i own a 1997 Nissan sunny, model code B14, having diesel engine cd20 in it. The diesel engine has served me very good, very good fuel consumption (16 km/l city) and has never let me down.
though the engine being very old technology (mid 80's) i embarked on a project to convert the engine to anything modern. as no modern diesel engines of Nissan are available locally i went for petrol.
There were basically two options
ga15-de
qg18-de
the former being early 90's technology,1.5 liter, having distributor type ignition and basic efi with no tricky valve timing control, but the benefit of going for this was that it is readily available in the second hand local market, and is a bolt on in the b14 chassis. the modifications needed
-axles change to petrol ones (thinner and different lengths)
-as the axles are thinner the hubs are also thinner so they need to be changed too
-the ball-joint and wishbone is also different for these hubs(uprights)
-mounts need to be changed (4 of them)
the later one is a later generation engine, introduced in 1999, its a low end torque engine, having 1.8 liter of displacement, distributor less ignition and N-vct (nissan variable cam timing), basically like vvti of toyota, changes inlet cam timing for better low end torque. these engeins are relatively rare and have more complex electronics, hence the locals do not encourage this, also bolt on in the b14 chassis, though the timing chain mount foundation on the chassis is a bit narrow for it, hence needs modification, rest the axle width of diesel and this is same but the length is different of the axles hence only axles need to be changed not anything else.
-axles need to be changed
-mounts need to be changed (4 of them)
Apart form these modifications the normal diesel to petrol modifications are there,
-fuel pump in tank
-exhaust adaptation
in light of all this and with the help of some very dear friends (spectra@pakwheels, akifjanjua@pakwheels, bilalahm@pakwheels, its_me@pakwheels and my mechanic Imran) we went forward for QG18-de.
Found an apparently good condition engine in mithu khan(pindi engine market) and bought it for 37k(old cd20 adjusted in this) for complete setup, following was included
-Engine
-manual transmission
-air-box
-all sensors (minus the refrigerant pressure sensor)
-in-tank fuel pump
now some light on the qg18-de, it started in 99, and came in the following vehicles
now i got the manuals for the primera, almera and the sentra b15/n16, but the ecu of these were different to the qg18-de marketed in japan (which we get). so before the decision of getting the engine or not we searched for the manual, after much headbanging with Google i was able to find the manual for Nissan expert (sold in japan and exported to Russia), the manual was in Russian but the ecu layout was the one we needed.
ECU wiring in russian
