We speak to Nizpro's Simon Gishus about Nissan and [Chevrolet/Holden] Gen III engines - their problems, their power and how to modify 'em...
Simon, what is your background in the automotive industry?
"Well, from Day One I was absolutely interested in cars. The Old Man raced ski boats and stuff so, from about twelve, I was in the shed 'till 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning bolting small block Chevs together - or, at least, watching for the first while. Then we progressed into outboards, so by about 16 I had also done racing outboard boats. That was probably my apprenticeship - starting off real young and super keen.
"From there I went to my first car - which was a Datsun 180B SSS with a Z18 in it. Like all young blokes who want to build a faster carpet cleaner, I started doing it up and - about three quarters way though - I relocated. I ended up living next door to a bloke called Steve Curtis, who was an electronics type of guy. There were no aftermarket electronic management systems whatsoever at that stage - there was the factory stuff but you'd buy an engine from Japan and she'd come with the computer box and loom cut in half.
"Steve decided on going down the path of building an electronic management system for me, to run the 180B. That was going to be a huge job, though, so we ended up setting it up on a '78-type model 2-door Skyline that I bought with one of those L20 six-cylinder turbos in it.
"It progressed from there to the first customer-type job - and that thing went like a rocket. We did a couple of 180Bs with Z18s in them and a Bluebird with an FJ20. As a fill-in, I also waited tables in restaurants for a while.
"I set the business up in about '91 and it got bigger - the focus changed to make the business work. Like so many other people out there in this field, one thing led to another and here we are. The business grew busier and larger. The 200SX came out in about '94, I bought one of those and the rest is history."
Did you start off doing much work with carburettors?
"I've never looked at carburettors - that could be a good thing or a bad thing - but, nah, I've never had anything to do with them. You've gotta almost point at the engine to show me where it is..."
What progression of different engines have you worked through since setting up the business?
"Well, we did the Z18s and FJ20s in the early days and then we went to the RB30 - the VL turbo Commodore was starting to get into the second-hand market in about 1991. Of course, the VL Commodores had the Nissan engine - which I specialised in - and when the young blokes started getting hold of them, that's when our big push really came. In one year we did fifty-eight RB engine builds - that was the biggest year we've had on those... We also made a new inlet manifold, we engine dyno'd extractors, turbos, MoTeC and that.
"The Bluebird with the FJ20 was actually the first MoTeC we put in - that ran 12.1 at 116-117 mph back in 1990 or whatever it was. It was a pretty fast piece of gear back then.
"Still, the emphasis has always been on a drivable car - not just full noise.
"With the VL turbos in the early days, I think we got down to 11.1 at 119 mph with a 5-speed manual - that was the first one into the 11s. It held its record for probably 5 or 6 years; now they're doing 9.30s at 145 or 148 mph."
And what sort of cars came after the VLs?
"200SXs and GT-Rs. We built the first series 200SX - the 200SX-R - and then the next series obviously - which you guys have covered ["Best of the Best"]. My one at the moment, in road race trim, is running 11.1s at 128. It was also clocked at 288 kays down the front straight at Philip Island - that's, I think, 7 or 8 quicker than a V8 Supercar...
"Look, my interest has gone more into circuit racing than drag racing; I'm not a real big fan of drag racing in a lot of instances. You've got your hands tied behind your back when you go street/drag racing - you've got a road car that wants to be a drag car. The two don't meet. Just because you've got a number plate on the back, it doesn't mean a car is a road car."
What sort of things detract from a road car?
"A 800hp VL Commodore is no longer a road car. I don't care if it's got number plates and seats in it - anyone who reckons otherwise is kidding themself. By this stage they're running trans brakes, big converters and mini-spool diffs - so, even if the engine is as sweet as sweet, the rest of the car's a dog."
What sort of times make a road car impractical?
"Probably anything under low 12s or mid 11s - realistically - is getting marginal. A GT-R is probably the best example of being able to do both because you don't need big tyres or all that. It's got huge grip. We've never really pushed a GT-R hard - we've done 11.2s at 128 and they're still everyday roadies. No doubt you could break a 10 with them if you persisted a little bit, but - again - how far do you push it before it becomes a shitbox?
"People don't realise that when they see VLs at the track running 9s - if nothing else, when you put it them back on the road, you've got to go back from C16 fuel to premium unleaded. They're no longer making 800 horsepower - they're now making 550-560 horsepower. They're back to 10.5 second cars..."
What cars have you been recently focussing on?
"Gen IIIs [Chevrolet/Holdens]."
Why such a dramatic change from the turbo Nissan engines?
"I think the [Chevrolet/Holden] Gen III market is going to be big - they'll be the VL Commodore of the 2000s. I mean, there are already guys out there running 11s in them with nitrous.
"Our Stage 2 kits - although I've never raced one - I imagine would be a 12.2-12.3-second car. And that's emissions compliant, drive it down the street. With a little bit more work in the future - like putting on gas - we'll be seeing 10-second [Chevrolet/Holden] Gen IIIs you can drive around in.
