I live here in Australia and it looks like im moving to the US late this year. I drive a real 180sx sr20det down here and truely love them so i want to know how i can aquire a similar car up there.

I relise you have some ka engine and transfer the sr in them. What does all this cost you guys to have it done as i have no idea what your 240sx's are worth let alone the cost of transfering the sr.

I figure its impossible to import my right-hand drive car?(just noticed the motorex skylines)

Do you guys insure them? at what cost for someone with no US insurance history?

And your FUEL? do you buy octane in bulk and keep in the boot or something?

just to add something back into the forum you guys should look at importing gear from Australia as s13's are quite popular down here.

Thanks for any info.

HOLY ****,

Just saw at heavy throttle that a red top sr20det (not a Half Cut) costs USD2500!!!!!!!!!! YOU MUST BE KIDDING RIGHT. Dont know what sort of tax they pay importing the engine however i know they cost no more than USD 1500 for a complete half cut (silvia front, brakes, dash etc... etc...) Lord knows how much less for what they sell. CRAZY. Either these guys are getting totally screwed or they are making huge margins. Get one shipped yourself from downunder, we speak english too ya know.

Its not that easy, theres a ****load of steps that go into getting the motors here and verifying their completeness. I've told the same thing to the guys in Britain, things work differently here.

Couldnt you import your car here for "offroad use" or just strip it and ship it to the US and pay duties then just put your 180 parts into a USDM 240SX? And yes we realize the SR is very expensive here, its all about supply and demand. Had the SR been offered in Canada the SR swap would be a different story.

I wish it were that easy to import a car as well, but its not. I am strangely enough in an IM chat with someone about just that. I wish everything were easier...

Well id think that you could strip it and put it on a crate then send it to your new address in america. BTW where in America do you plan on moving to? Each state has different laws about the illegality of the engine, in places like California you probably wouldnt even wanna bother trying to get an SR legal or in a daily driven car.

What do you mean about the octane? Im not quite sure what your getting at but over here we dont need to store gas since there is always a gas station near by. Also if you wanna help us get some Nissan stuff be my guest Id love to take that stuff off of your guys's hands.

SpeedRacer1 wrote:Well id think that you could strip it and put it on a crate then send it to your new address in america. BTW where in America do you plan on moving to? Each state has different laws about the illegality of the engine, in places like California you probably wouldnt even wanna bother trying to get an SR legal or in a daily driven car.

What do you mean about the octane? Im not quite sure what your getting at but over here we dont need to store gas since there is always a gas station near by. Also if you wanna help us get some Nissan stuff be my guest Id love to take that stuff off of your guys's hands.

I think he meant our low octane ratings. Since all Japanese engines are made to run on the higher octane gas found in Japan! At least i think that's what he meant:D

Oh well in that case he should be able to easily run on our US 92-3 Octane. In Australia their rating system is different and for a lack of a better word their gas is crap so they need non pump gas in order for their cars to run good.

http://www.nissaninfiniticlub....shtml

lol, thanks for all ya input everyone. What i meant by this

"And your FUEL? do you buy octane in bulk and keep in the boot or something?"

Is that 92-93 octane stinks, its terrible. Here in Australia we have just as many petrol/gas stations as you guys!!!lol. We also use the same standardised system, and our premium is rated 98octane, our regular unleaded is 92 octane!!!!! We are getting 100 octane very soon due to the popularity of jap imports. With standard ecu's running 92-93 octane fuel your missing out on alot of power and must be pinging like hell. Using that fuel is unthinkable here.

As for getting parts try, http://www.japanesemotorsport.com.auhtt ... jap.com.au

neergnevets wrote:lol, thanks for all ya input everyone. What i meant by this

"And your FUEL? do you buy octane in bulk and keep in the boot or something?"

Is that 92-93 octane stinks, its terrible. Here in Australia we have just as many petrol/gas stations as you guys!!!lol. We also use the same standardised system, and our premium is rated 98octane, our regular unleaded is 92 octane!!!!! We are getting 100 octane very soon due to the popularity of jap imports. With standard ecu's running 92-93 octane fuel your missing out on alot of power and must be pinging like hell. Using that fuel is unthinkable here.

As for getting parts try, http://www.japanesemotorsport.com.auhtt ... jap.com.au

if you move to florida i can get the car legal for you down here. i know which ports to bring it through..actually using 93 octane isn't that bad at all.

i am moving to colorado. are you aloud to drive a righthand drive car in the US? ideally thats what id like to do, either that or pay to have it transfered to left hand drive.

