Nissan SR20DET - What makes it GREAT? ICONIC ENGINES #9

The SR20DET engine started it's life with an engine orientation many would call uncharacteristic. The first car that had an SR20DET in its engine bay was the 1989 Nissan Bluebird 2000 SSS. Here the SR20 turbo was placed transversely. Next year, more transverse engine placements followed with the Pulsar GTI-R and the Sunny GTI-R. These were special homologation versions with AWD and ITBs on the SR20 from the factory. Truly awesome little cars, but they were produced in pretty limited numbers.

It wasn't until 1991 that the SR20 came in the engine placement and setup that we all know and love. In 1991 it appeared longitudinally mounted in the now legendary Nissan 180SX and the S13 Silvia. It stayed with the S-chassis through it's subsequent generations in the S14 Silvia and the European market 200SX, all until the sad end of the S-chassis in 2002. The year when Nissan was left without an entry level sports car, something that all enthusiasts believe Nissan needs again. Bring back the S-chassis Nissan, it was awesome.

The SR20DET appeared in other less famous, but still pretty fun Nissan cars like the Avenir, the Liberty and the R'nessa. None of which were global models unfortunately.

So what makes the SR20DET engine iconic? Is it the tech? The reliability? The power output? Well it's all of that and none of that. Nissan made a good engine with the SR20DET, but just how good it is was revealed only by the car enthusiast community.

To understand this, we have have to understand something very basic and that's that at its core drifting is abuse. Yes, it's a beautiful motor sport today, that requires immense skills, craftsmanship and talent, but from a purely mechanical perspective it's abuse. An engine in a drifting car gets exposed to a tremendous amount of abuse. It's basically bounced off the rev limiter continuously at relatively low speeds that don't allow the engine to cool off. An engine that can put up with drifting and not complain is amazing any way you look at it. The SR20DET put up with drifting and drifters for decades! And even today, a Nissan S-chassis with and SR20DET in it is still the easiest way to enter the world of drifting. This was especially true in the early days, when the 180SX and Silvia S13 had from the factory something that the AE86 didn't. Power and turbo torque. You didn't need to extensively modify an 180SX to drift with it. It was pretty much ready to go from the factory.

When it comes to the specs the SR20DET is a square design with 86 mm of bore and 86 mm stroke. It's an all aluminum design with a closed deck aluminum alloy block and DOHC cylinder heads. Stock SR20DET pistons are cast, but feature a thermal coating on the top. The cylinder head has pent roof combustion chambers with both cam gears driven by a single roller timing chain. The intake valve diameter is pretty nice at 34.15 mm. The exhaust valve diameter of the SR20DET is 30.15 mm. Earlier engines that did not have variable cam timing on the intake had high angle intake ports cast into the cylinder head. These have some pretty good flow characteristics. Later engines with VTC have a more conventional intake port design. Valves are actuated via y-shaped low friction rocker arms and feature hydraulic maintenance-free hydraulic lifters.

Simple stage 1 budget friendly tuning of the SR20DET usually consists of upgrading the downpipe, the exhaust, maybe a cold air intake and increasing the boost a bit. Most stock SR20DET run at 7 psi of boost. You can increase this to 12 psi until you reach the limits of a mostly stock setup. "Safe" power levels of the SR20DET with stock internals are at around 400 hp. This assumes a good tune and knock monitoring.

To get to 400 hp you will need to invest into more serious items like a front mount inter-cooler, upgrade the fuel pump and the injectors and likely upgrade the turbo. The Garret 2871R is a common and pretty good choice.
If you want to go well above 400 hp you will need to reinforce the SR20DET internals with some forged pistons and rods. Re-sleeving the block might also be a good idea because it enables you to increase the bore to as much as 90 mm, bringing the the SR20DET very close to 2.2 liters, or even more if you invest in a stroker kit. With these upgrades, SR20DET builds of well over 1000 horse power become a reality.

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[ACommenterOnYouTube]

Back in the 90's and early 2000's EVERYONE was swapping OUT the ka24de for the SR20DET ... I stayed with the ka24de, built it and turbo charged it. Got it to 482 whp and 455 wtq in 2001. Ran 11.1 @ 123 mph ... She impressed all but yet everyone still wanted that tiny SR20 ... I guess they didn't want to do all the hard work.
She is still in my garage running STRONG 20 yrs later on the same ka motor. Parked next to my MKIV Supra.
Funny when i take it to the car meets and pop the hood, they are like, oh you went ka turbo, i said yea, they asked how long has it been turbo, i say 20 yrs now and they look at me with that look of .... 20 yrs are you serious ...
I was like yep, got the car in 2000, pulled the engine in 2001, built it for 600 hp and she has been this way since.

