F20C getting cheeper...

[Gollum]

Hey, I know some people here have thought about the honda S2k as a great car to get a motor from, just darn expensive. Well, they're FINALLY starting to show up in junkyards for decent prices. I think this is a great way to go for a LEGAL 4 cyl. swap. SRs are illegal, and most 4 bangers are set up for FWD. Well, here's a motor that's great stock, revs awsome, gets great gas milages, and comes equiped with one of the nicest shifting trannys on the market.

 

http://www.flashoptions.com/product.asp?prodID=74

 

Just under 5k. By the time that I get around to doing a swap they'll probly be closer to 3k at the rate they're starting to come onto par with honda motor prices. That's really not that much more to pay considering it would be legal for us 76+ guys.

 

The biggest argument agaist it could be that it can't get nearly as much HP on the stock internals as a SR. Well, that's a good point, but this thing's selling point to me is the fast that it's legal. So there isn't much you could get away with anyways. But I bet you could get the F20C to 300hp NA legally.

[SR240Z]

Flashoptions is definitely not a good source for engines. There are many bad engines that have come from them so they arent the most reliable...

[Guest PROJECTRB240SX]

Why not get a vq35de swap for $4k and have more torque, more hp and only 75 more pounds and no need for the diff?

 

Besides the f20c power is far from linear combined with the 6 speed makes driving the car below 7k rpm uninspiring..... Just my opinion, take it for what its worth.

[auxilary]

well, we all at hybridz want to have different cars, right? he'll be the first documented f20c powered Z, as far as hybridZ knows, right?

[Guest ON3GO]

lol most the time NOTHING comes from flashoptions..

there a bunch of scammers!!!

 

im all for the F20C swap! i was soooo debating weither to do it to a Z but desided to put that on hold. i love the engine, torque... well none really but thats okay if its gonna be a track only car like i wanted to do.

 

hell you can make a S2K fast in a straight line too, its just most of those guys dont want to hurt there cars..

guy here in texas threw a better rear end with axles, some slicks and a 150+++ shot with i think bigger injectors and a fuel/vtec controller and its damn fast.

dont know if he ever went to teh track but it ate some low 12sec/high 11 sec cars for lunch on the street.

 

mike

[Gollum]

Well, ONE thing i could say against the VQ53DE (although it's a great swap in my eyes) is that because it's V6 it's got a higher center of gravity. The lower your center of gravity the better. I'd rather have a 500lb motor that sits ultra low than a 300 lb motor that sits high (not talking about any motors specifically, just being general).

 

I like what aux said. And i don't mind being the first. Just need the job that can provide the cashflow first...

 

And I also see what you mean projectrb240sx that driving under 7k seems lame in an S2k. Well, when I drove one (it was an 02) it seemed to really come alive at 6200 and killed until redline. And with the way the tranny & rear diff. are set up you can shift and stay in that RPM pocket all day long. The beauty is that you can get around town traffic under that 6k limit fine. And that's where gas milage reigns supreme. My main reason for the swap idea, I could have paid for the swap in gas money in just a couple of years. If that's not incentive then I don't know what it.

 

Also, commets about flashoptions noted. I was only using them for comparison. I'm gonna start calling the local jap junkyards i know, see if they got any F20C motors.

 

I'd like to take a moment to say this, that I LOVE all responces i've gotten so far. All of them very well places and well directed. Every reply, although varrying in message, has been intended to improve my intent. That's what I love about this board.

[Guest ON3GO]

could be some problems with this.... well with the gearing..

tranny would work fine in the Z, but the S2K rear end sucks!! anything near 250whp and it just likes to say "**** it".

now the rear end prob wont see its way in the Z.. but then you have to figure what rear end you want to use.

prob the 200sx 4:11 unit..

you will want LSD too.

