[GetFitzd]

Hello everyone, i hope y'all are having a good day, i am currently on borrowed time with my current car and i thought i would have some more time to keep figuring out that i want to do with my car. I currently drive a 2013 Nissan Altima with a QR25DE with the yucky Jatco cvt transmission and the transmission seems like its about to go at anytime now. So now i come here to see where i can go from here. I am wanting to do an engine swap to my Altima and not replace the transmission that going to cost me nearly 5k for a new transmission and thats not including mechanic cost. We all know that the cvts are trash and i am not in the mood to keep spending more money at the dealership. More or less i am going to my local junkyard and picking up a k20 series engine (harness and ecu included) and a manual transmission just to do an manual swap. This is where you guys come into play, currently i am pushing 180 hp and i want to double this or at least try to push 300 to mess with the big boys on the road. What parts should i get in general? I want to keep the engine n/a but knowing that parts are hella cheap for honda i might get a turbo. Yes this is my daily and i can get a rental car while its in the shop. I will be lowering it and putting on some beefer wheels. also this would be my 1st manual car, been wanting to learn and i think this would be a decent idea to stay stock clutch till i get used to it, which shouldn't take long.

TDLR;
-Going from 2nd Gen QR25DE to K20(not sure what k series i want)
-Want to got from 180 to 300 HP
-Might Bore it
-Need helping with parts
-Junkyard parts FTW
-Auto to Manual swap

This is going to be a very interesting build to say the least.

 

[LotusElise]

Welcome at K20a.org @GetFitzd.

This is going to be a very interesting build to say the least.

Yeah, seems to be. Looks like a L31 chassis...quite heavy anyway. My recommendation on that would be a simple one. Either take a K24 (10,000 USD region mods: cams, pistons, K20 head, valves, valve springs, IM, H, E, ECU, tuning) or a boosted K20 (6000 USD, turbo or super charger kit, ECU plus tuning). Both will bring you into the 300 flywheel pony ballpark, while the NA engine is the nicer one on the response side and the slightly boosted K20 will want to see more gasoline (SC more then TC). We have tons of information on both, but the budget decision you have to do.

Junkyard parts FTW

The basis, but for 300 flwhp or even whp you need real stuff: forged bottom end, high end parts on the alternation of load section.

 

[gtimportfanatic]

I feel like this is a bigger headache than anything else, most cars past 2006 operate with CAN systems so just an ecu swap will not work, most other things will fall out of place like BCM and other operations, which would require you to use a full on standalone and possibly aborting everything that works from the factory. Something that could possibly work with your factory modules would be Motec or Syvecs, but again, just buy a 2013 civic SI and solve all your problems lol

 

[LotusElise]

I feel like this is a bigger headache than anything else, most cars past 2006 operate with CAN systems so just an ecu swap will not work, most other things will fall out of place like BCM and other operations, which would require you to use a full on standalone and possibly aborting everything that works from the factory. Something that could possibly work with your factory modules would be Motec or Syvecs, but again, just buy a 2013 civic SI and solve all your problems lol

That's a good point, but can be solved easily: tuning the stock ECU. Beside the Emulator world, which was most common through the 90'ies to 00's today you can tune any ECU as long as you have access to the binary file and have re-engineered the file structure into a readable. My latest engine I've tuned was a stock 2022 BMW S58 ECU*, which is quite a money pit to tune (2500 USD for access and readability plus 11,000 pages of functional framework of the BOSCH ECU).

*Only for racing purpose.

 

[gtimportfanatic]

Except you can’t use a factory nissan ecu to tune a honda engine lol, OP wants to integrate a k series into a new Nissan, better off just buying a Honda with a K series

 

[LotusElise]

Except you can’t use a factory nissan ecu to tune a honda engine lol, OP wants to integrate a k series into a new Nissan, better off just buying a Honda with a K series

Correct. Mmmhhh...tuning the stock would be easier.

With much of an effort you would be able to adapt the QR25DE ECU for the PFI-version, but the 2013 variant is most likely a DI fuel system.

 

[GetFitzd]

Correct. Mmmhhh...tuning the stock would be easier.

With much of an effort you would be able to adapt the QR25DE ECU for the PFI-version, but the 2013 variant is most likely a DI fuel system.

Yeah the 5th Gen Altima (2013-2018) has a 2nd gen QR25DE engine does have a DFI system. The only reason why i want to do a swap is that i want to get away from CVTs in general. Renaults CVT Jatco isnt the best on the market and atm Im not really in a market to trade in my car for another and redo everything i have done to my own car (which isnt much). I honestly dont know how much time i have on my current CVT, I mean i have thought about going with its cousin engine, VQ35DE. I would still be using the Jatco CVT8 X-Tronic CVT regardless. So far no one has done a manual swap or even attempted i think the reason why cause they didnt make any due to slow sales.

 

[Brotatochip]

Are you prepared for how much something like this would cost? I wouldn't be surprised if you get up to $6k+

 

[LotusElise]

VQ35DE

Nice engine, has some really nice design aspects. The chamber alone is well thought for an emission compliant engine. Nismo made a nice 350Z-version with around 100 hp/Liter. Does this not cause issues on the ECU side?