"Nissan's got nothing in Australia at the moment. They used to have some really good cars in the late '80s and through to the mid-90s. They were also pretty strong - put a big clutch in it, put a big engine in it and away you go.
"Realistically, though, what are we going to hot up now - Pulsars and Patrols?"
But what about the Japanese [grey] import market?
"Look it's there, but there's not a huge quantity.
"Also, the majority of tune-up shops throughout Australia are very good at bolting on an exhaust, slightly bigger intercoolers, fudging the management system a little and going from, say, a 150kW Subaru to 210-220kW (about 120kW at the wheels up to about 160). Everybody on the planet can do it - there's no technology involved, you just bolt the stuff on.
"It's a very intense, competitive market - my alternative has always been to make the biggest, brightest toy you could possibly poke a stick at."
"Of course, that puts us in a horsepower league that's fairly big - instead of making a 160kW ATW Subaru, we'd be making 300kW. The problem is - with those - the gearbox falls out, the diffs fall out and everything else falls off them.
"You have to be honest with a customer and say, "Look, we can do the engine - it'll be $25,000." Plenty of them have 25 grand but, then, when you tell them they'll also need a 30 grand gearbox, 20 grand worth of diffs - all of a sudden it's a 80 grand car build. The customer's now evaporated.
"We'd rather deal with less customers at a higher level, [rather] than just the mundane."
Of all the engines you've had experience with, which is your favourite?
"The RB26 is a pretty sweet engine. It's a straight six cylinder, which - probably - isn't a good thing, but you can wind a GT-R engine to 7500 rpm. You jump in a [Chevrolet/Holden] Gen III or something else and at 3 grand you think, "Holy shit there's lot of stuff swinging around here!" The GT-R engine just gets sweeter and sweeter, the harder you turn it.
"All the RB-series are a pretty good bit of gear, but the VH45 32-valve V8 - that's probably the best engine Nissan make.
"And I like high-tech, buzz-'em-hard, lots-of-boost type engines - no doubt about it. That's probably where I'm happiest, but - at the same time - the [Chevrolet/Holden] Gen III can still be run to 6500, so it's not too bad for a production dunger. It does reasonably good mileage and makes reasonable power and it's a reasonable weight.
"I'm broadminded enough to look at weight, horsepower, economy and value for money - when you add them all up, the [Chevrolet/Holden] Gen III is not a bad thing.
"The LS1 will never be Japanese but it looks like a lot of work has been done. They've started to get it on the right track. The machine quality is now fairly good, but in a lot of ways I still don't understand why its pushrod'd. That's probably politically and cost motivated rather than a lack of technology thing; they've had DOHC engines in the past, but I think trying to convert the American public might be a hard thing."
What are some of the worst engines you've encountered?
"Probably the worst engines Nissan make are the CA18 and VG30. The VGs are a bit like a good Chev from the early days - if you have a really good one, it's got no Chev bits left in it! Look, I've got a VG upstairs - an ex-US1100hp qualifying engine, which originally cost US$114,000. I don't think there's one single thing on it that's Nissan.
"The CA18 is just your everyday shopping engine - it's a shitbox with little rods. A horrible thing."
What's your opinion of the Nissan SR20 turbo?
"Initially, the SR20 was a bit of a handful.
"The information I've got coming back from Japan still says nobody over there has been able to make them go hard and keep them together. When it comes to the SR, we're a big fish in a small pond here in downtown Melbourne but, basically, we're up there in an Australian context - though there might be guys out there we don't even know of knocking on our door or beating us.
"But, yeah, none of the really powerful Japanese ones seem to keep together."
What's their problem?
"They have huge valvetrain trouble. It's a combination of valve spring and camshaft profile - they're fundamental to the problem.
"The SR uses a finger-operated valve instead of a bucket, and they tend to break rockers if all of that part of the equation isn't up to speed. Anyone that pushes an SR20 over about 7500-8000 rpm starts having valvetrain failure.
"It is basically a valve floating problem, where they start having difficulty holding the rocker against the camshaft. Because there's no mechanical locking device, once the rocker leaves control of the camshaft - or the valve floats - the rocker is basically in mid-air floating around. When it's half jumped off, the camshaft comes around and whacks it.
"Lots of people also have problems with traction control, rev limiters and all that sort of stuff when they switch from factory management to aftermarket. You can end up with backfiring in exhaust ports and all that kind of stuff; that shock wave travels in both directions, up toward the valve and back out the exhaust pipe. The shock wave can often blow the exhaust valve open and, once it's open, the spring is compressed and the rocker is now floating in mid air waiting to get karate chopped.
"They're the problems they have upstairs.
"Anything over 400hp, they probably have some problems with conrods and after that you can have head gasket sealing problems because the top of the block is not all that rigid. That needs to be addressed."
