SR20 Reliability Build Questions

[Kingtal0n]

Originally Posted by Silverbullet

If your motor is coming directly from an importer, I would do a rebuild for reliability. Its not 2004 anymore. Honest 40-60k mile motors no longer exist.

For 300WHP OEM parts are perfectly fine, howver if the motor is already going to be opened, i'd go ahead and put in forged pistons, and ARP studs to set you up for the future upgrades for not that much more money.

not worth it. You'll spend more time and effort and cash putting forged pistons into an SR20DET just to have it fail (unless it's built by mazworx) than it would cost to do an OEM 2jz-gte swap and carry 470rwhp on pump gas with OEM internals and NOT fail.

forged pistons are great in theory but in my experience, due to the excess piston wall clearance and other engine building issues specific to the sr20det, they never work out the way you would expect.

And this is overlooking the fact that we are still talking 122 cubic inches. Totally not worth the 400+ power mark in a daily driver application. I would rather push 150+ cubic inches (or 350cid hint hint) and drive that 3000lb vehicle around. OR keep it below 340rwhp leave the oem internals in the 2.0 and keep it as stock as possible and drive it till she passes a ring.

[Shimadorisanni]

Originally Posted by Kingtal0n

not worth it. You'll spend more time and effort and cash putting forged pistons into an SR20DET just to have it fail (unless it's built by mazworx) than it would cost to do an OEM 2jz-gte swap and carry 470rwhp on pump gas with OEM internals and NOT fail.

forged pistons are great in theory but in my experience, due to the excess piston wall clearance and other engine building issues specific to the sr20det, they never work out the way you would expect.

And this is overlooking the fact that we are still talking 122 cubic inches. Totally not worth the 400+ power mark in a daily driver application. I would rather push 150+ cubic inches (or 350cid hint hint) and drive that 3000lb vehicle around. OR keep it below 340rwhp leave the oem internals in the 2.0 and keep it as stock as possible and drive it till she passes a ring.

My power goal; as in the maximum amount of power I would ever try and squeeze from my SR would be 300rwhp. I was looking into the 2jz/1jz swap a while back, but for the price of those motors and the cost for the swap, it just was not economical for me at the time. I have also heard the same thing about forged pistons for the SR and that they do no always tend to work the way they are supposed to, and often times are less reliable at that power number compared to their OEM counterparts. This build is not for power at all, I am a novice driver, and realize this. More power would not let me grow as a driver at this stage, and frankly anything over 400rwhp is not necessary for the tracks we have here. This car is also my daily as well, so that would be the other reason I would not be too keen on making a high horsepower car. I feel like I would lose my ability to get ~28 mpg in the city hahahah