Vivek Chetty recently posted a new personal best quarter mile time in his Nissan Sentra 200 STI at Mkuze Airfield.
The Shallcross dragster ran 12.2 second @179km/h with a 1.6 60 foot over the 402m in his SR20VE.
Now, for those that do not understand the nuances of the drag racing, this is extremely impressive.
Devil in the details
One: because the car runs off the stock STI ECU with a Uni Q racing chip.
Two: the only real modifications under the hood are a set of N1 cams, a custom branch and exhaust. The head hasn’t even been ported or polished yet.
Three: it runs on pure methanol.
You may be asking yourself if it really takes three steps to make A SR20 VE go 12 seconds. Yes and no.
Hard work, sweat and bucket loads of elbow grease is what really pushes this car over the line in 12.2 seconds.
Vivek has also installed some OEM Nissan parts that make this build unique in many ways as well.
Take for instance the Nissan Primera gearbox with the factory Limited Slip Differential. The five speed box fits better on the car than OJ’s hand in that infamous black glove.
Vivek said they focused more on harnessing the original power on the current engine, before trying to chase the ‘big numbers’.
‘Keep it simple silly’
The original engine was damaged so an imported SR20VE was fitted, post destruction.
“The car is a 1992 Sentra 200 STI. It’s completely gutted. We focused a lot on that. We even run it with a shortened exhaust just to cut that weight out from the entire system.
“It has the standard SR20VE pistons and rods we just fitted the N1 cams in. The head and bottom end have not been opened. I would like to skim the head in the future. It has a custom branch with a 76mm pipe that runs under the car,” said Vivek.
The original Sentra springs are still on the car, while the front has been heated a bit to get the body lower to the ground. They also worked on the aerodynamics to help the burgundy beauty float like a butterfly through the 402.
A splitter was fitted onto the front bumper to cut through the air while the rear bumper was removed to allow air to escape quicker.
More supporting mods to come
A number of supporting modifications can be done before actually sprucing up the engine itself.
The exhaust system and intake need to upgraded for more power.
Running the car on nitromethane is also an option he wants to explore to try and get the car into the 11 second bracket.
The Candy Man in Havenside, Chatsworth tunes the Sentra VVL which spits out around 164kw on pure meth.
“I would like to use a considerable amount to try and get the lower times. Around 30 to 40% nitro is where I want to be. The only downside to nitro is you have to change the oil more frequently. But it is cheap power to make on the stock engine,” said Vivek.
Quite simpli put, this is a design with basic physics and engineering practices in place. Air, fuel and fire. Power to weight ratiot. But the results speak for themselves.
At Mkuze this past Sunday, the Vivek ran consistently in the mid to low 12 second range:
12.33seconds @ 179km/h 1.7 60ft.
12.788 seconds @ 178km/h 1.9 60ft.
12.571 seconds @178km/h 1.7 60ft.
12.492 seconds @179km/h 1.7 60ft.
12.423 seconds @ 178km/h 1.6 60ft.
12.223 seconds @ 179km/h 1.6 60ft.
