer than 40k.

Do what you have to....

Having been part of Nissan forums for approaching 6 years now, I can tell you that in the end you are going to just be throwing money away. Sure, an SR20 isn't a bad motor for a 200SX/S13/S14, but as it was mentioned here, you have no clue about the motor (not trying to be rude, just trying to point it out...) and its will destroy the cars weight distribution.

For example; are you going for an SR20DET or SR20VE+T? are you getting an SR20 from a GTi-R, S13/14, U11/12, W10/11? Are you getting an SR20DE then having a turbo tossed in as well or are you going for an actual SR20DET? Are you going to make the mistake of getting the top mount intercooler version?

If you have your mind set of a Nissan engine, why don't you think about a VQ30 or VQ35, it is a good platform, and if throwing off the weight distribution and handling of the 8 isn't an issue for you, this will put down some decent power (more than an SR20DET) without a turbo, even more if you don't leave it N/A.

Good luck.

Mazda will not replace my motor because i dont have all of my oil change recipts which to me is total bs but i cant wait anylonger i need my car back running. From what i can tell this motor is lighter than the factory motor but not enough to make a huge difference.

^find a new dealer, that is bs. And tell them you do your own oil changes. I dont see wasting money that is not needed. You will throw off the balance of the 8 and it will never feel the same again. That dealer was just trying to get out of having to do an engine replacement, its a timely and expensive job for them in return they dont get an good amount of money to do the work from Mazda. IE they cant over charge Mazda as they would to a normal person. I say go to the good guy section of this forum and find a good mazda dealer around you. Their far and inbetween but a free engine is much better than wasteing money away.

This is my opinion but do as you will. If you feel the sr20 is the way to go then by all means, but never expect the 8 to drive like it used to.

might as well put the 20B in it...that's what i'd do....I never was impressed with the sr20....now the RB26 is a different story :)

I think it's a cool swap but if I were going for pistons in an 8 I'd prefer a n/a ls1..

Any reason why? My friend was doing a swap to his rx-7 and he picked the sr20 over the ls. I hear those 2 and a 2jz are popular swaps for it, but swapping is way beyond my level so I might be hearing some internet forum bs :confused:.

+1 There are too many threads on this site where RX8 owners go through this exact BS with some dealers. Find another dealer and Call that 800 Mazda number and tell them your situation. If you are still under your warranty 8yr/100k, get the free motor. If you still want the other motor, wait until you get the new one and sell the reman 13B.

DD Reliability, power, torque, reliability, sound, gas mileage.

sr20 is a good motor i have one in my s13 but never would i put one in my 8 the 8 is supposed to be a 13b it is designed for it please dont do this swap if you dont have to

gl to you.

Don't swap... Rotary > Pistons. (If you maintain it well)

Do the swap, don't listen to the rotary fanboiz.

:icon_tdow

Buy/trade the rx8 for a nissan car and then swap that engine in there if you want to. Don't change what the Rx8 came with. Rotary enthusiasts = Rx7/Rx8 owners. Its like being like one of those "aholes" who swap an LS1 into an Rx7:wallbash: :nono: (A Single/twin turbo rotary will put the LS1 into shame we all know that!) Please don't be like one of em. (Dont change what the car came with, change the car if you want to get a different engine) Peace.

^^
^^
^^

Fanboi lol

just do what ever you want with your car its yours, im staying rotary but thats my desicion people have their own desicion

It is your ride so do what you want. I hope you have lots of money saved for all the issues that will arise though. Do you live in a state that permits swaps? If you do not know then be sure to check.

If you want the car running soon, buy a new renesis. I dont care what the shop tells you, it will take quite a while to get this project done properly. The other thread was going for well over 4 months without being completed.

If you check the thread it is more like over a year now without completion . Just checked - he started the thread 23/01/08

I've seen guys on here up and running in less than a week after buying a second hand renesis . How long do you plan on keeping the car ? I would take a bet that says your installation guys wont hand you a completed car back within 6 months .

He says he needs his car up now

Wants to do a swap....

DOES NOT COMPUTE

i feel you on this. I love the Renesis and everything but lets stop being niave. THEY ARE UNRELIABLE. They say "take care of it!!" There are "rotary experts" who's engine dont last. I would name a few from this forum but i wont cuz it not my business. But lets all be real. How many solid running Renesis engines are at 150,000?? I've heard of a couple.

Do the swap. More power & reliability is always a plus.

^well 1 I think you would b surprised at the amount of high mileage 8's that are running arond here on this forum and ppl that have no clue about this forum....as for 150k yes there are ppl out there but this car is only 5 yrs old we haven't had the time for most ppl to get up to that mileage 100k yes alot of ppl are rolling that over but 150k is about 30k miles a year when the average person only puts on like 12k a yr....

me I drive ALOT and only manage about 22k a yr or so....give it another 2 or 3 yrs and you'll see plenty of 8's in that range...yes you still hve the ppl that dont' don't know the difference between a car and a truck let along a rotary and a piston engine..there is the factor that they don't know how to take care of it....

almost every normal person get's in their car and drive is no warm up just drives it and tried to change the oil within 10k miles.....well with the 13bMSP(or rotaries at all for that fact) that just doesn't work......yes I will be the first to admit that some 04's and 05's had problems with motors going early but that is because mazda's OMP rate was TERRIBLE it was not a design flaw. It was a programming flaw......

