Project Nissan 200SX 1.6: Part 3

Well, it looks like our ex-homely girl's makeover is starting to make a difference. In our first installment, we gave her some hip clothes and some dancing lessons. Then we put her on a workout program to give her some power to help her self-esteem. With the major portions of her metamorphosis having happened, we still have more work to do to make her a desirable, well-rounded package, improving her weak areas until the once-ignored wallflower will be homely no more. Eventually we want to take her to where she can out-swoop the popular rich girls from across the tracks, but to do that, we need a solid base to start from.

Put a Stop to it
In our last installment, we gave 200SX 1.6 some more muscle through bolt-on engine parts. Now that we have enough power to hold our own against the competition (at least some of the slower competition), another problem has reared its ugly head. Now that we can go, we cannot stop fast enough!

All it took is one hard stop from 70 mph to fade our stock brakes so badly that it was difficult to stop as quickly again. The fade issue was such that we have not bothered to track test the car because it would have been simply futile, the brakes would have been gone in less than a lap.

As Nissan's lower-cost model, our 200SX SE is equipped with disc front and drum rear brakes. Although drum brakes are not meant for high-performance use, we figured we would not upgrade them yet, as our goal is to first show a low-cost route to do things with this car. Since more than 80-percent of the braking comes from the front in a nose-heavy, front-wheel-drive car like ours, we felt it would make more sense to first beef up the front brakes to make Project 200SX 1.6 track-worthy.

Breaking out our measuring tools, we found the stock brake rotors to be a wimpy 9.1 inches in diameter and only 18mm thick, probably OK for stopping the stock econo-wagon, but not too good for stopping a 2,400 lb car with some performance and sticky tires. These unimpressive measurements give Project 200SX 1.6 the dubious honors of having the smallest brakes of any of our project cars and the diminutive size was showing in their unimpressive performance.

Courtesy Nissan gave us a hand with its low-cost brake upgrade kit. If you have not read our various Nissan project car articles before, Courtesy Nissan is a performance-friendly Nissan dealer with a well-run mailorder parts business. Courtesy has helped us on numerous occasions, quickly tracking parts that stumped our local dealer. Courtesy also provides membership discounts to various Nissan clubs.

The Courtesy Nissan kit consists of quality OEM parts robbed from Nissan's parts bin. By checking and cross-referencing brake parts, Courtesy determined that the brakes from a '91 to '93 NX2000 with ABS would be a direct, bolt-on upgrade. This brake upgrade has also proven popular for the SE-R crowd and will also work on all years of SE-Rs with good results. The Courtesy kit consists of calipers, rotors, anti-rattle clips, brake pads and springs--all the stuff you need to bolt these much-improved stoppers right onto your Sentra. They will work on all '91 to '99 Sentras. The NX brake rotors measure a hefty 10.1 inches in diameter by 26 mm thick, which is a substantial difference. The bigger, stiffer calipers have larger pistons (54mm vs. 48mm) and the brake pads are also much bigger in surface area on the NX brakes. The bigger rotors have more thermal capacity and have a larger moment arm from the caliper to the axle center line, giving the brakes more leverage. The larger pistons in the caliper give the calipers more hydraulic clamping force to the brake pads. The calipers' stiffer construction ensures the clamping force gets delivered to the pads instead of creating pedal-mush-inducing flex.

The size difference between the NX brakes and stock brakes is readily apparent to the eye. Why Nissan opted to install such small brakes on the base Sentra is beyond us, but if you consider the intended use was probably far from being a performance car, it becomes more logical. Perhaps it was weight savings and lower CAFE numbers that drove the decision. Either way, the brakes were not designed around the loads that our bigger, stickier tires and more powerful engine could place on them.