 

MAN!!! u had to bring this idea back into my head! lol

 

mike

[Guest PROJECTRB240SX]

Yes, We Are All Entitled To Our Own Swaps And In The Right Setting The F20c Could Really Shine. Just Driving The S2000 Left Me Confused, It Had Little Street Appeal In The Fact That In First And Second Gear You Are Waiting For The Power To Catch Up With Your Intentions. Then If You Let The Car Dip Below 6200 (vtec), In Any Other Gear, It Feels Unresponsive And Slow. If You Need An F20c Clip Let Me Know I Have A Friend That Imports Them From Japan And I Can Probably Get A Decent Deal.

 

A Good Thing About The F20c Is That There Are Superchargers And Turbos Available And That Really Meat Up The Bottom End And Give A Big Boost Up Top. My Buddy Just Installed A Vortech Blower On His S2000 And When I Drove It, Well Let Me Just Say "sr What?". With The Stock 6 Spd I'd Step Up To A 4.36 Rear End, You'll Have Alot More Fun.

[Gollum]

._. 4.36? Hmm, i wonder what RPM that would put me at for freeway speeds.

[True School 240Z]

I've toyed with the idea of swapping that same motor into my old '86 Corolla GT-S. I see more and more S2000's out on the street these days. Getting a wrecked one as a donor may be the way to go. Gas mileage should be amazing around town. I hope you get funding.

[Guest Battle Pope]

Comptech makes a badass blower for them too that puts the engine over 300hp IIRC. And the newer differentials are stronger - it was mainly the first 2 or 3 model years that had the weak diff. Also for '04 and newer I think (might be '05) they changed to an F22C which is .2 liters bigger and makes power a little earlier. It doesn't redline like the F20 though.

[materchan]

its only legal if you swap EVERYTHING over, including the obd 2 crap and all 18 or so cats.

[Gollum]

Yea, the 2.0L was better in my eyes. The only thing the 2.2 gained was low end tourque. If you compare the motors on the autox then they're the same.

 

The S2k has gone through many changes in it's short life so far. The suspension has been changed several times, along with the diff. The new ones are much better track cars stock than the origonal ones.

 

But I'd probly go for a strong nissan rear diff, and then figure out something to do with the front end. Also keep in mind this wouldn't be a track car. This is an idea I had for my ZX, wich will be my daily driver for who knows how long. Once I get a shop to work on a car and such, I'm gonna buy an S30 and that's a whole different ball game.

 

Trueschool, do you ever watch BMI? Did you see the "american touge"? One of the cars that was on that episode was a AR86 with a S2k motor & tranny. They all seemed to really like it and hadn't really thought about it.

 

And S2ks are getting VERY common on the road it seams. I see at least 2 every day it seems. For a car that the dealer wants 40k for, it's a popular car.

 

The idea of a supercharger on a F20C is great, i've seen several and heard great things about it, never driven one or been driven in one so I can't say first hand. But does anyone make a supercharger with a CARB label? If so that'd be sweet.

[Gollum]

materchan... i know. It's the only way i'd do it. My best friend used to work for the local smog reff and I'd hang out at his work almost everyday learning about CA smog laws. I know what's required.

 

This also means major dash modifications. But it's all worth it to be legal.

 

Also, doing research on blowers, only one i found so far that's CARB legal is comptech. But with another 100HP legally :drool: wow. But it would be 1/3 of the swap costs... I think it could wait until I've drained out all love of the stock 240HP.

 

EDIT: Umm, the F20C doesn't get NEAR the gas milage I thought it did. So disregard my earlier statement. High compression must really take it's toll. Well, I guess the SR swap still reigns supreme for 4 cyl. swaps. Too bad it's just plain illegal.

[mtcookson]

Well, ONE thing i could say against the VQ53DE (although it's a great swap in my eyes) is that because it's V6 it's got a higher center of gravity. The lower your center of gravity the better. I'd rather have a 500lb motor that sits ultra low than a 300 lb motor that sits high (not talking about any motors specifically, just being general).

 

Actually, most inline engines have a higher center of gravity than V engines. They lean the inlines over a little bit to try lower the high center of gravity but unless they make a very, very short stroke inline engine it'll sit higher than most V engines.

