Q: What's needed to swap from our 6speed to automatic?
 

Ok before you post the justified hate! This is a question geared around chumpcar racing!

We race a 2002 Maxima. They updated the rules this year and our car is now rated over the magic 500 point number, we are now 550pts. For every 10 points over 500, we start -1 lap. As it stands now, we will start the race 5 laps down.

If we had an automatic transmission, they deduct -75 points from your total. Which would bring us back under 500. But we'd have to install an transmission cooler, so +20pts. But we would be under 500 at 495 Points!

Ok, the question. Would we need to swap computers, would we need a new wire harness, etc?
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/maxima....2c0750b58d.jpg

Buy an auto for 500 bucks and race it?

Chumpcar is similar to 24 hours of Lemons, but not the same rules. like the $500 car cost. So if you're saying to get a new car, that isn't an option. Our car cost a bit more than that and it's already has the 6 point cage and is setup to race. What we are looking at is some of the technical items needed to swap to an automatic. And any extra information relating to the durability or suggestion on long life.

We are only looking at this as an option so we don't have to start the race -5 laps. But how much could it slow us down? Example, our next race is at Road America. So if the automatic adds 5 seconds per lap, even if we have a perfect day with flawless pit stops. By the numbers, going 5 seconds slower per lap adds about 4.5 laps at the end of the day! Making the lap penalty a wash. But if we can stay at our sub 3:05 laps at Road America with an auto, that would be awesome.

While automatics are not ideal, they are used and hold up well for some teams, example:

You would have to build the tranny just so it's not slow and won't blow up after an hour. That's not worth it plus swapping multiple harnesses (have to add the TCM back in).

Need more power to negate the penalty or build another car if you ask me. HR swap will solve the power issue.

Sounds like a funky point system.

Yeah, the points this year are a bit funky. We actually got caught in the cross fire when they went to create rules to stop the Über engine swaps. It was common see these older BMW's with a modern engine swaps. And last year a team had a 240SX with a Lexus 4.0 V8 power plant that just owned the entire field. So in the mass update, they used a new formula to calculate power to weight and we got pegged! Which was designed to combat these crazy engine swaps.

I have not dealt with Maxima automatic, so that is why I've come here to ask. So we would have to have a new wire harness and add the TCM. But we could keep our existing computer?

Auto ecu required.

HR swap will net about 300whp with a stupid flat power band, so if they're just going by the engine, then you will gain time considerably, I think.

Is HR that limited slip version? If so, that is what we have in the car now.

The newer VQ engine. Check out the 5.7 swaps.

limited slip is referencing an attribute of the tranny.

the hr swap is putting in the vq35hr motor used in 2009+ maximas. would that increase your point tho?

Good question, since it is the sort of the same engine. I think doing a direct 3.5 swap we might not have a points increase. It might be considered to be some gray areas for the rules. But We just got a new motor, so it's something we wouldn't dig into this year. Would 2009 engines also need a new Trans, ECU, wiring harness?

And we have 2 Transmissions. In our first race we ran a standard one. And in our 2nd race we got lucky and found a low mileage limited slip version. We do plan on doing the internal sentra swap on the standard one at some point this year.

Use 07+ altima engine. ECU can be reflashed. It's easy http://www.nisformance.com/Articles.asp?ID=254

And it's a race car? Why not carburet it? Is it EFI?