If you are thinking that SE-R brakes might be another upgrade option, consider this: If you purchase new parts, the price difference between SE-R and NX2000 parts is not significant, so the larger brakes are the better deal. SE-R brakes should be considered if you are on a restricted budget and can get some for close to free, perhaps from an SE-R owner that has already upgraded his brakes. Many an SE-R owner has upgraded to NX2000 or SMC Wilwood brakes and has old SE-R brakes rotting away in a box, just waiting for you to help clean the garage. At 9.8 inches in diameter by 18 mm, with a slightly larger caliper, they are a small upgrade, but probably only worth the effort if the price is right. All SE-Rs from '91 to '98 can be used, by the way. Consider joining an SE-R Internet mailing list like that found on www.se-r.net and asking for used brakes.

We installed the NX brakes with some SMC braided steel brake lines. The brake lines improve brake feel because they do not swell under pressure like the stock rubber lines. This slight swelling can make the brake pedal feel mushy and unresponsive. The stainless-steel wrapped Teflon hydraulic line that SMC uses does not swell at all, ensuring that every pound of pressure you apply to the pedal gets transmitted to the caliper. The SMC lines use high-quality hydraulic couplings instead of swaged connectors for improved reliability, and also have a clear PVC overlay to protect both the lines and other parts of the car from abrasion.

Finally, we completely flushed the brake system with Motul 600 racing brake fluid, which we have had excellent results with in the past. This amazing fluid has a dry boiling point of nearly 600 degrees F, close to that of some exotic brake fluids costing twice as much. This high boiling point goes a long way toward eliminating fluid-caused brake fade. When brake fluid boils, the bubbles that are formed are compressible, which can allow the brake pedal to go to the floor, rendering the brakes useless. Frequent hard braking from high speeds, like you would find on the racetrack, can boil brake fluid easily. A soft brake pedal after repeated hard stops is a sign the brake fluid is boiling.

Stock brake fluid has a dry boiling point of about 450 degrees F, so you can see the Motul is quite a bit better. The Motul fluid also has surfactants in it, so when it does boil, the surfactants collapse the bubbles more quickly and the brake pedal can recover faster. We have used Motul extensively on both our project street and racing cars with good results. We feel Motul is probably the best brake fluid available for the money.

After bedding the pads (per the instructions found on (www.se-r.net), we found the brakes to be much better, in fact, better by an order of magnitude. With the stock brakes, we were hard-pressed to be able to lock the wheels at speeds greater than 60 mph. After one stop from these speeds, the ability to lock the wheels was questionable and, at any rate, modulation was difficult. It is hard to muster fine motor control of your leg when it is pushing almost as hard as it can! Now it is easy to lock the wheels and the brakes are easy to modulate. Finally we have some brakes that are more in line with the world-class handling that our chassis can produce. We can hardly wait to test our car's savvy on a road course, now that the brakes are more in line with the performance of the rest of the car.

She Needs Braces
To further improve our suspension, we installed a lower chassis brace from N-Tech (formally Nu-Tech). This brace is fabricated from artfully TIG welded, powdercoated rectangular section steel tubing and ties the lower control arms' mounting points to each other and to the engine crossmember. Rectangular tubing is used for improved ground clearance and increased side loading stiffness. When you look at the lower control arm mounts from under the car, you will be amazed to find them cantilevered out in space with no visible means of support. When watching high-horsepower turbo SE-Rs on the track and the dyno, you can see the flex in these areas that allows the wheel to move back and forth by more than an inch under load! The Energy bushings installed in our first segment cured the flex caused by bushing compliance and now the lower brace will cure the movement caused by sub-frame flex.

We had tried a Nismo lower brace and found it didn't work as well, because it attached only to the control arm pivots and not to the lower crossmember. The Nismo brace was also made of round tubing and hung fairly low to the ground, thereby contacting the ground rather frequently. The N-Tech bar is quite an improvement over this piece, in both performance and ground clearance, though ground clearance is still quite tight.

The chassis brace tied all the elements of the front suspension together and made a huge improvement in chassis rigidity. After installing the brace, we were surprised with the huge difference the brace made. The whole front of the car feels much stiffer, to the point where many of the car's creaks and squeaks disappeared, especially when going up a driveway sideways or in similar unequal loading situations. The increase in stiffness also seemed to improve our ride quality. The car turns in much nicer and understeers less. We figure this is because when the control arm mounting points flexed under cornering loads, they would flex inward. Since the steering rack and tie rods are incompressible, the outside wheel would be forced to toe-in under load, producing understeer.

