Sentra vs Sentra: Any car can be a race car

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When the term “race car” is mentioned, what comes to mind?

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Perhaps a Formula One car? A NASCAR racer, or perhaps an old Daytona? Maybe a stickered-up Ferrari Challenge car? A Porsche 911 GT3 with its centre-lock wheels?

How about a 2022 Nissan Sentra?

Probably not, right? But despite its humble economy-car status, the Nissan Sentra is the basic building block for Nissan’s latest one-make racing series, the Nissan Sentra Cup, and the car itself is a mind-bending accomplishment, considering it comes from such humble roots.

I confess, spending a week or even a day in a Nissan Sentra is not an event I would circle on my calendar, but adding a simple “Cup car’” suffix to that “Sentra” had me driving a couple of hours to our friendly neighbourhood race track, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park’s Driver Development Track, to experience the incredible transformation that Motorsports in Action accomplishes with the Sentra.

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Sentra Cup car modifications

The list of modifications from street car to race isn’t that long, nor is it punishingly expensive, costing approximately $40,000 for the conversion, with the base price of the Sentra S $20,098 plus $1,670 destination fee and taxes. The process starts by taking out all the commuter seats and sound insulation and carpeting and finishing touches that a track-only car just doesn’t need. The interior renovations continue with a roll cage and other required safety systems, steering hub and removable steering wheel, and OMP halo racing seats, but my favourite modification might have been one of the simplest: new pedal plates with a wider accelerator pedal to make heel-toe shifting far easier and more natural.

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Under the hood, the engine and transmission remain the same, a humble, non-turbocharged 2.0L four-cylinder making 149 hp and 145 lb-ft of torque in stock form with a six-speed manual transmission to mix the gears. The manifold and headers are stock in the Cup car as well, the only changes in the power department being a custom ECM (MoTec M1 Series) to keep engine mapping but override all the emergency and electronic systems; a cold-air intake; and a custom exhaust to open up the airflow on the exit side, while still retaining the catalytic converter.

The biggest changes aside from the interior is the suspension, wheels, and tires. The Sentra Cup car gets a custom coilover suspension, rear brakes from the top-spec Sentra SV/SR, front brakes from the 370Z, and lightweight 18- by 9-inch Fast racing alloys wrapped in Pirelli racing slicks. While I am focusing on the differences between the Sentra road car and this Cup car, Nissan was thrilled to point out that these more thorough chassis revisions shaved about five seconds off of lap times compared to the Micra Cup cars that launched Nissan’s one-make racing experiment. 

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Driving position

Although some people might be perfectly happy in a base Sentra, I found it to be little better than a penalty box. For starters, the seats just did not adjust properly for my frame, so every minute in it was uncomfortable. the problem was that the seat bottom has no tilt adjustment — even my 2007 Hyundai Accent that is about to die has seat-bottom tilt adjustment.

If the basic Nissan Sentra seats don’t work for you either, there are better seats in the higher SV and SR trims, but an aftermarket seat will always be way more supportive and bolstered if you are turning it into a track car, so the base trim is a good way to save money for the upgrades that count. The OMP seats in the Sentra Cup car were glorious; I needed to be wedged in with a shoehorn, but that is just the way you want them when you have the amazing grip of racing slicks sticking you in the turns while your body tried to keep moving on a straight line.

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The other contact point that drove me nuts in the Sentra road car was the pedals. As more of a novice enthusiast driver, I am by no means a master of heel-toe down-shifting, but the Sentra pedals made it nearly impossible for me to blip the throttle as I was braking and wanted to shift down. Yes, many affordable performance cars are now jumping on the rev-matching manual-transmission bandwagon, but for me, the joy is in actually mastering that art rather than a computer doing it for me. To me it seems like a golfer going to a golf course and having a machine launch the ball down the fairway instead of doing it yourself: you might miss the fairway half the time (or more), but when you hit it, it feels pretty damn good.

That’s why my favourite change of all in the Sentra Cup car was probably one of the cheapest: a wider throttle pedal. Yes, it was also upgraded to a lightweight alloy with better grip and looks awesome, but within the first few turns, i was actually pulling off some throttle blips and good downshifts when I wasn’t getting stuck on the Cup car’s tricky shift down to second (the Cup car we were driving was their demo, so it has taken quite a bit of wear and tear, and my ham-fisted shifting was a challenge).

