Project Nissan Sentra SE-R

This is not what I signed up for.
At first glance, challenging our project cars to actually perform against some sort of benchmark seemed like a great idea. Giant-killing is at the root of what makes guys like us screw around with Sentras and Civics and Miatas when we could buy real cars and get girlfriends instead. Building each project car with a nemesis in mind and ending each project with a heads-up deathmatch forces us to focus the cars on some actual performance objective. And makes us look like know-nothing blowhards if we spend three years telling you how fast we're making our car only to lose the test we chose ourselves.

It's that last part that makes me nervous. It's not that I lack confidence in my creation, it's that this isn't the car I signed up to beat. Project B13 Sentra SE-R has been around for almost 10 years, so we've kinda sprung this whole nemesis idea on the poor bastard with short notice. Still, the car I've chosen for its final duel seems fair. A B15 Sentra SE-R is not quite the light, revvy, simple funbox its B13 predecessor was, but it packs some serious performance into its frumpy shell. While many lament the QR25's low redline, the 1500rpm of high-revving fun it gives up to its 1991 namesake is countered with massive torque, a wide powerband, a six-speed box, and a helical limited-slip diff that's far more effective than the box-of-snot viscous thing in our old Sentra.

But a funny thing happened between our decision to pit SE-R against SE-R and the act of actually picking up the phone to try and borrow one. Nissan quit making them.

If I were trying to put together an SE-R deathmatch under these difficult circumstances, I would scour the SE-R-geek world for a proud B15 owner eager to pit his car against ours. But I didn't organize this thing, funnyman Ed Loh did. And Loh has a twisted sense of humor. When I finally stagger onto the remote, dusty tangle of turns that is Buttonwillow Raceway, I see not one, but two bright, shiny, eerily familiar B15s. Familiar because I tested them several years ago. Eerie because I remember at least one of them being really fast.

Our format is simple. It will be really hot, and we will beat the crap out of all three cars. Buttonwillow's fast West Loop will be the ultimate measure of our SE-R's worth, but we'll go ahead and measure quarter-mile times, braking distances, and lateral grip on the carpet-bombed off-road course Buttonwillow calls a skidpad. Just so you can have more numbers to look at if all these words get too boring.

The other cars are both equipped with Nismo goodies. The yellow one is just a trinket holder, carrying all the S-Tune stuff Nissan's legal eagles are comfortable with. Tame exhaust, soft lowering springs, a bad shifter. Boooring. The R-Tune, though, is the kind of car we would build. It carries approximately the same level of mods as our project car: intake, exhaust, header, cams... it even has one less catalyst than it should. The springs, dampers, anti-roll bars and numerous braces aren't quite as fancy as our coilovers, but they were developed by real Nissan engineers on a real test track, so they probably don't need to be. In reality, we aren't testing Project SE-R against a new Spec-V, we're testing it against Nissan's own Project Spec-V.

Is it hot out here, or is it just me?

What began as performance anxiety quickly settles into dejected resignation as I take the B13 out to scout the track. Honestly, it's been years since I've had the SE-R on a track and somehow my memories aren't matching this reality. When this was my daily driver, the steering response and handling balance were so natural and intuitive that the car felt alive in my hands. Now that I'm driving Mazda3s and Miatas and RX-8s all the time, the SE-R's steering feels more like a suggestion box; slow and numb, with virtually no feedback.

A few laps in, I start remembering how the steering feel works in this car. You turn the wheel and feedback comes in through the seat of your pants. This hands-to-ass-to-brain communication is a bit like a game of telephone, but before long I have the SE-R dancing again and I remember why I liked this car so much.

And though it only puts about 160hp to the wheels, the SR20 delivers that power with a seductive swell of sound and fury. Well, anger at least. The throttle response is unlike anything a modern e-throttle car can deliver. There's just enough torque to make you happy and it swells and builds with revs, daring you to keep your foot down deep into the red part of the tach. If this soundtrack doesn't stir your soul, you should get a Camry.

Then I look at the temperature gauge and realize why I haven't been to the track for a while. High revs and SR20 water pumps don't get along. Add in 100-degree weather, a stock radiator with an A/C condenser in front of it and 130,000 miles of junk jammed in the fins and you have a car that overheats after four reconnaissance laps. Oops.

Now familiar with the track, I decide to test skidpad grip while the car cools. Before revealing any numbers, let me warn you against comparing these skidpad numbers to any we've published before. Buttonwillow's skidpad is rough, bumpy, and dirty, and these numbers should be several hundredths lower than anything from our normal California Speedway pad.

That said, Project SE-R's 0.96g is damn impressive. Around the bumpy pad there's no balance, no hint of the oversteer or even comforting neutrality I tried to tune into the car, just loads of grip from the Nitto NT-01s with a bit of understeer at the end. By comparison, the B15s feel completely limp. The newer car's rear beam axle has quite a bit of understeer-inducing toe-in and no way to dial it out. Our B13's struts, on the other hand, we adjusted to zero toe, helping the rear to play along a bit. The 0.86g of the S-Tune car can be credited almost entirely to the sticky BF Goodrich G-Force KDs, while the R-Tune's 0.90 makes much better use of the exact same tires thanks to its enormous rear anti-roll bar and lower-arm brace that stiffens the lower control arm mounts.

On the straight-line tests, things aren't quite as favorable for the little black box. The 2.5-liter QR25DE has so much torque that both B15s can literally be launched from idle and still have a hard time maintaining traction. The peakier B13 takes about 4500rpm to make a decent launch and even then its tired old clutch doesn't exactly strain your neck.

Then somewhere around the top of third gear I hear an unfamiliar crackling noise. Is that detonation? I've had this car since 1997 and never heard a single ping-now it decides to start? A splash of overpriced 100-octane still won't make it go away, so I give up with an unimpressive 15.1 seconds at 92mph. Strangely, that's nearly a dead match for the R-Tune that beat me to 60mph by 0.8 seconds. Blame the R-Tune's busy six-speed for giving up that early advantage.

Score one for the B13 in grip, one for the B15 in a straight line. On the road course-the only measure that really matters-it's anybody's game. Taking Project SE-R out first, the familiarization laps are a real asset. Finally remembering how to drive my own car, it actually feels pretty good. The grip through the 90mph Riverside sweeper is enough to lift my inside cheek clean off the seat, and the car has that neutral, throttle-adjustable demeanor that marks a dialed front-driver.