The taxes would be huge though wouldnt they?

What would a engine transfer cost to have professionally done?

Have you got any serious s13's yet over there?200rwkw+?

As if i was going to do it it definetly wouldnt be close to standard. Parts arent the issue as downunder is cheap and i visit japan twice a year.

Do you all retune your ecu's for the gas? if not what sort of dyno figures do you get? with what mods?

It is relatively possible to import your car - here's the details.

US Octane rating is R+M/2 - not all countries follow that - what does method does Australia use?

Shipping should cost you (including crate and insurance) about USD$5,000.

Customs will probably hold your vehicle until you have US EPA and DOT approval to remove it (EPA is Environmental Protection Agency and DOT is Department of Transportation). Obtaining this is complicated, and requires the assistance of a DOT certified automotive importer. To find one, search for "DOT importer" in http://www.google.com .

The tests you have to pass to drive your car on public roads are simple: emissions and crash.

In your case, since the S13 - S15 were sold in the United States, you do not have to crash test your car. You do, however, have to have a DOT-certified importers statement that your vehicle has been modified to meet DOT crash test standards (the strictest in the world, by the way) for the same year/make/model of vehicle sold in the US.

Emissions is the same - since the S13-S15 chassis were sold over here, you only have to have a DOT-certified importer state that your vehicle passes emissions for the same year/make/model of vehicle that was sold in the US.

The SR20DET will NOT pass emissions in the United States.

In all honesty, I know this because I looked at importing a '99 JDM FD3S (RX-7) into the US. I did not do so because the cost is prohibitive.

Your best bet is to crate up your car, ship it to the US in parts, purchase a USDM 240SX of same year, and have a local tuner shop assist you in installing the SR20DET into your USDM 240SX along with assorted accessories.

I cannot speak for the cost of making the car pass Colorado-specific emissions, as I live in Texas. Remember, each state has their own emissions laws, even broken down to the county level (here in Texas, various counties have different requirements).

Unless you have lots of money to spend, strip your car of parts, ship it to the US, and install them in a USDM 240. If you have a lot of spare cash, spend it on importing a more rare car - 95+ FD, Skyline, etc.

Questions welcomed at [email protected] in case you have further inquiries.

thanks very heaps for that, very informative. In Australia and Japan we use RON to measure octane ratings. No idea how its calculated as i previously had no interest in how.

All the sr20det s13s in australia are imported second hand from japan in a similar way to they are imported to the US. Must meet AUST DOT standards, safety standards, emisions etc... However it is obviously alot easier here as we have thousands of imports coming in every week.

As the cars are subject to heavy tax if they are to be registered my best bet is to sell my ride and buy parts from japan and australia to build one in the US like you suggested.

My only knowledge of the US tuning cars is Fast and the Furious and the fact they ohhh and ahhhh over a banged up 2JZ makes me wonder how many tuning shops could install and tune a SR20DET profesionally. I would do it myself but it looks like i wont even have a garage. Whats it really like? do they have tuners in Colorado?

Thanks for the imput again everyone this is great. By the way whats a FD and is nitrous actually popular? lol

An FD is a 93+ 3rd generation RX-7. I just totalled mine but saved from injury by my guardian angel, Steve McQueen :icesangel

Nitrous is relatively popular (not like in the movie though - remember Hollywood is Hollywood, and everything is to the extreme there) - it's inexpensive performance in a bottle.

I know that RON ratings are numerically higher than R+M/2 for the same quality, but I do not know how far. I can tell you, as a former ExxonMobil employee (yes, I'm ashamed I worked there, but it paid the bills, ya know?), that the US gets the highest level of refinement in the nation.

Good luck, and welcome to the States - where it's your way, right away, if the conservatives don't get you first.

PUNK RAWKS! :ylsuper :ylsuper

Just to clear something up, we never recieved the S15. Also The fast and the furious was purely hollywood so dont think that this kind of thing happens on a regular basis anywhere in the US. There are tuner shops all over the US that can tune SR20DET's, Signal Auto comes to mind along with places like SP engineering though both are in California. Im not to sure about Colorado's tuning shops but remember that most of CO is a mile above sea level so you wont get the best performance up there.

