My car has HS gen5 header, JWT POP, and high flow muffler w/stock B-pipe, I just recently took my car to the track and was greatly dissappointed. I reviewed timeslips of other owners with similar mods and i was hoping to be in the mid to high 15 second range. However, i ran a 16.4 @ 83. Now i can contribute this slowness to my transmission, which unfortunately is automatic. I have plans to build a custom cat back exhaust within a week or two to solve the stock B-pipe problem. I also plan on buying JWT S3 cams this summer. Eventually i will be going turbo (within a year). However, i now realize that my tranny is a big problem. What do you all suggest? Should i go to Levbel Ten and Beef it up? Should i convert it to stick? Is there a place that will do that conversion for me? Is there anyway i can change my shift points or make it shift harder? Any info will be greatly appretiated. Help me make my car faster!!

Mike

actually 16.4 is pretty good for an auto tranny. the slush box that is used to the sr20's is terrible, sloppy shifts, hesitations to shift at high rpm's, and doesnt stall very high when trying to lauch out of the hole. I would say your biggest improvement would be to swap a manual trans.

yea, there is a way to make it shift harder. You need to increase your line pressure. May not make you faster, but it might help.

Originally posted by SupaBlackNX2k
I have plans to build a custom cat back exhaust within a week or two to solve the stock B-pipe problem.


The stock b-pipe should be the least of your worries. It's actually pretty good. You'd be better off spending your money on something other than an exhaust.

I agree with David. I think your money would be best spent on swapping in a manual tranny. That alone will help drop you 1/4 mile time. not to mention gas mileage...

not to get off topic but where is Nazo?

Nazo is short for Nazareth,Pa. Nazareth is close to Allentown, About an hour and a half North of Philadelphia.

Well the reason i want to do the exhaust is because my downpipe is 2.25 inch and from what i recall the Cat is 2.5 inside diameter. As Andreas Miko says, "You can only eat as much as you can shit" I figure my intake, exhaust and header combination is all being limited by the 1 7/8 inch crush bent B-pipe. I plan on buying mandrel bent pipe from summit and fabricating a custom cat-back exhaust using a dynomax ultraflo muffler. Thanks for the input.

Mike

ok, think of it this way....manual swap will cost you atleast 600 dollars. That is if you can find a tranny that doesnt need rebuilding and no 5th gear pop out for around 450. You will need lots of little pieces. Peddals, cable, shift linkage, shifter, shif boot, knob, crossmember, dog bone, dog bone mount, tranny mount, possibly tranny mount mount, and axles. Dont know if you would want to swap your ECU or not as the manual and auto ECU's ive been told are tuned differently not sure ***. So that is not a very easy and cheap solution I think. For that cost you problay could find a beater se-r to play with.

For your car being slow, Id bet your timing is low. If the car feels like it bogs seriously off the line and doesnt get moving till like 3000 rpm's then your timeing needs to be bumped up. Do the normal mods and you will be right with most other modded cars, only loosing a few tenths on the start.

For seriously modding the car, if you start putting more than 200 to the wheels you are in serious trouble of blowing the tranny in stock form. The clutch material in the tranny starts chunking at that level and will end up cloging up the cooling lines and blowing the tranny cause over heating.

For making it bad ass, Level 10 tranny work. For the cost of what you would put into the swap you could have them custom build you a tranny setup thats wicked. Doc Lew has it on his turbo 200 and says its super sweet. I still gota get around to going to see him or hook up at next years convention as I want a drive of it. They will custom spec a torque converter that will match the car perfectly. They are in Jersey IIRC so you are close, they like to dyno the car to match everything up. This isnt cheap, but does make a sweet tranny. Properaly built car matched to a good auto tranny i think would tear up some shit at the track be it 1/4 mile, auto cross, or road racing. Key is having it all matched and setup correctly.

But for the time being do your normal mods that give proven power. One tip is dont go too big on your exhaust, and dont change out the stock muffler, more than not Ive heard for driveability of the auto if you go 2.5" and straight though muffler you will end up driving around town slower than a metro. Now if you go big power yea you need to do a good exhaust. Put on a header, pullies, CAI, and S3's you should be doing pretty well. Keep tabs on the TPS voltage(not easy to check *** if at all i cant seem to find how in the FSM for the auto), keep the car tuned up, and the timing dead nuts on atleast 15, 17 is better it will be just fine. I daily drive my auto its far from slow, but not crazy fast.

for the amount of money you would spend on an exhaust system, you could buy a tranny from a junk yard for the same price. At most, you'll probably only gain 1 or 2 HP from the exhaust which isnt very much in you wanna compare 1/4 mi times. In fact, from what i hear, the NX has a higher flowing exhaust than the SE-R, my car still has the stock muffler and i run 15.4's. The transmission will probably knock off a whole second or maybe more. Its possible to use your auto ecu if you swap a manual trans, but not vise versa. I have never swapped a manual trans into a previously auto trans NX, but the only problem i can think of is the little check engine light flashing, rewarding you for swapping the trans

Just get another 200 that is 5speed, don't go through all those trouble

acutally, he drives an nx, not a 200. but i agree, just get a car that is 5 speed. manual swap is too much damn work.

Opps, i didn't see that.

What a dumb ass i am.:D :D :D

yeah, IMO I would sell the car, or get another car with a 5 speed, it will cost a lot to swap trannys, to much trouble, and money.

Well, Im still stuck. I dont know what to do. For now i will continue with bolt ons and perhaps in the future they can all be swapped over to a stick NX but I'm still not sure. I decided to go ahead a fix the exhaust now (costing less than 200 for a mandrel bent cat-back system). Also, I Just bought some S3's from curiousraser in the For Sale forum. I have every intention of driving a turboed SR20 one day but im still unsure of whether it will be my current NX. The problem with buying a new car is that i have alot of work put into this car and I would never get my money back. I had the car painted once before and its just about to go into the body shop to have the erebuni Front installed and painted again. The car is in great shape Inside and Out and i would love to keep it. I guess my options are a tranny swap or take it to Level Ten. Does anyone know of a place or person that would perform the tranny swap for me? How much will this cost (parts, labor)? All input is appretiated.

Thanks,
Mike

i dont think selling or even swapping is all that good of an idea. while i do miss my 5 speed shifting alot, its not that horrible. the auto responds well to my foot now that ive learned how to drive an automatic. yes, you gota learn to drive them. me coming from never driven an automatic in my entire life for more than just a spin it was very hard. I would sugguest going back to the stock muffler and defintaly not going big on the exhaust. You want to keep low end drive ability, and the large exhaust is great for high rpm flow but kills low end scavaging. Make sure you stay on top of tranny matience and you will be good to go. Periodaly change the fluid and blow out the cooling lines that run in the radiator. Heat is death of the tranny. Oh yea make sure you redline the car every now and then. I make it a point to run it all though the rev range atleast once a day. If you dont you are possibly taking a chance of sludgeing up the valvetrain and scoring your cams. When you swap in the cams look at getting a set of the new, updated, cam oiling tubes they have larger holes in them.