Sears Auto Center's New Vert!!

[zer013]

So I went to Formula D yesterday and seen this awesome vert!Took some pics with my cell phone.Look closely at the engine bay, love the swap!



- Chris

[Florida240sx]

Looks fun.

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

Sweet someone else took pics of it! I've been searching all over for more but couldn't find any. Thanks!

BTW any interior/close-up engine bay shots?

[Vb93Vert]

damn thats ****ing sick!

[TIMELSS_vert]

is that a boosted F20C in that thing? thats awesome!

[DirftKing102]

must of spent a lot of money on it! Awesome!!!

[jdms13rhd]

WTF is that engine doing in there :P

Looks not bad tho!

[DeXteR]

is that a boosted F20C in that thing?

... that was my first thought ...

WTF is that engine doing in there :P

... and that was my second thought.

nice vert nontheless.
Modified by DeXteR at 1:03 PM 9/12/2007

[redtop91]

F20/F22 = teh gay. Innovative yes, practical? No.

[110octane]

Why not practicle?????

Explain your logic.

http://www.thedriftzone.com/index2.php?id=62 Practicality seen here. Episode 49.

[redtop91]

Why not turbo a KA24DE? Far better torque curve. Call me crazy but trading a motor with a fairly linear power curve for one that is far more peaky doesn't seem practical (is the spelling).

[110octane]

Well, I don't know. The fact that the motor was sitting on the shop floor ready to rock may have had something to do with it? It was way easier to make the F22C setup work than rebuild a worn KA to consistently hold competition worthy boost numbers.

P.S. The motor in Ben's car is the motor that used to be run in the proven RS*R S2000 drift machine.

Hows that for practical ?



Modified by 110octane at 6:28 PM 9/12/2007
Modified by 110octane at 9:20 PM 9/12/2007

[redtop91]

Still not very. But then again it is a drift car.

[Unclerico]

Hey guys this is Ben here just chiming in. Anyways ya the car was my daily driver for about 3 years or so, kept mostly stock. It had R33 wheels and really old, blown Kei Office coilovers and thats it. I didn't even do a 5 speed swap. I knew i was going to build the car in one way or another so i didn't want to waist time or money making it a 5 speed until i knew the direction the car was going(engine wise). Gary Castillo at Design Craft Fabrication where I also work had a spare S2000 2.2L engine laying around (2.2 liter engine that came stock 2004 +). So yes the engine in my Vert is the 2.2L version. So I fabed up some motor and trany mounts, Gary worked on the wiring, bolted the Disco Potato turbo that Garret supplied, stuffed everything in got a custom drive shaft made and fired it up. AEM supplied the ECU which worked like a charm. Since our shop built, tuned and maintained the RS-R S2000 we used the program from that car(also used AEM ECU) and used it for my car and the motor fired right up. We had no time to even tune the car so it went to the track without dyno tuning. But right off the trailer the car ran AWESOME. I was shocked along with a lot of other people to see that the car was amazing with no tuning and a quick alignment. I didn't do any coil over adjustment because they were the same blown Kei Office ones so i didn't even bother.

Anyway back to the engine. I chose to go with this swap for several reasons. Most important reason is reliability. Honda motors are just great engines to begin with. To give you guys an example Ill tell you a little story about the RS-R S2000. That car was used in competition use for 4 years. First driven by Alex Pfeiffer then driven by Tyler Mcquarrie. The motor used all factory internals, rods, pistons, cams and valve train. The only thing changed was a head gasket. Now in those 4 years of competition use, the only problem that car ever had was a blown head gasket. Now for those of you that know Alex he drives hard, so this motor was by no means "babied". I don't know of any SR20 that has been abused for 4 years with all factory internals and still runs with full compression pushing 400hp. Reason number 2 is the exhaust in on the passenger side, meaning no steering rack to get in the way of down pipe, I know that doesn't sound like much but its a problem many LHD S chassis have with turbos and manifolds. Number 3 is the F20 has tons of top end power thanks to Vtec. In order to get the same amount of top end from an SR you need a bigger turbo and bigger cams which means you sacrifice bottom end torque. Reason number 4 ...its different plain and simple. It gets a lot of attention and it gets more Honda fans into the sport of drifting.

Now for the final round of Formula D held at Irwindale my Vert will be sporting a new engine. It will be a 2.4L version. Gary Castillo for those that do not know writes for Import Tuner Mag and did an article on how to build a 2.4L S2000 engine using all factory Honda parts. The motor he built in that issue will be the motor were putting in the car.

Now im not here to start a F20 vs SR20 war. I just came on to give out some info on the build and to answer any question any of you might have. So feel free to ask away.

I also want to thank Adam, Jeff, Tree, Mickey, Ed and Gary for all the hard work and for helping me on this build. I couldnt of done it without you guys. I owe you all big.

Sponsors:Falken TireSears Auto Center/Die Hard/CraftsmanDesign Craft FabricationGarretAEMPeak PerformanceDynamic AutoSportsSparcoDC SportsKAAZExedyWorkJulius

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

Great to see you posting here!

