Life With Two B13s - SE-R Stage Rally Build & More!

I started RallyCross in 2011 with a B12 Sentra and had an absolute blast. Bought it for $300, put new cooling system components in it and drove it daily alongside racing it for an entire year to complete the 2011 NER Championship.

I was originally planning on getting a B13 SE-R right after that, but ended up deciding to give AWD a try for 2012 with a Subaru Impreza and had a ton of fun!

Last August, I managed to find a solid, complete and stock 1991 SE-R on Craigslist out in Pennsylvania. It was a second-owner car since 1996 and used as a commuter. With 212k on the clock, the owner thought he would be proactive and install a lower-mileage SR20 and found a junkyard unit with "114k". He got it put back together just enough to start it, and found that the bottom end was gone. At that point, he decided it was time to cut his losses and get a new car. It worked great for me as it was a very cheap deal, with a solid transmission and a strong LSD. I towed it 400 miles back home and got to work.

I got the car up on jack stands and prepared the engine for removal. A fellow racer helped me with the pull, and we had the engine / transaxle on the ground in 3.5 hours.

A new SR20DE was sourced via an import company on eBay for $525, with a listed 30k miles. When it arrived, I swapped over anything I needed from the old engine and installed numerous new parts (alternator, water pump, power steering pump, starter, etc) to ensure reliability. I also ordered a new Exedy clutch kit and machined the flywheel. It was nice to see that the new engine had an automatic flexplate on it, so I knew it more than likely wasn't abused or over-revved! I installed the components and mated the transaxle up with the new engine.

At this time it was time to install the engine! The engine was installed and attached to all mounts in under three hours, with a lot more time spent connecting wires and buttoning up the engine bay afterward.

As this was my first engine swap, I spent quite a bit of time sorting out the car and troubleshooting no-start / high idle conditions, but it was a huge learning experience. Eventually I had a running and driving car!

At that point, it was time to refresh the brakes and suspension. I installed new axles, new KYB Excel-G struts and new brake components all around.

I mounted the new Nokian Hakkapelitta 7 tires, swapped some better quality oil into the engine, put my plates on and started driving! I put 400 miles on it over the course of three days without any issues or drama, some great scenic routes as well!

By the end of that three days, it was already time to drive down to Connecticut for my first RallyCross with the new car! Packed up my gear and reserved a motel room for a two-night stay in Stafford Springs! Our first event of the year consists of a two-day event at Stafford Speedway, each day being a separate Championship event connected by a "Stafford Springs Snowdown" consisting of the lowest cumulative time for both entire days!

What a successful weekend for the new car! 2nd place yesterday and 3rd place today, but my consistency throughout the weekend actually netted me the lowest cumulative time in Stock FWD throughout both race days, therefore I am this year's Snowdown Champion!

I made it back home without issue, and I can tell this is going to be one awesome car for a long time to come.

NER@NED RallyCross - 2/2/13

I am in love with this car! Had an awesome day at what marks the start of my third full year running RallyCross, NER@NED 2013. Site conditions held up despite the lack of snow, and I managed to pull off a win! Ten entries in Stock Front today, including a RallyCross National Competitor / Team O'Neil Rally School Instructor, so I'm extremely happy with today's results! I'm also off to a great start in this year's points race.

At this point, I signed up for some Street-Legal Class, wheel-to-wheel, road-course style ice racing in New York! Got the Hakka7s mounted and my fire extinguisher installed, and some nice green duct tape for my temporary door numbers.

In a nutshell, my experience with the A.M.E.C Ice Racing club was some of the most fun I've ever had in a car. I love grassroots motorsports! $50 got me a solid hour of seat time - high-speed, road-course style, wheel-to-wheel seat time in multiclass competition! I was in SLS (Street Legal Studded) which runs Hakka7s, and at the same time there were other studded and non-studded Street Legal Classes on course! Speeds upward of 60mph and wheel-to-wheel action on the ice can't be beat! Three heat races of roughly 20 minutes - on the first heat they gridded me in the wrong class, so no results there but it was AMAZING fun! Second heat I managed 2nd place! I would have even won 1st but another driver passed me and a different class car under yellow and didn't get flagged, but still awesome results on my first time out! On the third heat, I was shuffled into the back but managed a respectable 4th while having as much sideways fun as humanly possible! I will definitely be back next year for some more fun on the ice!

Great photos from my latest SCCA RallyCross event by Jeff Hall, Christoper Barnes and Mike Gale!

An amusing aside:

When life gives you lemons...you make lemonade.

Conversely, when life gives you a trashed Nissan SR20DE engine, you make a coffee table. Previous owner inadvertently installed a blown engine into his commuter-use B13 SE-R and promptly gave up on it. I pulled the engine to swap in a 30k unit, and just stripped the old engine down to its base components, cleaned everything up and created this! I cut the head and valve cover in half to create a semi cross-section kind of deal. I'm pretty happy with the result overall!

Nice car, good pics, good vanity plate...and a nice table!

Seeing you do so well with a very nearly stock SE-R makes me want to put something together for rallycross more.

You'll find a lot of B13 SE-R fans here.

I love seeing the car put to good use, even if I can hear the rust coming. Enjoy the hell out of it.

man, why can't we have nice mud around here.....we have to call off rallycross in the winter. Wet/frozen red clay results in nobody actually moving anywhere, lol....

Great write-up! I love these cars...they are the definition of pocket rocket! Have fun and keep the updates coming!

Thanks very much guys! :D

I will definitely be updating soon, I have lots of plans for this car in the near future and have already been off to a great start in my first three months of driving it. For anyone considering SCCA RallyCross, definitely get involved as it's one of the most accessible and best bang-for-buck motorsports around!

This thread delivers. Would read again.

