I caught up with my friend who's got a new Nissan 200SX (Silvia) about a month ago. Car has about 1800km now so it's nicelly run in so we linned it up with my S2000. For those that don't know what the 200SX is, it's a 2 door coupe Nissan RWD with 2L Turbo engine producing 147kW and 265Nm. It has a 6speed gearbox as well and the 1st 5 gears are geared very much like the S2000. Also, it weights the same - 1260kg.

Anyway, we did several side by side comparisions to see how quick it is and this is what came out of it:

- 10 - 120kph rolling start in 1st gear - Oddly enough the 2 cars were very even even from low revs. The 200SX would get maybe 1/2 a car length at low revs but by 120kph the S2000 is a fraction quicker and is making the ground back. Also, whoever got on the thottle 1st seemed to win. The 1st gear in the S2000 seems very good even at low revs comapred to the 200SX.

- 10kph - 120kph rolling start in 2nd gear - The 200SX really pulled away from the S2000 ihere. It got good 2 car lengths on me before I got to 6k revs. Then I held him and maybe even made a fraction of the ground back but not much. The 200SX is much better at lower revs than the S2000.

- 45kph - 140kph rolling start in 1st gear - The S2000 wins this one. The 200SX runs out of 1st gear too fast and drops back about a car and a half. Then it just says there at the 1.5 - 2 car lengths behind the S2000.

- 45 - 185kph rolling start in 2nd gear - The 200SX pulled away 2 car lengths even before I knew what was happening .... felt like we were doing at least 80kph before I felt like I was holding him or let alone pulling him back. By 120kph I was pulling him back and by 170kph we were even and then I pulled away about 1 - 1.5 car leanghts by 185kph. I was pulling away then pretty comfortably.

- 30kph - 140kph rolling start in 3rd gear - The 200SX just pulles away comfortrably. It pulls away good 3 - 4 car lenght even before I'd say I'm hanging with him. I never felt like I made any of the ground back ... lost by good 4 car lenghts.

- 0 - 110kph standing start - This was hard to do as we're sitting in the cars next to each other reving the crap out of them while looking at each other and signaling each other to go. Neither of us got a good launch (too much revs 'cos we were not looking at the tachos). Anyway, I dropped the clutch from what I'm guessing is 8k revs and spun the wheels all though the 1st gear while my friend in the 200SX dropped it from 4.5 - 5k revs and sat there spinning the wheels. Me on the other hand shot of forward despite too much revs and wheelspin. I jumped about 2 car lenhts ahead by the end of 1st gear and it didn't change much by 110kph.

So in summary, the 200SX is a very fast car and can hang with the S2000 in the straighline very well. It's actually quicker anytime the S2000 is bellow about 6.5k revs (and in some instances a fair bit quicker). In VTEC the S2000 is a touch quicker, though not much .... it's really above 130kph that you notice the S2000 clearly quicker. At 160kph the S2000 seemed comfortably quicker but I'd never call the 200SX disgraced ... if anything the difference was smaller than the S2000 lagged behing in the 45 - 145kph 2nd gear drag.

Can't comment on the handling too much, but the 200SX feels very balanced. It feels very well planted on the road and seems to have very little roll or dive. It actually feels better over bumps than the S2000 .... though, I'll really get to check out the handling when we take the cars to the track in a few weeks.

 

Great information. Thanks.

IMO you should be able to waste him on a track, though. I had mine at Road Atlanta this weekend and the car was far exceeding my abilities (my first time on a track). The driving instructors at the event said I was clearly out breaking and out handling nearly everything out there.

Have fun!

 

If you can check out the Best Motoring videos, they have a comparison between the Silvia spec R and the S2000...the driver comments that the steering feel in the Silvia is a little bit slow and the tail is a little too heavy.

 

Funny that the numbers from the MOTOR mag for the 200SX are so poor... It was on my short list b4 I bought my Integra Type R, and it had a 0-100 (62mph) as 7 seconds. With Type R at 7.1

It seems like a nice car, although I never got to drive one cause when I wengt to the dealer they still didn't have any demos, but the two reviews I've seen compared it to the WRX and ITR, and the ITR is said to be "the fastest point-to-point" car, especially on a race track.

You know they had a 200SX convertable like the Merc SLKs (ie folding metal roof) at the motor show? now THAT would be sweeet.

