Albrecht
Well-Known Forum User
Getting back on topic though, was the S much worse than the L at fuel economy vs power output or was it just the image that killed it off?
More like the zeitgeist that killed it off really. Fuel injection was being phased in on most models (including the L-gatas, which already had an injected L6 in the top spec domestic Cedrics and Glorias by 1973) and the aforementioned emissions standards creep was making things much more difficult. I can't imagine there was any desire among the Murayama faction to see their lovely blue-blooded S20 watered down or smothered, but with the 'Oil Shock' hitting hard it really had no place on a Nissan showroom floor anymore, and therefore no race future. It couldn't be bumped up in capacity properly without a complete re-design (bore spacing too close, deck too short) and the writing was on the wall for a 'performance' 2 litre six banger.
What happened - effectively - was that the FJ later took over the S20's mantle. It came from the same stable, so to speak. Later, the RB combined the legacies of the L-gata and the GR8/S20 bloodlines.
morbias said:Also how many S engines were built in total? I imagine it can't have been that many at all given the exclusivity of the models it was put in.
Around 2,600 or so 'standard' production S20 engines were built. A couple of hundred more for development/race use.
The S20 was quite a complex engine for its time, market sector and country of origin. The design was more akin to a race engine (being derived from the race-only GR8) and each unit was effectively blueprinted and hand built. When you work on one you can easily see the difference in quality/purity of engineering, materials and finishes in comparison with the L6s. This should be no surprise, really.
I'm a huge L6 fan (wouldn't be without one) but the S20 is a lovely thing to work on and to own.