b16a vs. sr20

brads im confuse hw come ur comparing b16 nd sr20 while its different its a 1.6liters vs. 2.0liters its 4 liters difference.... but my b16 runs 15secs. flat nd my frnds sr20 altima runs only 15.8secs then hw come most of u guys says sr20 is nice nd much better????

When people talk about the "SR20", they are usually talking about the SR20DET, which is the turbocharged version only available in Japan. The SR20 in the Altima is N/A, and thus considerably weaker. Also, I don't believe the Altima ever came with an SR20DE in the States, but it did have the KA24DE for a while.

Current Altima is when the change happened...it now carries either a 2.5 Liter 170hp (basically from the Sentra SE-R Spec V) or the more fun 3.5 Liter V6 240hp (from the 350z and assorted others)

brads im confuse hw come ur comparing b16 nd sr20 while its different its a 1.6liters vs. 2.0liters its 4 liters difference.... but my b16 runs 15secs. flat nd my frnds sr20 altima runs only 15.8secs then hw come most of u guys says sr20 is nice nd much better????
Please type properly.

SR20's never came in the american altima's. they came in the japanese bluebirds,and those were SR20DET's which are turboed and is awd.

also your civic is alot lighter then a altima. that is where the time difference is. a B13 SE-R with the stock SR20DE with a limited slip can run neck to neck with a B16a powered civic si. and that B13 sentra is from 92 i believe.

also a SR20DET can handle around 500hp on stock internals because it has a closed deck block. your B16 can only dream on holding that kind of power on its stock engine. this is becasue the B16a like all honda's have a open deck block design that eitehr needs to be have a collar type block re enforcer or going all out and putting sleeves in.

not to mention tha the SR20 makes a good amount more tq then you B16a. both are good engines. the B16 is more high tech, the SR20 is more rugged.

me and my friend had the same dispute not too long ago. i think the SR20 is a better engine. and all he was saying was "a b16 will smoke an SR20", which i think is an asinine statement because it all comes down to the application the engine is used in. a stock 99-00 civic SI is a mid 15-16 second car, but put that engine in a crx and it may touch 14's. If nissan had cars that weighed less than 2000 lbs, there'd be just as many 14 second nissans with motor swaps. it all comes down to preference, and how hard you're willing to work to get your moving quickly.

you guys forgot the weight factor.

that's what i meant when i said "it depends on the application"

also your civic is alot lighter then a altima. that is where the time difference is. a B13 SE-R with the stock SR20DE with a limited slip can run neck to neck with a B16a powered civic si. and that B13 sentra is from 92 i believe.



i mentioned it first =)

perhaps ur ryt but correct me if im wrong isnt ur sr20 has 160hp onlyw/out turbo ofcors?? which is the same as my b16a... so i dnt think ur sr20 runs that fast..

He's not getting it.

u see im frm the phil. nd most of the people here dnt like to use turbo's....

u see im frm the phil. nd most of the people here dnt like to use turbo's....
I've told you once, i'm telling you again for the last time. Type properly, or you will be banned.

perhaps ur ryt but correct me if im wrong isnt ur sr20 has 160hp onlyw/out turbo ofcors?? which is the same as my b16a... so i dnt think ur sr20 runs that fast..the point is that it comes down to more than which car(engine) has a higher peak hp. peak hp means jack shit. an SR20 makes about 20 more ft lbs of tq, a dohc B16 makes about 15 more hp. it really can't be said that "this engine is better than that one". either engine can be used to make a very capable car. it comes down to what you're gonna do with the engine. i've heard of SE-R sentra's and 200sx's with sr20's with a slight advance in their timing that can hang with 5.0 mustang's. there's a kid around here with an SR20VE in an nx2000 who claims to be running low 14's. my friend has a b16a in a crx that runs a best of 14.3, another friend has a b16b in a civic hatch running about the same times. it's not the engine so much as the application.

Blah blah blah blah.


The Japanese bluebird came with a whole range of SR seires enignes, including the SR18de, the SR20de and very weak version of the SR20det.


Some SR20DETs will hold 500hp on the stock crank, rods and pistons, but not for very long. The versions found in the Bluebird will not, and none of the N/A SR20DE's ever will.