Thank you for the pics.

Nitroracer wrote: You'll find a lot of B13 SE-R fans here. I love seeing the car put to good use, even if I can hear the rust coming. Enjoy the hell out of it.

Agreed, I always loved these cars even the 200sx FWD. so much fun, stout and easy to work on. Everything is simple and effective, like the way cars should/used to be!

I love seeing photos of other regions rallycrosses. Makes me lookfoward to some road trips come summer.

Finally have Raven looking a little more official! I'll end up getting New England Hillclimb Association decals whenever I run my first Hill Climb!

Love it! My roommate in college had a 300 hp det swapped b13 almost 10 years ago and it was so incredibly fun.

Great pictures as well, keep it up!

The B13 SE-R or G20t was my first choice for a rallycross car, with the e30 and/or a B15 SE w/the PP (and thus LSD) as my next logical choices. I could not find a B13 SE-R/G20t at all and the B15s I could find were out of my budget range so I went with the e30, but it is nice to see that my initial thought was a good one.

Great job on the build and congratulations of the fun that you are having with the RallyX experience.

Great pics and story! Looks like a ton of fun.

Well, you'll have to get your own decals made for New England Hillclimb Association, as we don't really have anything as fancy as stickers. It's sort of a group of three individual clubs, SCCV(I'm on the board and we don't currently have stickers available), SCCNH who might have some, and I don't think KSSC has any other. Worth maybe getting some together I guess. Registration is open for Ascutney hillclimb on motorsports reg, if you plan on doing it, register soon.

We don't have hillclimb specific stickers. We do have dash plaques though.

I'll bring up stickers at our next meeting...

Awesome build thread, I've always loved the B13 SE-R...

i had the opportunity to see this rig get it done in the snow and mud a few week ago.. he really gets that rig around and makes for some great shots that i got of him.

cool! makes me wanna get moving on my wifes B14 SR20 transplant.

Also, I totally dig the coffee table. I made one out of a vw 1.8 8v block with a thrown rod many years ago, still use it to this day but yours is much cooler with the cut away view and the extra time put into it. . . . maybe i'll have to modify mine a little more to keep pace

Thanks everyone!

sachilles wrote: Well, you'll have to get your own decals made for New England Hillclimb Association, as we don't really have anything as fancy as stickers. It's sort of a group of three individual clubs, SCCV(I'm on the board and we don't currently have stickers available), SCCNH who might have some, and I don't think KSSC has any other. Worth maybe getting some together I guess. Registration is open for Ascutney hillclimb on motorsports reg, if you plan on doing it, register soon.

Thanks for the info! I don't know if I will make the Ascutney Hillclimb - still trying to source some OEM-sized alloys for a set of sticky "performance summer" tires as I only have snows for it right now. But I will definitely be doing at least one Hill Climb this year! I already have the fire extinguisher, I only need to get a SA-2010 helmet as I only have a Snell M currently.

Was on the road all day yesterday to get this all done!

New NX2000 wheels are awesome and even have so-so tires I can drive around on until I get some better street rubber. Got to really toss her around on pavement yesterday for the first time and finally got to see the famous handling! Holds the road on crappy tires better than anything else I've owned.

Thanks to Jesse Carr, my stop-sign skid plate is an absolute success. Always trust an engineer, he did this properly the entire way through. Created a solution that not only does the job, but is easy to remove/install and with steps taken for rust protection and to increase durability. He drilled out two spots in the crossmember and welded nuts in place, which means there are no exposed bolt threads to get damaged. He even welded a support beam from the skid plate over to the front subframe for extra support. When I bought that stop sign at a yard sale several years ago as a room decoration, I never thought it would end up like this! Raven is looking good and ready for whatever grassroots motorsport throws at her.

Those are such great cars, and a good choice of skidplate material as well.

Glad to see it's getting beaten on - rallycross is such a great time not least because of the other people who are willing to stand in a frozen field for an afternoon in order to watch you hit cones.

Successful day yesterday at my favorite site in the NER calender, Rochester Fairgrounds! We utilize a massive stonedust horse track and infield, for some of the longest and most complex courses of the year! I took first place in Stock FWD, this has been a very successful year in RallyCross so far with a first place or podium trophy at each event so far!

Along with the first place, I was also given my award plaque from my 3rd place in last year's Championship in Stock AWD. What a cool looking award!

So great, I love your car and the way you got it and put it together on a shoe string. Good job. You have me thinking about Sentras; I raced in one a few weeks ago at CMP (Carolina Motorsports Park) and while it had almost no power being the base 1.6, it handled well enough to surprise a lot of more powerful cars.

dculberson wrote: So great, I love your car and the way you got it and put it together on a shoe string. Good job. You have me thinking about Sentras; I raced in one a few weeks ago at CMP (Carolina Motorsports Park) and while it had almost no power being the base 1.6, it handled well enough to surprise a lot of more powerful cars.

Thanks!

The B13 platform is excellent overall, even on the regular 1.6 platform you drove. The twin-cam 1.6 that the regular B13s came with is still a sturdy motor with pretty decent power!

Looking over my car, it looks like I need to accelerate my ambitions for it. I cannot daily-drive it another winter if I expect it to survive, as I'm already finding stuff that wasn't there when I bought it. I will continue running Stock-class stuff with it for the year, but I really should consider finding an indoor workspace of some sort for the winter where I can strip it out and get everything fixed up for my Stage Rally aspirations. Perhaps a roll cage in the spring of next year. But no matter what, I need to get a winter beater or a new permanent DD if I want to keep this car alive. Driving it next winter is driving it into the ground.

RallyCross National Challenge is in two weeks in Central Square, NY! Looking forward to my first "National" RallyCross event in Stock FWD.