BTW i'm not being a rotary fanboi! haha

yeh you're right.. but compare than number to other cars..

our car is only 5 years old... so how would comparing this car to others prove anything?

They haven't made the sr20 for many years now, so you really think some old used turbo engine that needs a hack job to be put into a car it wasn't designed for is going to be any more reliable than a brand new OEM engine? good luck with that

If you're going to put a banger in, at least go for an LSx.

If Mazda is giving you a free motor replacement I would take it. I can understand if you want to work on a swap, but why not take the free motor and at least keep it as a back up, or sell the damn thing on eBay. If you are planning on really modding your car I could understand the swap. If you blow a reman-rotary that has been modded the dealer will tell you to get lost.

oh, my mistake. I didn't pay attention to the year. In that case, it's even less realistic to get this done anytime soon.

He was joking I believe. Swaps bring up problems of their own. Even if the renesis goes bad, it would be quicker, cheaper and easier to replace it and turbocharge it. It doesn't sound like the point of this swap is to increase potential power... He hasn't stated what kind of power he wants... but if he was looking for something in the 350 range, then he'd be much better off with turbo renny. If he's looking for upwards of 400, then sure, a swap might be a good idea.

They arent. They should, and he should either go to another dealer or contact MNAO and complain. You don't need all your oil change records to still have warranty. So either his dealer is retarded or he's making it up. But I've seen enough retarded dealers to lean more towards that answer.

off the topic.

how can you sit here say the engine is unrealiable?
for starters, we dont even know if the engine failed due to the owner not maintaing the car correctly, or the engine just failed on its own.

i am not here defending the engine, but please use some common sense. if you are baseing statistics on how many " I have a new engine "thread then i really dotn know what to say. because most of those threads dont even explain what caused their engine to fail. but yes some of those guys most likely had legit reasons why their engine failed. but its hard for me to believe that all of them maintained their car correctly, and this goes for any car.


and to answer your last questions about being real,and how many solid 150k 8 are running. well it is a 5 year old car. but lets be REAL, if you had any sense before posting that last comment , i dont think you will find to many 8's at 150k. but that is just me being real

back to the topic.
op you do whats best for you, and gl to you.

While I 110% agree that he should keep the rotary, you can get an SR20DE (not DET) shipped from Japan with < 20,000 miles on it. I think he should do a little more research on what kind of SR20 he wants if he has his heart set on it. There are a quite a few (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_SR20DET) versions of the engine (mostly turbo upgrades), and even 3 blacktop versions.

If you go with an SR20 and you have a large amount of money to burn, get an SR20VET, it would require some huge mods (AWD platform to start with) but 276hp AWD Turbo and its built from 2002-present, or go with an SR20VE and then tack on a turbo, 204hp 2001-Present (roughly $1000-$2500 for the VE engine alone).

Stick with the rotary (if its replaceable for free from the dealer), buy an S13-15 and spend the extra money on that if you want to run an SR20 (or RB26DETT :yumyum:)... Just my $0.02

To me this swap is cool if you're going to do it yourself, know what you're doing, rebuild your engine yourself etc. Because remember, just because you have a recently rebuilt sr20, does not mean it is suitable for much turbo gain in its factory form. Which means you'll spend an arm and a leg just rebuilding the engine to handle your boost. This means new pistons should be forged, new rods, knife-edged crankshaft, and then the whole head which includes springs, valves, etc.
Lots of money.

Plus if you hire someone to do this swap for you it will cost way too much money.

Also, if you hire someone to do the swap, you have to really make sure they know what they're doing. Otherwise you could be out a lot of script.

what makes a car interesting is what the owner has done to it. I would like to encourage doing something different from everyone else but use some common sense. Dont go just throwing money around causing new issues for yourself.

I still have no idea why someone would want to swap an SR20 motor into an RX-8. I can understand people who swap LSx motors for gobs of low end torque despite the fact that I would never do that to a rotary. It just doesn't make sense to take an older, peaky, Nissan piston motor and spending the insane amount of money and time to get it swapped to an RX-8. If you have that kind of money why not swap in something GOOD. Swap a 20B or a LSx if you are dead set on getting away from the rotary motor. Or ...here's a thought, buy a car suited to a piston motor that *gasp* has a piston motor in it already. This is one of those swaps that I can only imagine being done by someone with more money than sense, or a really badass gearhead who wants to try something new. Guess which one is more likely.

I agree completely.

Your better off with a Vette motor.

defitnely feel the same way as you...it just doenst make sense to me.