The SR20 and B16a are two very differnt engines.
Nissan built the SR20 and developed it right when they started to get into thier financial problems.
It was designed useing knowledge gained from copying and manufactoring old British and German engines under license, and so it had a very strong block and well designed bottom end.
The Cylinder head and compustion chamber unforunatly suffered from clear lack of R&D.
Early versions of the enigne become very asthmatic at high rpm, and have very peaky power and torque curves. They can be quick, but only with in a limited rev range.
Some of this was fixed later on as the engine was developed, but Nissans money problems ment the enigne never really recieved the development it truely deserved, and so it never reached its full potentail in a naturaly asperaited form.
In turbo charged form of course Nissan poored a little more money into it, and used it in a wider variety of cars to try and recover some the cost.
The turbo'd versions are very strong, make excellent amounts of power, and are very tuneable.
But again they never really reached their true full potential, while Subaru and Mitsi were making well over 300hp out of thier 2.0L 4cly engines, Nissan were still trying to make 280hp with the SR20 in the 200sx/Silvia, despite it being well proven by others that it was possible to make much more.

In my experiance the engine shows other little problems that indicate cost savings, all of which make them less than reliable or cheap enignes to own.
The oil ways in the head are very small, and they are prone to blocking on older engines.
The ignition systems on the older engines also seem to change with every differnt model, and every year.
This is especialy true for Japanese spec engines.
It seems Nissan simple purchased what ever parts were cheapest at the time, and you can line 3 differnt SR20s up beside each other, from 3 differnt cars all made with in 6 months of each other in Japan and each will have a differnt rotor and dizzy cap.
It makes maintianing them a nightmare, espcialy as they age, since these parts almost always need replacing around 100,000kms.



The B16 is a very differnt engine, it was designed by Honda at a time when they were at thier peak, they had more money to spend on R&D than most other manufactors, and they used it well.
The B16a was also designed with a totaly differnt philosophy, Honda have been building and designing thier own engines since the early 60s with almost no external influence.
Honda started life building sports car, and has had a long history of involment in Motorsport at all levels including F1 where only Ferrari has been more active.
As a result the B16 was designed to be light weight small capacity with a very high power output, and it was designed to show off the then brand new VTEC technology.
It would have had far more money thrown at its design than the SR20, and if you look closely it shows. The engine is built with much finer tolerances, it revs freely and easily to well past 9,000rpm if the limiter is removed and it will do it all day long with out compliant. And thanks to its use of VTEC and a fantasticly well designed cylinder head it makes 90% of its peak torque at only 3,000rpm and holds it to well beyond 7,000rpm. Yes it makes less peak torque than the SR20, but it is more widely spread across the rev range making the engine considerably more flexiable.
The peaky power curve can put some people off, especialy those used to lower reving engines. But the simple fact is the B16a was designed to be run at high rpm, and it will do it for a long period of time with no ill effects.
Of course becuase it was designed to be light, and free reving the block and bottom end are not as strong as the SR20, they are just as well engineered, just not for the same thing.
Where you have to spend lots of time and money on the cylinder head of an SR20 to get lots of useable power out of it, you have to spend just as much time and money on the bottom end and block of a B16a to get lots of power out of it.

And of course while the SR20 changed frequently through out its life, later versions sharing almost nothing, not even the crank with earlier versions, the B16 changed very little over a similar life time.
There was one major revision in 1991 that saw a small power increase, but all the parts remained interchangable.
Quite simply Nissan spent the entire life the SR20 trying to fix its orginal short comings, but since they were working from a incompletely desinged orginal they could never quite get there. I don't think they ever made the SR20 into the engine they hoped it could be, and knew it should have been.
Honda on the other hand got it right first time.



And for all the bigots out there who think this makes Honda better than Nissan, consider this:
Honda has developed several V6 engines through out its history, and all have followed a similar life as the SR20, recieveing continued tweaks and improvments, and having a variety of small faults, for example early versions are prone to useing lots of oil, Mean while Nissan has done eceptionly well with the VG and VQ series engines, where Honda didn't quite get it right first time, Nissan did.


Now, if you want to learn more about SR and B series engines read this: http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=6688&highlight=SR20

But please no more threads on the topic unless you really have something new to add, and please learn how to use some form of readable grammer.
The spelling and punction in this thread makes mine look the work of an English lecturer.

Oh yead, thread closed :)