"that the US gets the highest level of refinement in the nation" lol, there are places outside the US! Anyway assuming you meant world, it is a fact that Australias fuel is better quality than the US, sorry but its true. Octane is measured in RON throughout EUROPE, ASIA and AUSTRALASIA and the centre of the universe AMERICA. :pface

LOL,

neergnevets wrote:"that the US gets the highest level of refinement in the nation" lol, there are places outside the US! Anyway assuming you meant world, it is a fact that Australias fuel is better quality than the US, sorry but its true. Octane is measured in RON throughout EUROPE, ASIA and AUSTRALASIA and the centre of the universe AMERICA. :pface

LOL,

That was a mistype - I meant "highest levels of refinement in the world"

If your fuel is better quality, why does your fuel contain several hundred times more ppm of sulfer than ours, among other things?

If Aussie fuel is so good then how do you explain this?

http://www.nissaninfiniticlub....shtml

ChallyMember posted July 22, 2002 05:18 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hows this then, a Radio announcer here bought up the same questions. eg. How good is our fuel in Australia etc???AGM, read this!

He interviewed the Boss of VW Australia & our fuel is SO bad that their latest engines CAN'T run on our fuel. Any VW brought to Australia has to have a Major Computer re-programming that it ain't very economical to do.Apparantly, we used to get their cars pretty quickly because Japan had the same fuel as us until last year, when they came up to World Standard EU4. They we on EU2 & according to various tests done, we are EU2 or BELOW!!! He went on to say that we have fuel on par to 3rd World Countries like China, Africa etc, which really puts confidence in our products EH? We are generally about 5-10 years behind in the fuel race, whereas we are the leaders in Tele-communications. (go figure)

The best fuels are in Europe & the US, & now Japan has joined them.

One huge difference is the amount of Sulphar (?) in the fuels. EU4 fuel has about 50ppm & they intend to reduce it to zero soon, whereas Australia has 500ppm & we are thinking about reducing it a bit in 2006, & then maybe going to EU4 Standards in 2009! (wow, aren't we leading the way)

The problem is that the POOR fuel companies are going to have to spend about $1.3Billion to upgrade.

Nice work. Just a few holes, what would a guy with a1990 Nissan 240SX FB 2.0L DOHCknow about Australian Fuel, maybe he meant Austrian!!!

And as for this, "Apparantly, we used to get their cars pretty quickly because Japan had the same fuel as us until last year, when they came up to World Standard EU4."I was in japan last year and when i went to the pump the used around 105octane premium, in Aust we used 98, what do they use in the US??????93... what would you rather use?

There is no denying that our fuel is not as good as japan and germany however all cars need to be rewritten for varying fuels. For example my brother works for Subaru in Japan and the reason for the WRX to take so long to be released in US was the poor fuel levels. Turbocharged cars need high levels of octane, why does the US have so few turbocharged cars??? prefer the bigger blocks because of the poor fuel?Oh yeh DOESNT THE FACT THAT YOU MUST UNBLOCK YOUR CAT CONVERTORS REST MY CASE!!!!!!!!

I dont know a d@mn thing about Australian fuel but I wasnt the one who wrote about how crappy the fuel is, the person that wrote it was Chally who is the moderator on a couple of the boards here and lives in Australia just like you. Dont argue to me about the quality of your fuel, he simply supplies a better argument to me about the quality than you do at the moment.

Actully I dont think you have any idea why the US stopped using turbochargers. The roads here are clogged up with traffic in nearly every metropolitan area. Turbo's usually run rich at idle and give off alot of pollutants which is why the WRX requires 3 cats in america (turbos take heat away from the cats and give off horrible emissions while the cat is cold). I dont know if youve been to the US recently but americans are into buying economical hondas (korean cars etc...) and even electrical hybrids (along with some SUV's).

BTW its a 2.0L DOHC care to guess what it is? I run just fine on 92 in the US.

Alright i have found the info to end this debate at:

http://www.btinternet.com/~mad....html

I guess im more wrong than right, had fun though. Isnt it great to learn something! Although in the end "AUSTRALIA'S FUEL IS BETTER THAN AMERICAS" 92PON = 96RON where we have 98RON, but who really cares. The US fuel isnt THAT bad i guess.

i thought that the wrx took so long to get here because of the emissions issues, such as the triple cat...?

here in dallas i usually get 93PON premium about 97RON im guessing? the benefit of the US is that we are more guaranteed to actually get that PON rating due to better quality control, such as mentioned on that website.