Engine: Narrowing down the choices

So, lets talk about engines again.

So engine choice is a very personal decision. There's a lot to consider and after some reflection I've narrowed it down to 2.

Let me clarify a bit. If I want to build an example of a great Japanese sports car, there's a couple of points that need to be made.

Japanese automotive design is all about efficiency and reliability. Take a good design and make it better. When Datsun wanted a grand touring sports car, they took a great looking and performing car and fixed all of it's faults. They built a better mousetrap, and by mousetrap I mean deathtrap and by deathtrap I mean the Jaguar XKE.

Toyota did it too, but they didn't do it on the scale that Datsun did so the 2000gt was never the commercial success the Z was.

In the spirit of improving and efficiency we're going to run a style of motor that screams Japanese design. The small displacement, high output turbocharged motor.

No VQ35de. To large at 3.5l and no turbo.

By using a turbo we are the very definition of making more with less. By using exhaust gas to spin a turbine wheel we are using every part of the engine's power cycle to produce horsepower. Recycling at it's finest.

By keeping displacement low we are limiting ourselves a little bit, but the 2 motors we're looking at still have the potential to make anywhere from 200 wheel horse power all the way to 800 wheel horsepower, all through the magic of turbocharging.

The Toyota 1JZ-GTTE 2.5l Twin Turbo Inline 6 with it's 280hp and 315ft/lbs of torque and the Nissan RB series. I found another RB motor that I want to talk about that might be a spiritual front runner right now. We know about the RB25DET, but what about the RB20DET?

Nissan RB20DET

The RB20DET is by it's name pretty easy to tell what it is. An RB family engine that is only 2.0l, making it the smallest inline 6 available.

A little under-powered at 210hp it uses a single ceramic turbo. With a few key modifications like a better turbo and better fuel injectors 250-300whp should be doable. Problem is it's more work to get to 300whp with this engine than an other. On the other hand, with it's 2.0l engine size this motor can spin to 8000 rpm pretty easily, and lest we forget the special Fairlady Z432 was also a 4 valve twin cam that was only 2.0l.  It's also the cheapest engine to get for our needs.

Which leads me to next week. I'll be detailing out exactly what it will cost to swap and RB and a 1JZ motor into our chassis. How much will it really cost? Both engines have special needs above and beyond what was talked about in our intro to engine swaps in order to be fitted to our chassis and I will detail them here.