[Lynkan_]

A great follow up to this would be a video about its predecesor that you mentioned the CA18DET

[RenZ_MotoringLife]

going on over 10 years (trouble free) on my lightly moded daily driven sr20det, the day will come when i will crack it open inspect it and rebuild it

[aksfactory]

Couple of notes and interesting facts:
Camshaft durations and lift vary from 232 to 248 depending on the variation. S14 Nothctop had t28 non bb garrett turbo, not t25. Pushing stock internals to 400whp is possible, but 320-370whp is a more realistic number. On stock t25 (@~12 psi) and very minor bolt-ons you can get solid 240-250whp. Also, rockers and lifters really hate being bounced off the limiter, hence why SR is kinda known for being unreliable. Some people say rocker arms stoppers are great and some say they destroy the heads so here's that.

The ultimate SR20DET upgrade is P11 NEO VVL head swap. They flow better and are pretty much bulletproof with a few bolt-ons. Yes it is a very expensive mod, but it really transforms SR20DET into an indestructible beast.

Some people prefer to keep stock high port (blacktop and redtop) mani for better low-end torque.

Alternators and water pumps are kinda known to go out.

SRs and other 90s nissan engines LOVE 15w40 diesel oils.

Stock crank can handle up to 1400hp with good balancing.

A faulty water temp sensor will make the ECU go into the limp mode and won't rev past 2500rpm.

s13.4 Notchtop/Redtop hybrid valve cover is an odd mod but if you have a S13 SR, and you have an oil catch can… you’ve probably seen your catch can fill up before the day is even over. This is due to no internal baffling in the S13 SR valve cover. S14 SR valve cover does have internal baffling, which prevents all of the oil to just end up in the catch can.

[Garage]

One of my favorite engines. Closed deck aluminum with a timing chain, solid internals stock, what's not to like? Great videos man!

[euler]

After so long i finally got an Sr20de. This video really inspired this soon to be build

[da]

Do you prefer longer Iconic Engines videos or shorter more condensed ones like this one?
Edit: Noted! We are staying with the longer format.

[justythrasher]

Pulsar gtir. Weapon from the gods. Baby Godzilla. Such an insane beast.

[isai.]

Been pumping out some great content man

[riite]

the amount of research you do is crazy and i appreciate it

[franciscolozada]

The believe you can do it part had me cracking up, those little funny short clips are really good

[NickTaylorRickPowers]

Just noticed this in my feed and was pleasantly surprised seeing the now infamous Streeter street session footage

[KangoV]

Awesome video! I've had 6 cars with this engine: P11, 2 x P11-144, S14 and 2 x S15. I know it well and it's very easiy to tune. A totally stripped out S15 running 300whp is crazy fast and bloody scary. I think we got my last one down to around 900Kg.

[nigelmccure]

Iv actually seen sr20s online with about a 1000 horsepower but they are actually very rare engine so good luck finding one of those things man

[seanb]

I had a '91 240SX in 1998 when I was 16, I remember scouring the early internet dreaming of buying and swapping an SR20 into it

[tommyboytwo]

Lol ricer Miata has been running between 23 and 30 psi on his stock SR for years and he beats the ever living hell out of it 😂 so those SR's might be indestructible

[EvLSpectre]

For the most part yea, this engine is a monster and reliable. People who complain they blow up just do not do any maintenance they require. Really the only thing wrong is they do not like bouncing off rev limiter hard because of rocker arms tendency to want to fly. But my SR20DE(T) is still kicking along, still the original bottom end DE from 91 pushing 15psi of boost.

[phantom]

I can’t imagine how sick it would’ve been if the 91 Sentra SE-R had received an SR20-DET instead of merely getting the SR20DE. It was still a great car, but with the turbo version it would’ve been awe-inspiring, especially in the early 90’s.

[flyingdutchman]

Great videos my man!
Here in the US our all-powerful insurance industry and trial-lawyer lobbies got involved, and we got the 240SX which basically had a 12-valve SOHC truck engine - felt fast off the line but petered out rapidly as revs rose. Great handling car which needed about 75-100 more bhp.
Apart from the lawyers, one reason US-market cars have lower compression ratios is due to our generally crappy fuels, ethanol blends, &c. And to think that us Yanks invented 110-octane gas. Sigh....

[denzilfryer]

Love your channel! You've made me dig into my favourite book again, Performance automotive engine math by John Baechtel. Although judging by your content, you've probably written a book just like it. It's a great resource for understanding engines properly. Keep up the awesome content!