 

EDIT: Umm, the F20C doesn't get NEAR the gas milage I thought it did. So disregard my earlier statement. High compression must really take it's toll. Well, I guess the SR swap still reigns supreme for 4 cyl. swaps. Too bad it's just plain illegal.

 

Higher compression actually tends to give better gas mileage than low compression. I was also surprised by the S2000's low gas mileage. I have a MR2 Spyder and although it doesn't have the power output the S2000 has, its still gets about 32-35 mpg on the highway. I'm not sure the reason the S2000 has such poor gas mileage so to speak... you could have 1 million horse power but when under partial throttle you'll only make very few.

 

Actually now that I think of it, I know why the S2000 has such poor gas mileage. Its because of its very high peak torque. Peak torque is where the engine is most efficient and therefore would burn less gas. If you have a low rpm peak torque, that'll be where your peak fuel economy comes from.

 

For instance, my 90 Nissan Maxima has a torque peak at about 2800 rpm stock. I turbocharged it and I can still nearly get 30 mpg if I keep the cruising rpm at around 2800 (which I can do up to about 80 mph in 5th) (the peak torque of the turbo engine is around 4400 rpm due to the lower compression and such but it still has good torque down low). Granted, I got better gas mileage n/a simply because the peak torque was at the 2800 rpm where I could keep the rpm's at while cruising. I bet when I put the 9:1 VG back in it and keep it turbo, my gas mileage will increase quite a bit due to the increased compression and 2800 peak torque.

 

I think the reason the MR2 has such good gas mileage because it has one of the most linear torque curves I've ever seen. It makes a lot of torque down low which is probably due to the constantly variable valve timing. Have only variable lift seems kind of pointless for a street engine imo.

 

 

On the SR, could you not legally swap an early US spec SR and turbocharge it? Seems like you could make that legal pretty easily, especially one that use OBD1. Unless they drastically changed the design between the FWD and RWD SR, which I wouldn't think would be too likely since for instance the VG30E was used in both FWD and RWD cars and had no difference in the block or heads, I would think you could find a rwd tranny from a RWD SR vehicle that could bolt right up. If nothing else, you could just have a bell housing or tranny conversion plate made. You'd spend less money doing a swap like that compared to the F20C plus you'd make more power and have a hell of a lot more torque.

[Guest Battle Pope]

You can't bolt a RWD tranny up to a FWD SR20.

[mtcookson]

so then you can just use a conversion plate or, depending on the tranny, a custom bell housing. simple.

[qwik240z]

Don't do it. No Torque! I drove a 2.2 S2000 and it was still a dog around town. If you like driving at 7000rpms+ do ti. IF you like low end TORQUE, stay away from that motor.

 

I thought about this motor for my 510 but the SR20DET makes way more power and is still NISSAN!

[Guest Battle Pope]

By "you can't" I mean that it's not possible. The clutch setup is different, and not interchangeable. It's been around the 240sx communities several times to use the cheaper Pulsar GTI-R redtop engine with the RWD trans, and people have confirmed that it simply won't work.

[Gollum]

Yea, that's what 240 guys have told me, to just stay away from it, they're totally different motors.

 

I understand the tourque/gas milage thing now that you mention it. My friends B16A gets 35 MPG and has a decent 150 Fwhp and revs like a maniac. And his tourque is FLAT accross the RPM. When I saw his dyno I was like "dude, they didn't measure tourque?!" the tourque was blending in with a line on the graph, it was that flat.

 

Now the real issue to me is that the WHOLE point of Vtec is to have tourque down low and still have a rough cam in the higher RPM. So what did honda screw up? The F20C is great at Vtec, so what's wrong with the non vtec lobes? Hmm, I'm gonna do some research on cams for this car.

 

RAGE ALERT: WHY does nissan hate ME!?!?!?!? Seriously, why didn't they ever release the SR20DET in the 240SX cars and why did we NEVER see a skyline in the US! Now that the V6 is in the new skylines they're in the US but that doesn't get ME anywhere! Bah. Some of the best motors ever made, and you can't legaly put one in a US car. This sucks.