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If you are ever wondering which is the best car to take to the track, well, it’s never a bad idea to start with the car you have

While the clutch and brake pedals were fine, the other pedal that bothered me was the dead pedal; in both the road car and the Cup car, it was a skinny, strangely angled foot rest, so instead of it being a useful bracing point to help keep you locked in your seat, my foot was either slipping off or causing me to contort on track or just causing me discomfort on the long drive home because it narrows at the top, forcing my foot to point inward. It’s a small thing, but it’s something that some brands do right, with a straight, full-width, sturdy spot for your left foot; while others just neglect it or sacrifice it to other car-packaging needs or costs.

Did I just spend three paragraphs whining about driving positions and ergonomics? You bet I did! It’s important for long highway drives and gets magnified on the track where you want everything perfect so you can perform to the best of your abilities, not spend half your time compensating for a car’s flaws. If you have a car that you regularly take to track events or autocrosses, a simple change like the seat and pedals could allow you to execute better no matter what you have for power or grip, and it certainly costs less than overhauling your powertrain or suspension.

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Driving impressions

Now that we got that all-important driving position out of the way, we can move on to the car’s actual performance. The 2022 Nissan Sentra S manual is one of the cheapest cars left on the market, so it both shows its price point but also demonstrates how good cars have become. You can still get a 73-hp Mitsubishi  Mirage for $15K and even that is a car that will deliver many positive qualities, but this Sentra is a segment up from the Mirage and Nissan’s own Versa, so it should be expected to be a little smoother and little faster and a little bigger, and indeed it is all those things.

The Sentra’s 149 hp helps get its 1,349 kg (2,974 lbs) mass going without feeling sluggish, and the clutch is light and user friendly for its primary function as a commuter car. The shifter’s throws are long but acceptable for this purpose too, and the base car’s 16-inch economy-minded wheel-and-tire package work with the car’s suspension to provide a serene and accommodating ride that soaks up bumps and wafts smoothly along the highway. The steering is light and slow, and the car leans in turns, so there is not much semblance of sportiness.

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Aside from the reasonably low weight, there is little to recommend the Sentra as a platform for a track car or race car like this, so I was shocked at just how well the changes transform this car into a beast on track. The custom exhaust barks the car to life and crackles with menace as you wind it up, replacing the blender-y whine of the stock car. The new throttle mapping and engine management software delivers eager and perky responsiveness from the same 2.0L four-cylinder that trudges thousands of commuters along to work every morning. Although the steering rack itself is not changed, the grip of the tires and the firmness of the suspension and anti-roll bar means it feels like that super-tight seat is holding you locked in place while the front wheels bite with every degree of steering input, allowing, well, race-car levels of grip in the corners with little unsettling of the body.

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As mentioned, the brakes are straight out of the Nissan parts bin (albeit the top shelf) so they add stopping power, but again it is the grip of the tires that transfers that deceleration to the tarmac; the brakes combine with the chassis and tires to deliver excellent control diving into turns, loading up the front tires for extra grip, and holding a line.

And while the shifter and gearbox are the same, the aggression of driving on track show that they are up to the task of the quick-shifts, and with the aforementioned pedal setup making heel-toe shifting far more manageable, it was a spectacular car in which to push my limits and capabilities, which were significantly below the threshold of this race car. I simply did not have the familiarity with track or car or the sensitivity and smoothness of input to push the car to the limits it is capable of, and the limits to which the Nissan Sentra Cup racers push it, but I can guarantee that I had at least as much and probably a lot more fun, since it was such a rare treat for me.

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For those that track their own cars, familiarity is your best friend, and as you push the limits of your car, you can take your time to learn which system needs improvements. And if you are ever wondering which is the best car to take to the track for a bit of fun and pushing your limits and exploring the car’s, well, it’s never a bad idea to start with the car you have, if it’s in good running order. You don’t need a Porsche or an STI or rear-wheel-drive or anything special, because any car, with a few choice modifications, can become a certifiable track weapon, as proven by the Nissan Sentra. You also don’t need to do all of modification at once with your car as is done with the Sentra Cup cars, and you also don’t need to go that far, but this car showed me that a great place to start is with seats, brakes, and of course, tires.