Thread: Custom VE to DE (RR) TB Adapter Plate

I've only been with the "The Dash" community for a short time but I've learned a great deal from this forum and so I feel like I should give back one of my experiences. Maybe I can help a future B15 to VE swapper.

When my RR SR20DE blew, a few months ago, I came across the opportunity to swap an SR20VE engine into my B15. Unfortunately at the time I knew almost nothing about this engine other then I knew I had always wanted one. So after the swap was done I quickly realized the setup was not running properly, for many many reasons. One of these reasons was that I did not have the VE AAC/FICD (IACV) wired up as I did not have the clips for the solenoids or the pigtails at the time. So my car idled like crap. I then decided I wanted to install my DE throttle body onto the VE intake plenum so I could hook up my B15 IACV and hopefully solve my idle problems. I quickly realized this wouldn't work as the bolt holes do not line up. I decided I needed a custom piece made. I searched and found an option on one of the Nissan forums of a guy who had installed an N1 TB on his SR20VE intake plenum with the help of, I believe, a two piece Apex-i adapter plate.

This is the N1 piece:



So I took this idea to a car performance place that I had just discovered by my house. "Performance Motor Sports Services". These guys specialize in custom car work and Subaru Rally racing but do work on all makes and models. I gave him my DE TB and a gasket from my VE intake and some of the necessary bolts and showed him the pictures I had seen. I asked him if he could make me something similar for my setup. After a few days he called me back and told me he had a better idea for a "really trick" one-piece unit that would eliminate a gasket and guarantee a better seal. I couldn't imagine how he was going to do it as I didn't think with the bolt hole alignments that it was possible but I said "Okay, You have my interest peaked". A couple of days later his machinist had finished a one-off prototype. It was a definitely a custom thing of beauty! I drove over and he mocked it up on my car and voila, it fit great! He provided the necessary bolts/studs and lock-nuts. I hooked up my IACV and after a couple of adjustments, the idle was much improved.

The next thing I did was clear the ECU to eliminate the P0505 IACV code and took the car for a boot. First impression, it drove much smoother and I definitely noticed a SOTP improvement in throttle response and a nice smooth sound. No whistle! I guess the throttle response improvement was a case of a smoother idle but most definitely because of the increased volume of air behind the throttle body as well!

In the future I may switch over to a bored out VE throttle body and splice into my harness to run the AAC/FICD but for now I am very happy with my shiny aluminum custom piece. It provides an option for guys who want to temporarily or permanently run their RR DE throttle body on their SR16VE or SR20VE. If you don't have the necessary harness plugs to run the VE setup or if you don't want to cut into your DE harness, this is a nice option!

Here are the pictures of my shiny billet aluminum adapter plate.







Thanks Justin for all of your help and thank-you to the "Dash" for giving me a platform...

For whatever reason I could not re-size these pictures despite many attempts!

More of the N1 unit:



More of the custom piece that Performance Motorsports Services designed for me:

cool

Wow that roller rocker throttle sucks huh???? slap the car on the dyno see if the part made any gains. You'll have a winning product on your hands

Very nice product. I did a ve swap into a p11 and dealt with the same idle issue. The p11 uses two circuits for the iacv circuit. I tried to use the main valve circuit and wire it to the ve iacv and it would have an irratic idle. I got a better idle just leaving all IACV and fast idle valve unplugged. Using the just the idle adjustment screw on the IACV to set idle. I ended up setting it at 1000 rpm idle w/o a/c on, and it would drop to about 800 with a/c on. Remained pretty steady. The ve's coolant flow activated valve in the throttle body helps out a lot. I set the idle fully warmed up. When cold when the thermostat was closed, cold ile would be about 1250-1300 and when the t-stat opened, drop to 1000. I mean it was the best I could do working with the factory ecu. Until he converts his ecu to obd1 or early obd2 there is not much else he could do. Not to mention he was running his stock RR exhaust manifold, exhaust and intake. Definitely felt stronger than the RR did but man, definitely does not take advantage of the VE at all. Especially the 6700 rpm redline, lol. Oh well he was happy with it and wanted to enjoy modding it a little at a time to feel the difference.

That definitely makes the swap a little smoother although the rr throttle body is puny.

Its cool that you found someone to make an adapter. I think mirrortints had someone make him an adapter too but I am not sure if it worked. At this point more people figured out how to wire the a/c iac. Now that I think about it, the only reason for this adapter is if you are keeping the b15/p11 ecu. Since the ecu is not tunable so your options are limited to safc, emanage, etc. If you switch to a different ecu you don't need the adapter since you wont need to use the rr tb. Either way this is a good find. Btw was it expensive?

