Playing With Fire

Although it may seem as if the ultimate swap for a Nissan 240SX would be the almighty SR20DET motor, few people think of the consequences—since the SR20DET motor isn’t available in the States, parts availability is somewhat limited. This goes for OEM as well as aftermarket parts. Replacing broken or worn pieces may seem like an endless chore if you don’t have import engines in your backyard. And if finding stock components is so difficult, imagine the ulcer you’ll get trying to find performance upgrades for the SR20DET motor. Even a lot of big-name Japanese companies don’t feel it’s profitable to import their line of performance products. Which is very sad, because the SR20DET swap has become more and more common in the past couple of years.

So you’re limited to upgrades that are interchangeable with the SR20DE SE-R motors—and that doesn’t amount to many. Or you can pay costly shipping and long-distance phone charges to get goodies imported from Japan. Well, SplitFire wants to put an end to that by supplying the SR20DET Super Direct Ignition System (DIS) to the States. Although the factory Nissan direct fire ignition seems perfect, there is always room for improvement. That improvement is found in the DIS, providing an even more powerful spark than the factory direct fire does. Since SplitFire just began its DIS conquest in the U.S., availability is limited to S13 and S14 SR20DET coil pack replacements. Because our 240 uses an S15 SR20DET motor, we had to rewire the car to run with S14 coil packs. For those of you with S13 and S14 motors, you won’t need to do this. Our 240 had also been having slight hesitation problems under 3,000 rpm. We figure this had a great deal to do with the plugs, which were long past due for a change. So to fully maximize our day, we threw in a set of the Triple Platinum SplitFire spark plugs as well.