1988 Nissan Sunny - Ambition Can Be A Bitch
writer: Ryan McKay
photographer: Henry Z. DeKuyper



Without ambition, new and challenging things would never be attempted. But, as anyone who's ever taken on a project so complex they couldn't or wouldn't finish can tell you, having too much ambition can have its costs too.

An overly-ambitious project can quickly sap a builder of all their time and money, only for them to realize they don't have the skills to finish. The ambition to build the fastest Nissan Sunny around has cost Bito Kunihiro plenty of time and money. But since he's a fabricator and tuner at C&Y Sports in Japan, he didn't have to worry about biting off more than he could chew. He's got the skills.



Physically and emotionally, the two-year build has taken its toll on his body and mind. And financially? When we asked how much he's spent, he couldn't even give us an estimate, other than saying it was "expensive". In the end, all the long hours and blown paychecks gave him an insight that he wanted to share with you, the reader, about undertaking a project like this... "Don't do it!"

Things started out innocently enough when Kunihiro got his driver's license and bought this then-stock 1988 Nissan Sunny. For those who aren't familiar with the Sunny, it shares lots of its DNA with the Nissan Sentra and rocked a rippling 1.2-liter engine from the factory. The 12A-powered commuter with a bed and tailgate is based on the Nissan B110 sedan chassis. Once Kunihiro had his Sunny, his ambitions took over.



Since the small and dated engine couldn't make the kind of power he planned for, Kunihiro hit the Nissan OEM parts bin and found a SR20 engine to serve as the heart of his hotrod. But before he even began thinking about how he would shoehorn the engine into the Sunny, he needed to give the SR some balls.

The naturally-aspirated 2.0-liter relies heavily on nitrous and belts out an impressive 280hp on the juice and 220hp without. That's enough to propel this street-driven car down the dragstrip at more than 116MPH in just a hair over 12 seconds. But don't expect to see those kinds of numbers with your typical SR20, this engine is seriously tweaked. One quick look at the tech sheet tells part of the story. Kunihiro spent a small fortune to get that power out of the n/a 2-liter.



A good chunk of change was spent on Pulsar N1 12:1 compression pistons, TOMEI 312-degree camshafts, Asadaya connecting rods, TOMEI valve springs and retainers, a Nismo intake manifold, a custom C&Y exhaust manifold and TOMEI cam gears. To get the most out of the massive cams, Kunihiro performed a port job on the cylinder head himself. We're glad he had enough money left over for the icing on the cake-50mm individual throttle bodies from TWM.

ITBs can ingest a lot of air. Add nitrous and it takes a lot of fuel to keep the engine happy. A Bosch fuel pump supplies a set of Skyline fuel injectors, while a SARD fuel pressure regulator keeps pressures in check. Fuel injector opening time is controlled by the best-of-the-best engine management-an HKS F-Con V Pro computer.