Thread: Can a sentra compete?

I wanna know everyone's take on making a competitive road race car. Something turbo. Something with close to 400whp. Very powerful, responsive, and a good suspension. Great suspension, but nothing crazy-custom.

I want to hear your takes on a B13, a B14, and a B15. What could make these cars competitive? Or is all hope lost to the RWD?

b13 all the way.. i think it could be done, i dont know if i would go as high as 400whp, maybe 300 ish.. the goal would be to have traction as much as possible while accelerating..

i think with good race tires, a good coil over setup, or maybe just agx/road magnet or hypercos.. going to need some meaty sway bars also, a cage would help stiffin things up a bit more, as well as some strut tower bars an maybe some of those overkill lower control arm bars.. the key with this would be Grip, the more the better.. i mean sure you wanna swing the rear out a little but dont want to have it get squirly.. Plus it wouldnt really be that hard to make a stock det 300 or so hp.. suspension is where the $$$ is going to come in lol

If you are talking Wheel-to-wheel racing with a turbo sentra will be a good challenge. It will not be exceptionally competitive unless you got some deep pockets. You are talking a Street Prepared class and will likely race against Evos, Turbo/Supercharged S2Ks, WRXs, ect. You could pull it off if you are willing to go all out. You will need some massive tranny work (Shotpeened, cryo, etc) with a good LSD, best suspension you could buy (there are some customs out there better then progress), essentially go all out and spare no expense. Get some seat time and you might be pretty competitive.

Exactly! There is no way you will get a B13 to handle worth a sheet with off the shelf parts in a highly competitive arena like wheel to wheel road racing.

However, unless you are dead set on turbo, the NX/SE-R are very competitive in the SCCA ITA class. I'm sure there is a NASA or Redline Time Attack class that is equivalent. But you would still need to shell out BIG money for custom made coilovers as well as the rest of the suspension components that are legal to change. Which you could do that with the money you'd be saving by not having to bulletproof everything under the hood for a turbo build. But as always, seat time is the cheapest way to make your car faster.

It all depends on how much you are willing to spend/sacrifice to be the best.

If you didn't want to be competitive, but still wanted to be able to hang with ZO6s on the track, where would you start? Let me clarify, let's say you have a daily and wanted to go to the occasional open track day. What could you do to really bring the sentra platform to life? B14-B15 rear beam work?

The B13 just needs some chassis stiffening, the rear suspension is more adept to road racing off the bat. But let's look closer at the B14 SER, and B15 chassis for a min.

tires tires tires! you should take a look at what mike kojima did with the dog II, not sure if theres a write up on suspension or what not.. but im sure whatever he did is pretty close to as good as it gets lol

I really wonder how my car would do with just basic suspension mods. Too much power, but really good response. Could just lower the boost and make ~400whp all day long. Slicks should hold the power well.

Most would say sell the sentra and go with a 240sx from the start. But I would like to see a sentra compete on the track on open days. Not necessarily to be nationally competitive, but hold its own on the weekends.

But I really bring this up because a local guy was looking into doing this and got flamed by another 240 lover. RWD>FWD, I get it. I just wanted to see if there was any hope to fit into any class and do decent.

We all can't afford EVOs.

i'd love to see a sentra lay the smack down on a 240 lol

First and foremost. SEAT TIME. How many track days have you done? Hanging with Z06's is no small feat when the drivers are of equal skill, especially a current gen Z.

As for suspension mods...look at the Dog II and III cars. The most sorted B14 and B15 chassis builds PERIOD.

So you want an ill-handling, street-legal economy car to turn Z06 lap times with any measure of affordability, reliability, and safety? Easy! Start a fire, then upturn a garbage sack full of money onto it.

You're going to be using third gear. A lot. Which breaks with boost on our cars. A lot. Maybe the B15/P11 box lasts longer. Bring spares.

No one has mentioned brakes, but neither AD18's or AD22's are up to the task of repeated brake runs on a 300 hp car on many road courses. Maybe with a nuclear-strength AD22 pad that operates in a heat range that melts kryptonite. I wouldn't. A lot of turbo fundage will need to go towards Wilwoods or similar.

Don't forget safety for when your car goes onto its lid while doing maximum attack at an untimed track day. You need something in there. I personally might get a cage-building road racing friend to get a B13 caged in the range of two grand, which is a steal with material and labor costs. There goes more budget, because a safer car > more powerful car.

Let's not touch on consumables. Those alone will eat you alive. B13/14/15 have a terrible McStrut camber curve and a front weight bias that is hard on front tires. You'll need R-comps to hang with fast stuff, and those will empty your wallet faster than blow.

Honestly, you could use up your entire horsepower budget on chassis and safety modifications. Horsepower is the EASY part. I would start out slow, get driving experience, and then decide where money needs to be spent.