A four-cylinder 90s legend lives
SR20DET was THE motor for many Nissan fans
An absolutely iconic engine from Nissan is getting a second shot at life. A Japanese tuning shop will be building brand-new SR20DET engines, part of a partnership with Nissan itself.
The SR20DET is a DOHC 2.0L turbocharged four-cylinder that was a late 1990s legend. Found in the Nissan Bluebird 2000SSS, Pulsar GTI-R, and in the Nissan 180SX and Silvia in Japan. In those applications, it made anywhere from 201 hp to 247 hp and as much as 210 lb-ft of torque.
Though never sold here (North American 240SXs came with a 2.4L engine from a pickup truck instead of the SR20), the engine is popular here in swaps. It’s even more popular in Japan where tuners build the little engine to serious power levels.
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New versions of the motor will be made by Japanese tuning firm Mercury (via Road and Track). The company reportedly spent two years in negotiations with Nissan to build the engines and got permission to make 30 of them.
The castings won’t be done in-house by Nissan, the brand has certainly moved on, but the engines still have factory blessing.
Even more impressively, a completed engine will cost around $9,300. That’s a bargain price for any complete factory motor these days, forget one that hasn’t been oifficially built since 2002.
The engines will likely go fast. We mean sell quickly. If they do, though, this could be the start of something really big. Aftermarket shops making brand-new versions of classic engines would be a wonderful thing for restorers, repairers, and customisers.