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^^ Agreed. Seems like a waste since the 32 bit ECU's are useless anyway. Running a VE on a DE tune is also a waste.

Wiring VE IACV/FCID is easy enough too, here is my work in progress how to.

Wow, nice piece! i thought I was the only one to come up with that idea. Oh well, that was 2007 or 2008.

The idea is perfect, as you keep all of your emissions, no codes and only wire a safc or similar. Great for a weekend swap and drive...codeless.

But, in the end, a tunable ecu works better.

Make that 2006/2007


It worked fine, although mine had a slight leak. I contacted GregV about mass-producing them back then, but there was no interest.

^ Thanks. I like it and it made my daily driver a lot less of a PITA to drive.



^ Ya It's a beefy unit but a pain. Too bad Nissan didn't make all the SR bolt patterns the same for the TB's, then we could mix and match as desired. I would love to do a "with and without" dyno on this piece but I don't see how I could. If I remove the adapter plate I wouldn't be able to run the roller rocker TB and I would have to switch back to the VE TB, but that would defeat the test as it would be with a different TB not to mention the adapter wouldn't hook up to the VE TB. It's a no win! If I figure out a way I'll def. do it.



^ Originally when I had the VE TB on I was only using the fast idle adjustment screw. I had to keep the idle at 900-1000 RPM or the car almost wanted to die and the ECU would search like crazy for the proper idle. The engine would settle and then the ECU would kick in a start trying to adjust it again. This was a PITA as my car is a daily driver right now. My cold idle was messed up to it would start at 1200-1300 RPM and it would go up momentarily to almost 1700-1800 RPM. But I didn't mess with the cold idle adjust much so that's probably why.

He was using his stock RR Ex. mani and ex. piping and intake?!

Im using an AEM intake spec'd for a RR DE, a 2.75" cat-back and a 'Hot Shot' ex. mani made for a B14 SR20DE. It works for now but I really feel like the header is choking the engine. I am going to port match it as best I can very soon! It should help a bit until I put on a custom exhaust from engine to muffler.

Ya mine feels stronger than my DE as well but with the setup I have running I'm sure I'm only getting about 75% of the power I should be getting. That will all change shortly!

As well, the RR Throttle body is actually the same size, 60mm, as the VE but only on the air entry side. For some dumb reason Nissan decided to taper the RR throttle body and narrow it as it gets closer to the plenum. Because of this it steps down to 50 something millimeters. I didn't measure it.



^ Well, just out of curiosity, why couldn't I keep this TB even with a tunable B14 ECU. If I get a step-down harness made for a B15-->B14 then I should still be able to use it, no?? The B14's all ran IACV's but with a different pin-out location. If the harness adapter hooks up all of the B15 wires to the B14 ECU then I would think I would be good to go. This way I could avoid splicing into my harness one more time. Is the B14 DE IACV different? Shouldn't it work fine with a harness adapter?

With all of this being said I may just wire up the VE idle stuff anyway...

Price wise it wasn't too bad. I asked the guy who made it for me what he could make these for and he said he would sell these for about $250. But this includes the adapter, anodized with your choice of colour and all of the necessary hardware. There is a lot of cuts for this piece so more CNC time then a regular square. I got a discount of course!



^ I agree it is a waste and does not run properly, but it works until u can get what you need. It wasn't a complete waste though as I really needed something to fix my idle and it was my only option at that time. This was back in may when I got this piece made. So a few months of worry free driving and a solid idle with one less code is good when it's a daily! I didn't have the info back then that I do now. Even still if you have a P11/B15 and you, for whatever reason, wanted to keep your original stuff because of emissions or some other reason, this is a good alternative. But ya a RR ECU running a VE is NO FUN!

I have read your write up a few times and plan on using it as my reference. Is it still working fine? And thanks for the write-up.



- Great minds think alike! And ya it really is a nice piece. The guy who made it for me did a really good job. The cuts look better than OEM and the unit seals to perfection. Thanks again Justin for all of your help. A mechanic that actually gives a shit about other people's rides!

- It's def. good for what it is designed for. I'm sure there are people out there who are not die-hard tuners who would be happy with a couple of adapter type things and an SAFC or E-Manage Ultimate running their VE. So for these people the idea is good.

- Definitely agree. A tunable ECU is the way to go if you want to maximize your investment!



^ Did you just use bolts on the bottom and gasket sealer up top where the holes didn't match or did you use studs up top?