page1- NISSAN CEFIRO A31 HISTORY
page2- MY A31 CEFIRO
page3- NEW ENGINE PURCHASE w/ ALL NECESSARY PARTS(new)
page4- R32 RB20DET INSTALL IN A31
page5- WONDER BODYKIT

Nissan RB20DET Engine Swap...finally!

Well, my plan to have my engine changed in my cefiro came too early as planned. I was just driving back home when my car finally seized and I couldn't get my RB24S engine to fire up again so it got towed back to my house. Since this happened, I decided to have my engine changed with the RB20DET which I have been keeping for a few months now.

First modification I have done to the car before changing the engine was swapping in the front brakes and rear differential of a semi modded R32 GTS-T in Japan. The rear differential with disc brakes bolted on to the car perfectly and no alteration was done to it except for the handbrake cables which are a bit long and some washers were used to lock on to it so when it gets pulled, it doesn't slack a lot. The front R32 4pot calipers bolted on perfectly to the brackets of the stock A31 brake brackets. The R32 hubs will not work because of a different design. I was able to use an S14 5 lug hub setup and it bolted right on combined with the R32 rotors that I got with the engine. The HICAS were also removed and it was replaced by a custom made HICAS bar.

R32 Rear Diff with aftermarket swaybar(dont know the model)

First day when old engine was removed and the new engine was installed. Everything from the old RB24S engine was removed and the R32 RB20DET engine just bolted straight right in. No modification was ever done. The removal and installation of the engine just took less than 8 hours to do since everything fits perfectly right. The R32 radiator also bolted right on the stock mounts. Even the A/C system of the old engine also got used and bolted perfectly. We just bent a little of the a/c pipe so that it won't foul up on the turbo setup of the engine but that didn't take very long to do.

Second day. This just gave us a bit of delay since the engine was already mounted, we had to mount the complete exhaust system that came with the engine. First off, we started mounting the downpipe but when we were about to do it, we just discovered that the bolts attached to it are all broken so we had to remove each one and remount new bolts and that took us almost a day to do and it was just a total waste of time. .

Third day. Since the downpipe bolts were already fixed, we just mounted it directly followed by the mid and end pipes. The brackets from the R32 exhaust are very perfect as they are also at the same position with the A31. The only thing we discovered is the bend on the end pipe was focused directly to the flooring of the spare tire holder. We just cut and welded a new pipe after the bend so that the muffler will be at the right exhaust position. The intercooler was mounted to the front. We trimmed the metal bracket of the bumper to accommodate it and made some brackets to hold it in place. The intercooler pipes that came with the engine were also mounted and they are very perfect for the car. We just made some holes to the left side of fender so that the piping's can go through it and on to the front.

Fourth day, the engine was wired up. It just took us 3 hours to do it since the engine I got came in very complete with all the ancillaries to make the engine work. Nothing was missing. We just modified the gauge cluster a bit since the one we have is for carb and it doesn't have the right sensors for EFI Tach and speedometer reading. What we did was just transfer the EFI tach and speedometer from the R32 gauge I bought from Drift House in Malaysia. Everything bolted on as if it was made for it. We just did a little trimming on the gauge plastic but that's about it.

After the engine was wired and all oil and liquids were put in, I finally drove the car but not too far, we heard a loud vacuum leak from the intercooler pipes and we saw one of the silicone houses slide off, it was not properly clamped so compressed air just escaped from it. Nothing was perfect after 2 days of finishing the engine since we have been finding some small problems. Since then, we had changed the plugs and the clutch since the engine was still using the ones that came with it. Its such a big mistake since its very difficult to remove the tranny and the piping's that cover the plugs. The clutch slave also gave in and we had to replace it. I have been shaking down the car and so far the small problems are popping up so they are being fixed little by little. The car runs so well and with the power that comes with it is just so addicting to feel especially when I hear the sequential BOV sound off.

Miscellaneous Pictures:

WORK REZAX- 17x8x +5 offset front and 17x9x +10 offset rear

Old RB24S engine before extraction

R32 driveshaft below, A31 driveshaft above

RB20DET top view

Intercooler still has space infront of the condenser/blower and the a/c drier

Mock up of the new bumper I am making. I'm still unsure if I will use this or not or stick with the old bumper to make the car a sleeper.