2002 Nissan Sentra Article at Automotive.com

»Locate a Dealer»Find a Used Car»Get Financing

Most Popular: Hybrid Cars|Lexus IS350|Dodge Charger

HOME

2002 Nissan Sentra Spec V

Below is an enthusiast article written by the automotive experts at Import Tuner. If there is one car that has been denied a lot of aftermarket it would definitely be the 2002 Nissan Sentra Spec V. Since its debut, there has only been a handful of companies making parts for the 2.5-liter beast. Of course the Nissan gurus like Nizmo, Jim Wolf and Stillen offer plenty of modificati

QUICK PRICE QUOTE

DEALER LOCATOR

User Rating

N/A

Rating:

Value Rating

Excellent

LEARN WHY

IntelliChoice Value Rating

The chart above shows the purchase price versus ownership cost for each car from a specific vehicle class. The cars with better than average ownership cost/purchase price correlations are the best values, and these best value cars are represented by the dots below the curve. (i.e. the cars that have a lower ownership cost compared to its purchase price.) Those cars, which are worse than average or poor values, appear above the curve.

One way to view the graph is to draw a vertical line through any purchase price. You may see several dots that fall on this line - each of which is a car with a similar purchase price. However, notice the difference in ownership costs of each car represented by the vertical position of the dot. Two cars with the same purchase price can have thousands of dollars difference in ownership costs. This is what separates "good value" cars from "poor value" cars.

What is a good car value?

A "good car value" is one whose cost to own and operate is less than expected. The lower the cost to own and operate a car compared to what is expected, the better the value of that car.

But how do we know a car's "expected cost"?

For each car in the class, IntelliChoice plots the car's purchase price against the total five-year cost to own and operate it as determined by IntelliChoice research. Each dot on the above chart represents a specific car. Generally, we find that as the purchase price of the car increases, the cost to own and operate that car increases. This is why the dots on the graph tend to rise upward and to the right. This phenomenon also makes intuitive sense - as the purchase price rises, financing costs tend to rise, as do insurance, depreciation, taxes, and most other car ownership costs.

This is an important concept. It's normal for car ownership costs to rise as purchase price rises. Therefore, we can't just establish one "average" ownership cost number for each class, since cars in the class have different purchase prices. (This is why the "Relative" shown on each chart is different for cars in the same car class.)

Using statistical techniques, IntelliChoice "connects the dots" to form a curve that defines, for this car class, the relationship between the car's purchase price and car's ownership costs. This curve is our "expected cost" curve. The curve defines, for any car in the class, the five-year ownership cost that we would expect to see at each possible purchase price. If every car in the class were an average value, then all the dots would fall exactly on the curve. However, it's rare that any dot is exactly on the curve. Some dots are a little higher or lower, and some are a lot higher or lower. The dots that are a little lower are better than average car values, while the dots that are a lot lower are excellent car values (A dot that is a lot lower than the curve has ownership costs much lower than expected for a car of its purchase price). Conversely, a dot a little higher than the curve is a poorer than average car value, while a dot that is much higher than the curve is a poor car value.

Value is a relative term, not an absolute term. It is performing better than the logical expectation.

So is a Mercedes-Benz E320 expensive to own and operate? Certainly in an absolute sense. Most other cars cost less. But, when its cost to own and operate is plotted against cars with comparable invoice prices, the E320 costs less. So the E320 is not expensive to own and operate - it is a good car value. The Mercedes does not have low ownership costs, but it has low ownership costs for its invoice price.

Change Submodel

CHANGE VEHICLE

Article From Import Tuner Magazine

2002 Nissan Sentra Spec V - The Anwser

AEBS Spec V Header Boast Big Numbers For The QR25DE / writer: Gary Castillo
photographer: Gary Castillo
/ Article provided by: Import Tuner Magazine

If there is one car that has been denied a lot of aftermarket it would definitely be the 2002 Nissan Sentra Spec V. Since its debut, there has only been a handful of companies making parts for the 2.5-liter beast. Of course the Nissan gurus like Nizmo, Jim Wolf and Stillen offer plenty of modifications for the car but there are currently only a few header systems out there that give real power. It's not until recently that more products for the Spec V have been popping up in the scene. I spoke to Ben Ma from AEBS a while back and he informed me that they have a header that will post some big horsepower numbers. My first thought was to bet him money but then, after remembering some of the products they have made in the past, I though better of it. Based on teh quality products of the past, I knew I might as well pay him the money right now.

A year in the making, the AEBS Spec V header is now in production and on the shelves. Before you go out and give them your money, first listen to what you get...then give them your money. To start with, the header is a bolt-on unit that doesn't require any cutting or welding. To create the most power they relocated the catalytic converter. This allowed AEBS to make the header much more flow efficient by extending the primaries. The tri-y design uses a unique cylinder-merge technique not normally used for the conventional type. In a normal 4-2-1 header design the two top dead-center cylinders are merged in order to keep exhaust pulses in sync from one cylinder to the next without disrupting cylinder intervals. On a typical inline four cylinder which has a firing order of one, three, four and two, the one and four cylinders are merged together while the two and three are paired up.

Always being on the cutting edge of performance, AEBS went against the grain and tried merging opposing cylinders in search for more power. In turn what this created was a zipper theory, which merges the two cylinders that open their exhaust valves one right after the other, in hope of lining the two pulses in sequence at the collector. This pulses the two exhaust sequences from the each cylinder to make the two in the end. Their tri-y header merges the number one and two cylinders while the three and four cylinders are together. What they found was remarkable: It produces is a higher top-end horsepower for big displacement four cylinders. In the QR25DE engine that boasts 2.5 liters and 175 lb-ft of torque is necessary to have plenty of top end but also ample amount of bottom to midrange. Then again if you own a SPEC V, then you know bottom end horsepower and torque already exist.

The header is constructed of mild steel but helping out in the heat dissipation area is a thermal ceramic coating. Thermal coating not only drops engine bay exhaust temperature, it's also another reason that the AEBS unit makes so much power. Primary tubes come sized as 1.625 in and all flanges are 3/8-in thick to prevent unwanted warping. Since the header replaces the factory cat with a high-flow unit, it was necessary to make the header two piece. Another plus for the AEBS header is the check-engine light never threw an O2-sensor trouble code.

On the dyno the Nissan put out a total of 146.8 horsepower equipped with a Place Racing air intake and Stromung cat back exhaust system. With the header bolted in the car, it produced 162.9 horsepower, with power made throughout the power band and the highest gains in the high rpm area. Torque also went from 160.3 to 167.1 lb-ft. There was a 12.7 degrees temperature difference and the horsepower is SAE corrected, but you can tell there is an obvious difference in power. The car still produced 16.1 horsepower over baseline at peak as well as 15.8 lb-ft of torque at 5900 rpm.

Only those that own the QR25DE engine know of the hidden potential in the car and it's only a matter of time before more people realize this engine will be a competitive race engine. Everything from the cylinder head design to the blocks strength is superior to most engines in its class. As more parts become available for the Spec V, you can bet that we'll be there to show the true potential for the car and its powerplant.