 

The S15 Silvia exported version is nothing compared to the real Japanese one or sometimes grey imports are huge around down under like I've seen. It's a better match with the JDM version, I don't think anyone will have a problem with the exported one.

When I test driven one exported type together with a colleague who was interested on making a purchase on it, the car was absolutely disappointing. First notable sacrifice was the plastic feel of the interior which was everywhere, the dash, the console, even the roof felt like the insulation was just a smack of carpet on. Gear shifting was long, turbo didn't felt great ... Probably the stock boost is low, oh what the hell.

Worse thing of all, the tyres and the LSD sure didn't get the car planted on twisties at all. If you try to grip it through a corner, it just slowly understeers by the time you make it out. When you try to drift it, the tail is too damn long, heavy and absolutely difficult to control with the amount of torque on it ... Was like driving a Civic with no VTEC. That's how I rated it for good. For the selling price of AUD$39,450 + ORC brand new Spec S ... I would rather pay AUD$41,000 + ORC for a brand new MY01 WRX.

 

I drove one. The driving position, ergonomics, gearshift, steering are great, but the engine is so damn coarse! It sounded and felt like a tractor compared with my WRX. Very disappointing. It's why I ended up with an S2K really.

 

hey david, where do u do ur tests, 185kph is pretty fast for the road.
i looked at the new s15 200sx, but insurance on those things is riduculous for a $45k car, my wrx is only $1300 pa, but they wanted $2500+ and most places didnt even want to know.
i felt thatthe interior was fairly low rent, the seating position and erfonomics, gearshift, i have to disagree with naishou, it didnt feel right to me the reach of the arms when my legs were comfortably aligned felt like i was reaching too much, the gearshift felt rubbery, compared to the s2k however
my brother owned an s14 200sx and the thing i noticed most was that when i washed it the door panels felt thin, it felt flimsy, but i guess u pay for what u get.

 

Hi Blacksk2,
I have no problem at all with the interior of the new 200SX. It seems well put together and seems to have class (to me). In some ways it looks better to me than the S2000 .... like the dash. I much prefer the compact and clastrauphobic position of the S2000 now, I love the wheel, seats, pedals and gearlever position - it's all where I'd want it. Also, when you comapre the individual parts then the S2000 always has the better one .... but that's what you pay for 2x the 200SX and for that money the 200SX seems like a very good car to me. The s14 200sx I did not really like ... I had few friends who had them and we had some on the track too, but I would have never ever concidered it over my MR2. I felt the MR2 did everything better, it just had less power. The new 200SX seems to me a much better car than s14 ... even the way it handles itself now seems like a sports car (maybe even better handling than the MR2 - will know better after a track day) while before it was really more like a sedan (and not a great one either).

Also, the WRX feels like a front-wheel-drive and I have a preference for rear wheel drive cars. The 200SX felt like a nicely balanced RWD. btw, if you do a search for "WRX", you'll find a similar thread when I did runs like this against a frieds WRX (prev model).

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hey david, where do u do ur tests, 185kph is pretty fast for the road.
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hehe, keep in mind that from standstill the S2000 will do 200kph in 25.5 secs on a good day. What that means is that, on a good day, you could go from standstill, reach 200kph andf then come back to 60kph in less than 30 seconds :-) Though, to answer your question - yes, it was on a public road, I know this industrial area that has very nice roads and practically no traffic .... late at night, but public road noneleess.

btw, I've done 200kph coming home from a supermarket late at night ... that's just betwen 2 sets of lights on a 4 lane road with no traffic. It does not take long.

About the insurance, he's paying $1100, is rating #1 and just turned 30. He did say that he had to ring around but a few insurance companies had reasonable prices.

Iggy_Type_R, Yeah, in most articles where it is comapred to the Type-R it is about 0.3 - 0.4 sec quicker over 0-100kph and 400m. Though, if you look at Motor's "Performance car of the year", you'll see that they clocked it at 6.35secs to 100kph and something like 14.6 for the 400m run .... that is pretty damn fast.

ps. One thing that he has different on the 200SX is the wheels/tyres combo. He has 225/45/17" tyres (nad wheels) on it - that's the way he bought it from the dealer ... the stock car looks very undertyred with the 205's

pps. If everything goes well, I'll do a similar comparision with my friends TVR Cimerra ... that'll be a challenge :-)