Not an Almera but....

[jonnyrad]

Well here's what my Sunny SR has had done to it from the day i bought it which was sometime in October up untill the current day!

So, in Ocotber i bought the car from Northhampton (3 n a bit hours away from my house) Bought it for £890 of the finest, bargain i thought

I thought, "yeh 1.6 it'll b nippy its already modified i dont need to do anything to it" Nippy? was wrong, i dont know if anyone else has one but i dont think they are upto much, didnt feel any faster than my 1.4 almera! but anyway i wasnt bothered that much up untill the point my mates Almera GTi got smashed in outside his house by some d*ck heads and up came the question, "jonny u want my 2 litre for the sunny?" *Cogs start turning"...

So we went ahead and start doing the conversion and as some of you may know after a month of playing and fiddling with the wiring, we just couldnt get it to start, 1 MONTH OF TRYING and not one single fire up

Eventually came the time we give up and took it back out and im back on a 1.6! (Just thought id mention said 2 litre is currently being broken for parts pm me for info) Then someone i know bought a Sunny GTi, i took it for a spin and thought, i need this engine...

So, i went out and purchased a Sunny GTi for £300 of the finest, with a suspected start motor seize. yeh it wasnt the cleanest GTi in the world but who cares about the body

I went to Newcastle to pick it up with £300 pound in my pocket expecting the car not to start and being a right gay to get it going etc... Using the power of the Rover 400! we dragged it off the drive with 2 wheels seized as it had been stood since last february! Popped the bonnet, everything looked in order, the lads description of the problem was "when you turn the key something clicks and nothing happens" i stood...looked at my mate, stuck the jump leads on, turned the key AND it started straight away!

The lad i bought it off was alright actually, for £300 i came away with a Sunny GTi which had some 17"s which i sold for £150 a cat back s/s exhaust, a full set of standard wheels, a parcel shelf with 6X9's in it and of course the GTi engine...

I drove it allllll the way home to Hartlepool with NO Tax, NO MOT, however i did have insurance i tell ya it was a scary drive home :O

Once i got it in the yard it was then my job to start stripping it down into parts

 

[jonnyrad]

So..

The seats came out

Then were fitted into my car:

1 GTi seats vs 1 SR Seat

New seats -doorcards

I then proceeded to pilfer the colour coded mirrors as mine were black

Mucky

Clean

Halfy Half

Done

Next i took the GTi grille off and repaired it, it had a 30cm scratch along the top where the bonnet rubber was catching it and scratching it:

Repaired:

Next came the gruelling task off taking the engine out!

First on the agenda was a source of heat

 

[jonnyrad]

Once the heat was sorted we started taking it apart

Now we got that engine out we had to drop it onto the bonnet off the GTi as the pallet thing we usually use already has an SR20 on it!

Next Task was taking the 1.6 out of my car:

I had to split this apart and then i sold it to Cov Racer for £100, now if people are good at maths they will work out selling that nearly made me my money back

Now the SR20 could be bolted into my sunny

Now, to our horror, all the plugs on the fuse boxes were different which meant...out comes all the wiring that goes from the battery side, connects to fogs, headlights indicators, rad fan, p/side headlights, indicators, 2 fuse boxes, down into the inner arch throught the gromit into the car, dials, heaters, mirrors, d/lights, fuse box in car, audio wiring the lot!

My car drained of wiring

 

[jonnyrad]

Once this was all done, it was time to piece it all together and get it running. From taking the first engine out to getting my car running took 2 solid days

Then we had to put the GTi shell back together ready to be scrapped :

"Someone pass me the t-cut for this bonnet"

We then turned the GTi shell into a rolling skip:

I phoned the local car removal people and then:

Once that was gone, Job done!

Or so we thought, i was now having problem with a missfire and the fact that i had a 1.6 exhaust on which was restricting it quite a bit I quickly sorted the missfire with a new set of plugs and leads, seem that the bit where the plugs are, each once of them was full of water so either the plugs were knackered or the leads were, simple solution, i went n bought both

On wednesday i got my s/s exhaust put on, we cudnt do it cos it had to be heated up and then joined again, i was also told that the 1.6 system was slowly blowing itself apart cos i had 2.0 system from manifold to and including the cat then 1.6 pipework and backbox

Now all that is left to do in my eyes is visual modification and then i can start on the tuning parts

Some additions i have done yesterday and today:

You may also notice my back wiper has gone, i was in the middle of fixing it cos it had seized but i kinda like it without it...what do use think?

Mods that are coming soon:

17"s to be powdercoated and recon'd at Romax on Monday in white

Rust to be sorted out v.soon

Watch this space

Im tired, im going for a cuppa :O

 

[James]

Wow! You've put quite a lot of effort into that! Nice one!

Always liked those N14s, regardless of the engine in them, but I bet it's pretty rapid with the SR20 in there

 

[jonnyrad]

Goes alright for a 2 litre

 

[Corbalicious]

Awesome, I'm glad you finally got it working Jonny. While it was in bits did you fix the electric window?

 

[jonnyrad]

Awesome, I'm glad you finally got it working Jonny. While it was in bits did you fix the electric window?

Its on the list :O just needs a bit o grease on it stop it getting stuck

 

[Deleted member 939]

Looking good man I still reckon the 1.6 just needed a service after racing you in the NX! I havent got much chance of beating th SR20 powered crisp packet that is the N14 though have i

What're your tuning plans for the SR20??

(btw: i am still going to try to catch up, with the GA16 :rasp: )

 

[jonnyrad]

Looking good man I still reckon the 1.6 just needed a service after racing you in the NX! I havent got much chance of beating th SR20 powered crisp packet that is the N14 though have i

What're your tuning plans for the SR20??

(btw: i am still going to try to catch up, with the GA16 :rasp: )

Hmmmmmmmm i dunno what i could do, flywheel and clutch is definitely on the cards, a bmc filter too, i think i'll get a power boost valve too...we'll see what happens once they are on, manifold maybe!? i just dont know

Kelvin, ill see you at work my friend

 

[lucino vzr 1]

Great write up,great job,fair play car looks excellent!

 

[BigGreen]

very nice work there that man! i like it a lot.

 

[consett_GTi]

that looks like you put alot of work into mate. very impressed indeed.

just wondering why thr sr20 out of the almera never worked mate

 

[Jme_GTi]

Looks quality mate..

 

[BLACKPOOLMERA]

Enjoyed reading all that was pretty interesting.
Cars lookin good and glad the engine swap was a success Well done.

 

[Chawkie]

Beautiful. All you need is the extras the GTi's have on the arch.

Btw: any owners clubs for the N14 and where is the best place for info on them?

 

[GTi kurt]

Great description.

And well done on the conversion, were putting a Escort turbo engine in a Fiesta mk2 XR2, and have all these troubles ahead of us.

 

[Slick Rick]

Enjoyed reading that, Nice one man. Car looks great! :thumbs:

 

[LSG_STU]

Looks really good m8

 

[rhyd4]

good work john, about time you had a bit of luck.