And what about the trend of discarding the variable inlet cam timing system found on local 200SXs?
"Anyone who's done plenty of work with it will absolutely understand that the variable valve timing gives you heaps more bottom-end.
"As I said, we've always concentrated on a broad speed range and driveability - that makes a world of difference in general driving because you're not on boost everywhere you go. It also allows you to fit a bigger turbocharger, because the engine is fundamentally breathing better - that means it's got more gas flow, which means it can spin a bigger turbocharger at the same speed as a little turbocharger.
"Absolutely, the variable cam timed SR20DET is 100 percent correct - they shit all over the non variable cam timed engine. If it loses a tad in the top-end, well, throw another pound of boost into it."
What are the best aspects of the SR20?
"Nothing really is outstanding, it's just a bloody good package all together.
"Because we've specialised in a few engines over the years - not over a hugely broad range - it's a bit hard to say. I don't want to squawk off that it's better than something else.
"They're a virtually square engine so they rev fairly well, they've got reasonable torque - the Subaru, on the other hand, has a very big bore and small stroke so its not good in the bottom-end. That's why they put smaller and smaller turbochargers on them all the time.
"Obviously, the local SR20DET has also got variable valve timing, which is always a good thing."
What progression of mods would you suggest for an atmo SR20 in, say, a late '90s Pulsar?
"First the exhaust and intake system - but be careful.
"Don't go sticking a ram-pod on if you've got the standard management system. They flow great on the flow bench and the probably flow great on the engine, but the thing is they disturb the air going through the airflow meter. That means the factory mapping goes out the window.
"We spend our days endlessly pulling ram-pods off engines. It's very evident on a 300ZX twin-turbo where there's the airbox behind the bumper bar. Some of these cars, when you turn the chassis dyno fan on, the car will either stall or get a ratty idle. That's only because of the airflow of the fan - so what it's doing as the car is driving down the road at 100 km/h is anyone's guess..."
And what power will exhaust and intake mods give?
"It's a bit hard to say - a standard naturally aspirated SR20 in a S14 Pulsar or NX Coupe makes 75kW at the wheels.
"I've never really done it in stages, but we've gone ballistic with one that's made 112-114kW at the wheels with camshafts, inlet manifold, extractors, little bit of comp and MoTeC. That sort of thing probably costs around 15 grand. You know, there's $3500 worth of management system, a grand for the extractors, about $500 worth of exhaust another $800 in camshafts, vernier camshaft gears, the intake manifold is another two, plus all the incidentals."
And what progression of mods would you suggest for a locally-delivered 200SX?
"Well, they seem to vary a little bit in standard form.
"Basically, the '94 Series 1 made 110kW at the wheels with 10 psi boost. The Series 2 S14 made 93kW at around 8.5 psi boost, but it was a lot smoother to drive. The earlier one was a bit slow here, fast there and horrible here. The S15 is around 122kW.
"[But] all of the 200s are claimed by Nissan to be 147kW at the engine.
"That power range explains why the journos have sort of fallen in love with the S15 - but they tend to lay all of its performance on the six speed gearbox. They probably didn't notice much difference between the Series 1 and 2 - going from 110 to 93kW at the wheels. Going from 93 to the S15's 122, though, is pretty reasonable performance gain.
"On the S14 Series 1 and 2 the exhaust is obviously first, followed by intercooler. Even though they started off making different power, both the Series 1 and 2 end up with around the same power with these mods. Typically speaking, they make about 140kW-odd at the back wheels. That's on about 14 pound boost - that's what we normally run with an exhaust and intercooler. It goes up about a pound and a bit with just the exhaust, and we budge it from there.
"The S15, boost straight away will probably give you 135. Exhaust will give you about 140-142, so again, the other models have caught up with the same mods. Intercooler makes almost no difference - like 3-4kW, keeping everything else the same.
"So the bottom line is, a S15 with intercooler, exhaust and boost up makes up to 150kW at the wheels. Intercooler, exhaust, management system - whether it's a Power FC plug-in or a MoTeC - is sort of 160 tops.
"There are people saying they stuck on an exhaust and intercooler and they're making 190 - I think they're got a different length ruler than everyone else. And that's another interesting talking point - it varies so much from dyno to dyno and the way people conduct their tests."
How much do these mods affect reliability?
"They're still virtually 100 percent reliable.
"We do have to speak to every customer individually so they absolutely understand that it has to run on a certain fuel. If the factory gives you 'X' amount of margin to play with in the standard system, as you encroach on that system, you're cutting out their safety margin.
"Keeping all this in mind, you can get closer and closer to the margin."
How much power are you limited to using the standard turbocharger?
"The 200SX S14s go well to about 145-150kW at the wheels and the S15 probably goes another 10 or 12 further.
"The VL Commodore turbocharger can go up to around 150-odd kilowatts at the wheels and GT-Rs about 215-220kW at the rear wheels."
Stay tuned for Part 2 of what Simon says...
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