[redtop91]

Indeed. Even though the debate wasn't SR20 vs F20 or even a specific motor. Just the better choice of a 2JZ swap (or something similar) which meets all of the F22/F20C criteria except the getting Honda people into drifting part. But to each there own and a sweet car nonetheless.

[Unclerico]

Oh BTW I have a lot of convertible parts stripped from the car that id like to sell. Basically all the interior must go. Its cluttering up our already filled up shop. I have both doors and panels all the wiring and plugs just no mirrors, i have the rear side panels and rear seats. I have S14 front seats that id also like to get rid of. The factory rear spoiler. Also i have a box full of random convertible parts that as you guys know are hard to find. So if anyone local is interested in picking this stuff up pls email me at [email protected]. Id rather not ship. Parts are located in Lake Forest Ca by Irvine.

[premo-s12]

sent you an email regarding the parts

[sancosys]

and not that long ago some kid was getting flamed to a crisp on here about that swap now your all "OOOOH Its sooo cool" Whats up with that NICO?

[DJButton]

I still think its a lame swap in most cases and so does Ryon, go troll elsewhere please.

Ben very glad to see you on here, welcome! Your logic on swapping in the F22 makes great sense to me in this case, I'd prolly exchange one for my tired RB if there was one lying on my shop floor too! Octance good to see you're still around too man, I still love you car!

Ben, hit up our classfied forums to sell those parts and I bet you they'll be gone before you know it!

DJ

[sancosys]

I still vote this swap over LSx any day. No I was never a Honda guy.

Troll else where? Troll else where? Yea I'm going to do that because someone with the word button in there SN told me to. Sheesh some people! JK
Modified by sancosys at 12:21 AM 9/18/2007

[DJButton]

Hahaha... it's not a word, it's a name, Button is my last name, no lie. P.S. Lots of NICO posters base their decisions on what everyone else thinks, thus some 17yr old says he wants to do an F20 swap they all condemn him, then along comes Ben here who is an actual sponsored driver with an F22 vert and people will gravitate towards him and praise the car. It's nothing new really, just a continuing trend. Ben however does have a cool car.

[1aBdirfter]

[doritang244]

So how does the chassis feel under drifts? I have thought about throwing the stuff from my hatch s13 on my daily driver vert for awhile and try and drift it. The chassis flex always gave me a bad taste in my mouth though. Did the Cage fix most of that?

Car looks bad *** man! Glad to see you back out there Ben.

[Unclerico]

So how does the chassis feel under drifts? I have thought about throwing the stuff from my hatch s13 on my daily driver vert for awhile and try and drift it. The chassis flex always gave me a bad taste in my mouth though. Did the Cage fix most of that?

Car looks bad *** man! Glad to see you back out there Ben.

To be totally honest... I can not even tell im even drifting a convertible(until i look up). Yes the cage fix any flexing that would of happened without one. Before when the car was my daily i felt and heard it tweaking/flexing all the time going into steep driveways and what not. If any of you have seen Wall Speedway in person there are some very sharp angles going from flat to about 30 to 40 degrees or so in some areas, and i purposely drove over it in a weird angle just to see if it would lift a wheel and indeed my wheels lifted of the ground. So again i say the cage fixed everything.

BTW we did a baseline dyno run the other day. Ill get the sheets and post up some numbers. Although we had some boost problems. It peaks at 19psi at around 6500 rpm but by 7800 rpm its down to 12psi. No leaks from anywhere so were thinking its the manual boost controller were using. I ordered an electric one which should be in any day now. But with the boost dropping 7 psi were getting 325 hp and 333 torque at around 6500rpm once the boost drops the power drops with it obviously. So were hoping once the boost problem is fixed the power should jump quit a bit.

We compared it with other cars that has ran on the same dyno. We compared it to a fully built KA24DET and a 2.4 liter SR powered drift car. We were very impressed with the F22. When compared to the K24 the numbers were almost identical even with our boost drop, though we had a lot more RPM to go than the KA. When compared to the 2.4 Liter SR the F22 power and torque came on a lot sooner but the peak torque of the SR was higher by about 5-10 ftlbs however the F22 peak power was slightly higher than the SR. Now i know there are a lot of different variables and im not saying that all graphs are the same. These are just 2 examples that we compared with because all 3 of these setups are using the same turbine. All in all it was more than what we expected with our boost problem. We cant wait to keep full boost and retry the dyno again. We will keep you posted with updates.

[silviamayne]

wow! thats a crazy site if i haven't seen one. different but i like it

[doritang244]

Thanks for answering my question! If I decide to drift the vert I wont be so scared of that flex now haha. I will just need to invest in a cage sooner.

[premo-s12]

dumb question ben, does the top close properly w/that cage? and do you have any pics of mounting points or interior, etc?

[ballinnmiami240sx]

what kinda coilovers do you guys use?