CA18 Engine Review
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The CA18 is believed by many to be Nissan's best motor and in many ways better than the SR20. Also available as a 1.6l and a 2l, the 1.8L twin cam is the very nearly perfect. Being exceptionally smooth, reliable and compact the CA18 has all the virtues of an ideal conversion motor. With direct fire ignition, twin cam 16 valve cross flow head, mini-butterfly plate & spark plug mounted coils the CA18 is a highly engineered motor, and it was these attributes that lead to its demise. Being too costly a motor to be produced with too many parts having high production costs. Regardless, many of the developments used on the CA 18 have been carried over to other Nissan motors, such as the crank angle sensor, direct fire & spark plug mounted coils as well as others. Running a relatively small turbo standard, boost is smooth in its delivery and comes in early at approximately 3000 rpm. Coming from a variety of front and rear wheel drives car, the CA18 can be grouped into either an early or late variant. The early being non-intercooled and having a finned crossover pipe from the turbo to the inlet manifold passing directly over cylinders 2 and 3. The late model always being intercooled and having a more conventional forward facing inlet manifold. The RWD gearboxes of the CA18 are a substantial size and can often cause problems when fitting them. They are however part of a series of gearboxes where there are 4 different lengths, each of which is interchangeable with a bell housing swap. The gearboxes are considerable strong and will last a decent period of time under normal driving.
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Engine |
Model |
Power (HP) |
Torque (Nm-1) |
Notes |
|
CA18DET |
S12 |
? |
? |
RWD |
|
CA18DET |
U11 |
? |
? |
FWD |
|
CA18DET |
U12 |
? |
? |
FWD AND 4WD, SOME INTERCOOLED |
|
CA18DET |
S13 |
130Kw(175BHp)@6400rpm |
23.0Kg@4000rpm (225Nm) |
RWD INTERCOOLED |
|
CA18DE |
S13 |
100Kw(135BHp) |
162Nm @ 5200rpm |
RWD |
|
CA18DE |
S12 |
? |
? |
RWD |
|
CA18DE |
KEN13 |
93kW |
156Nm |
FWD, AUSTRALIAN NISSAN EXA |
| The CA18 responds very well to boost, big exhaust and to a larger turbo, although these may necessitate the running of an aftermarket computer, such as a Powerchip. |
The above was an extract from
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© June 2002 Contact Information |