The Invin­ci­ble RB26DETT: Heart of Godzilla!

Intro­duc­tion
Few Japan­ese engines are held in as high esteem as the ven­er­a­ble Nis­san RB26DETT. The engine was first fit­ted in 1989 to the Nis­san R32 Sky­line GT-​​R, and imme­di­ately caused upsets in motor­sport and tun­ing cir­cles, includ­ing it’s iconic debut at Bathurst in Aus­tralia using the N1 des­ig­na­tion (more on the RB26DETT N1 down the page). Here we present a few per­ti­nent facts about the pow­er­house of the later model Godzillas.

The unit is from the RB fam­ily of engines, a 2.6L dual over­head cam, elec­tron­i­cally fuel injected, twin turbo (RB26DETT) charged inline six cylin­der. It uses a cast-​​iron block at it’s core, with alu­minium cylin­der heads, 24 valves (4 valves per cylin­der) and uses 6 throt­tle bod­ies, unique amongst the RB family.

Mechan­i­cal Specifications

Power & Torque

Due to the “gen­tle­mans agree­ment” in Japan, the power of the RB26DETT is always 206KW/​280HP on paper, though mechan­i­cally stock stan­dard vehi­cles have con­sis­tently pro­duced fig­ures that place the power at 320HP plus. For the first series, peak out­put occurs @ 6800 RPM, with 353 N•m (260 ft•lb) avail­able at 4400 RPM. The final series pro­duces peak power also at 6800 RPM, and 392 N•m (289 ft•lb) at 4400 rpm.

How­ever, the motor is rec­og­nized as being over-​​engineered, much like Toyota’s 2JZ, and power up to and exceed­ing 600HP on mechan­i­cally stock inter­nals is com­mon in tun­ing cir­cles. Some highly mod­i­fied vehi­cles car­ry­ing exten­sively mod­i­fied RB26DETT’s pro­duce well over 1000HP.

The N1 series RB26DETT, pro­duced by NISMO for Group A/​Group N motor­sport is believed capa­ble of a max­i­mum power exceed­ing 1900HP.

The Z2 series (des­ig­na­tion RB26DETTZ2/​RB28Z2),  a stronger N1 block bored and stroked to 2.8L, pro­duces 368KW (510BHP), with 540N•m of torque. The engine fea­tured in the Sky­line GT-​​R Z-​​tune.

Tur­bocharg­ers

All mod­els except the N1 and Z2 (itself a mod­i­fied N1) ver­sions of the RB26DETT use twin, par­al­lel ceramic tur­bocharg­ers, uti­liz­ing 3 cylin­ders per turbo and run­ning at 10PSI (restricted by boost restric­tor to 14PSI). The N1 and Z2 ver­sions use Gar­ret T25 steel tur­bocharg­ers due to issues with the N1’s higher boost rat­ing, with the R32, R33 using Jour­nal Bear­ing ver­sions, and the R34 using the Ball Bear­ing type.

Engine specifics

• 24 valves, 4 valves per cylinder
• Cast-​​iron engine block
• Alu­minium cylin­der heads
• Camshaft Dura­tion: 240°in, 236°ex lift: 8.58mm in, 8.28mm ex (Stan­dard). Camshaft dura­tion 240°in, 236°ex lift: 8.58mm in, 8.28mm ex (N1)
• 6 throt­tle bodies

Cars using the RB26DETT

• R32 Nis­san Sky­line GT-​​R
• R33 Nis­san Sky­line GT-​​R
• R34 Nis­san Sky­line GT-​​R
• Nis­san Sky­line GT-​​R Z-​​tune
• Nis­san Stagea 260RS

The way it should have been? We’ll leave that deci­sion up to you and the ever vocal purists. But noth­ing can take away from the pure awe­some­ness of the Sky­line GT-R’s donk in that slick, black 300zx body.