With the brace, the control arm has a much harder time flexing inward and the wheel no longer toes-in under load. We were surprised at the difference this inexpensive piece made in the car's handling. The brace fits B13 and B14 Sentra and SE-Rs from '91 to '99. Motivational Engineering, the makers of our project car's shortened strut set-up will be handling the retail sales of this part.

Feeling Shifty
Finally, we installed SMC Products Quick Shifter. Even though the 200SX has a fairly direct rod-type shift linkage, it still leaves much to be desired as far as shift feel goes. Even some cable shifters, like the one found in Honda's latest Civic, feel smoother, more direct. The stock shifter is almost ridiculously long, both in length and throw.

Unlike other quick shifters on the market, the SMC shifter features an adjustable fulcrum, so the user can adjust the motion ratio of the shifter. As we are not fans of super-short shifters, this is great for us. Real short shifters can be hard on a transmissions sychros if not used with some finesse and the SMC shifter allowed us to dial-in a reasonable throw of about 30 percent shorter than stock.

The SMC shifter is also shorter than the stock, truck-like, boat oar shift lever and is weighted to improve the shift feel, making it much more solid and direct. The SMC shifter also fits SE-Rs and Altimas made from '91 to '99.

We also replaced the 200SX's wanky, stiff rubber shift boot with a supple leather one from an SE-R. Believe it or not, we did this as a functional as well as cosmetic modification. The stock, accordion-like rubber boot was so stiff it actually constricted the shifting to a degree, which was made slightly worse by the shorter shifter. With the shorter, more supple leather boot, the shifting was noticeably improved. We were pleased with this development, having just done the mod for looks--a bit of serendipity. The SE-R boot literally snaps into place in a Sentra in seconds, making this one of the easiest upgrades ever.

With the Energy shift stabilizer bushing set we installed in part one of this series, as well as the addition of the SMC shifter, the shift feel was much improved. It now feels like a more expensive car. Shifting is now a precise snick-snick, instead of the vague, somewhat rubbery feeling stock linkage.

Although Project 200SX 1.6 was not much when we started, she eagerly takes to minor mods and is now genuinely fun to drive and more than capable of holding her own against most modified compacts. She certainly handles and brakes better than nearly all of the competition. We are going to take her to some open track and autocross events soon, as well as make some forays onto the drag strip.

In the next installation of Project 200SX 1.6, we will dive deeper into the engine, looking to extract more power with some of JWT's new GA16 camshafts, tweaking the ECU, going with a big-bore throttle body and maybe experimenting with a little NOS. A lightweight flywheel and a new clutch are also in the works. A little further out are plans for some headwork, ExtrudeHoning and a turbo system.

You popular cars had better look out; soon Project 200SX 1.6 will no longer be the homely geek that got egged on the porch by her date. Now she's competition with the cheerleaders for the men on campus!

To install the bigger front brakes, the front dust shield must be removed. This also helps brake cooling, so we can't complain. Getting it off without tearing into the wheel bearings requires cutting the shield and mangling it with a pry bar. Don't plan on ever putting it back.

Look at the NX caliper on the right; note how much more robust the casting is. This stiffer casting improves pedal feel and ensures that all of the pedal force gets transferred to the bigger pads, also seen on the lower right.

Check out the size difference between the wimpy Sentra rotors and our upgraded rotors. Do they stop better? You bet they do!

Even at a casual glance, the NX2000 brakes are significantly larger than stock.

After installing the brakes and lines, we bled the brake system with Motul 600 brake fluid. The high boiling point of this fluid helps prevent fade during hard use.

The SMC brakeline kit comes complete with all clips, washers and banjo bolts needed for installation.

The N-Tech brace connects the lower control arm mounting points, reinforcing a very high-load part of the car. The U-bolts are to tie the brace into the engine crossmember.

The SMC quick shifter is adjustable by screwing the white nylon fulcrum ball up and down to change the throw ratio.