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A correction: I said "cast iron pistons" in the video. My tongue slipped as I mentioned the cast iron block earlier. I meant to say cast aluminum instead.

Today on iconic engines it's time for some real old school cool! It's time to step back in past! it's time for some 70s grooves! it's time for the beautifully simple, obscenely reliable Nissan L24, 26, 28 inline six engine!

To be able to fully understand and appreciate where the Nissan L24 L26 and L28 engine comes from we have to go back in time to the early to mid-60s. Back in the early 60s Datsun was selling the 410 sedan in the United States, and while they did get Pininfarina to design it to make it look more European and distinguished the car had one major problem that was hurting Datsun sales in the states. It was slow. The 410 was equipped with a pretty miserable inline 4 cylinder pushrod engine and Mr. K could see his 410 cars struggling to keep up with Traffic on the US freeway. Merging onto the Freeway in the 410 was a nightmare. So when it was time to introduce the successor to the 410 which was the Datsun 510 Mr. K saw an opportunity to make things right. He went to Japan to convince the big shots in the Nissan HQ to give the Datsun 510 a brand new engine, since the original plan was for the 510 to have the same pushrod misery engine as the 410. Eventually Mr. K managed to convince HQ to give the Datsun 510 a brand new overhead cam 1.6 liter that made 96hp and was called the L16. It would later serve as the basis for its bigger brother, the L24. Unlike the 411, the 510 no longer was slow and no longer had problems keeping up with freeway traffic. On top of that it had a great four wheel independent suspension and was actually really fun to drive, and still is today.

The roots of the Nissan L engines can be followed way back to a licensed overhead valve design made by Mercedes that was being manufactured by Prince Motor Co in the early 60s.
The first inline six in the L series was called the L20. It sucked. But Nissan engineers quickly fixed this. For L series inline six attempt two they decided to use the new L16 design as a starting point to develop the next generation of inline six in the L series. It was called the L20A and it didn't suck.

Right around the time the inline six L series was being developed Mr K. was putting his master plan into action. Ever since coming to the States to build the Datsun dealer network he wanted to bring an exciting Datsun car to the market. Something that everyone would want to own. The 510 was great, but Mr. K wanted more, he wanted something that would compete with the likes of Jaguar. He wanted a sports car with a sports car engine. And he got it! After more lobbying with the Nissan HQ in Japan and being very involved in the entire design process Mr. K got the Fairlady Z. The car was everything Mr. K envisioned, except the name which he changes to 240z in the states. And to make it go, it a 2.4 liter inline six engine, called the L24, built on the base created by the L16 and l20a! It all came together in a package that was not only fast, but beautiful and sexy, and desirable, and fun to drive and to top it all off. It was affordable. So what about the L26 and L28 Nissan engines? Well they came out later with the 260z and 280z and were for a large part an attempt to keep up US emission controls that forced reductions in ignition timing and compression ratios.

When it comes to the specs the Nissan L24 engine is beautifully simple and because of this its incredibly reliable. The L24 L26 L28 Nissan engines are all a cast iron engine block and an alloy reverse flow cylinder head. The head is a SOHC design with only two valves per cylinder.

When it comes to tuning the L24 L26 L28 Datsun Nissan engines they are a bit different than modern engines and ultimately limited in maximum power potential, largely because of the outdated cylinder head design. But they score incredibly high when it comes to engine sound, style and charm. Triple Webers on a l24 l26 l28, or triple Mikuni carbs for that matter, will sound absolutely incredible and be extremely fun to drive. Remember the S30 chassis, the 240z, 260z, 280z are all very lightweight old-school analogue cars and even with the stock 150hp they are incredibly fun to drive. Squeezing an extra 50 hp out of the l24 l26 l28 engines is actually a lot easier than from modern engines that are already tuned from the factory, so more fun is on tap. If you want obscene power from a 240z, 260z, or 280z you will need to swap out l24 l26 l28.

#d4a #L28 #iconicengines #L24 #L26