Engines: Nissan Inline 6's

So, Datsun becomes Nissan. Makes sense to put a Nissan engine in our Datsun. If we want to stay in the same family, then our logical choice is the Nissan RB-series. Lets start with the monster.

The RB26DETT.

This. This is the engine that got the Nissan Skyline GT-R banned from Australian motorsport. The RB26 started as a Group A series race car engine. In order to compete Nissan had to sell this engine in normal cars. In order to follow under the rules production engine's had to be the same as race car engines. 2.6l, Dual overhead camshafts with variable valve timing on the intake side. The best way to describe this engine - If the race car is all the dials turned to 10, the street car was the same hardware dialed down to 7. Japan had this funny bit in the 90's where no one would make a car with more than a claimed 276hp, so that's how much it said on the window sticker. Car owners would go on to dyno their cars and see more like 320-330hp. Two turbo's no waiting. Want insane power? Slap a single big turbo and turn those dials back up to 10 with some basic software changes. The engine can handle 600hp without any internal changes.

So why not? Seems like the best spiritual successor right? It is. But there's always a few problems.

In order to domintate on the track GT-R's are all wheel drive. The front driveshaft and front differential are built into the lower oil pan. That means the oil pan has to be converted over to a non-AWD RB oil pan. Also, the factory 6 speed cannot be used. The 5-speed from a non-AWD Skyline is needed.

Heat and weight. Much like the 1JZ-GTE from yesterday Twin Turbos mean more heat. Look at the turbo side (The pipe that says Turbo). There's barely any room over there.

Cost is the big one though. A RB26DETT motor fully dressed from eBay is anywhere betwen $3000-4000. Add in the custom oil pan and transmission and your looking at $5000-5500 to setup a RB26 for Datsun use.

So what do we do if we can't have an RB26? We look at it's little brother who is just as smart, but not quite as ambitious, the RB25DET.

The RB25DET is in the same family, but it's a 2.5l and only has one turbo. 250ish horsepower out of the box. Came in rear wheel drive from the factory so no conversion needed. As you can see, it fit's just fine. Single turbo is easier to manage heat and plumb intercooler piping for. More power is easy to get. 400hp is only a manual boost controller and some fuel injectors away. An RB25DET could be sourced with transmission for $2000-3000.

This would keep us in the Nissan family tree. The RB-series is quite literally the next version on the L-series we started with. They've been in production from 1989 to 2002 so there's plenty of them. Despite never being sold in America they were sold everywhere else so spares are easy to get. In fact, this engine swap is so popular in the 240sx community that there are dozens of USA based sources for parts.

It's hard not to choose an RB, but I think I have an engine in mind that is literally perfect. That will be the last engine post, and it's so good it's getting a whole post to itself.